B.C. Human Rights Commissioner is spewing misinformation about workplace vaccine mandates and B.C. Human Rights Act.
“A personal desire not to get vaccinated is not protected by the Human Rights Code. This has been confirmed by the Tribunal in numerous decisions involving the requirement to wear a mask.” as mentioned on their website here.
For their claim to legal rights for stomping all over workers rights and civil liberties they link us to here. The Customer v. The Store, 2021 BCHRT 39 (CanLII) “Reason for decision and complaint screening“. Now lets be clear what the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner was referencing. They were pointing to a mask mandate decision made by the Human Rights Tribunal not a vaccine mandate or vaccine passport mandate “This has been confirmed by the Tribunal in numerous decisions involving the requirement to wear a mask.” it says on the B.C. Human Rights website.
So we navigate over to the provided resource here and yes, it does in fact have a mention if there is no MASK mandates to shop in a store and the store decides to have a mask indoor policy, keep in mind only during a B.C. Covid-19 state of emergency the store is allowed to act on a indoor mask policy for their business otherwise it is a breach to your Human Rights.
IV ANALYSIS AND DECISION
“[14] The Code does not protect people who refuse to wear a mask as a matter of personal preference, because they believe wearing a mask is “pointless”, or because they disagree that wearing masks helps to protect the public during the pandemic.”
In November 2020, B.C. declared a state of emergency for Covid-19.
“British Columbia has declared a state of emergency because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Face coverings reduce the transmission of COVID-19. Since November 2020, face coverings have been mandatory indoors, subject to certain exemptions. Before that, they were strongly encouraged, and many businesses made them mandatory. Most recently, under the authority of the Emergency Program Act“ it says in the Emergency Program Act.
According to the Emergency Program Act the state of emergency is only 14 days, after 14 days from the date declared a state of emergency it is automatically expired and lifted unless the government renews it for another 14 days.
Division 2 — Declaration of State of Emergency
Declaration of state of emergency
“(4)A declaration under subsection (1) expires 14 days from the date it is made, but the Lieutenant Governor in Council may extend the duration of the declaration for further periods of not more than 14 days each”
The Covid-19 Public Health State of Emergency officially ended earlier this year. “The state of emergency is extended through the end of the day on June 22, 2021” it says on the B.C. Government website.
Also confirmed the Covid-19 State of Emergency in B.C. has ended on this other page of the B.C. website here
Now that you have a little bit of back story of the state of emergency in B.C. and how it works we can move on to the point B.C. Human Rights Commissioner is pointing to these provisions that are specific to masks. We also have to remember masks are a lot different than vaccines. If we do a search / find in page for “vaccine” or “vaccination” we do not see any mentions of it.
Does the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner know the difference between masks and vaccines? Does the B.C. Human Rights Commissioner even know what they’re talking about?
The answer is absolutely not. Don’t take my word for it check it out yourself. They even say it themselves they have no clue what they are talking about and refer to other 3rd party sources and ultimately they point to the say it still needs to be taken to the Human Rights Tribunal.
Workplace Vaccination Policies
“The employment law aspects of a mandatory vaccine policy are beyond the scope of this blog post (and beyond the scope of the legal services the BC Human Rights Clinic can provide). Many employment law firms have provided information on this topic, which you can read here, here, and here, among many other online sources.”
Of all three of these sources, 2 links are still live and one is providing a Error 404 “page not found”, meaning one of a few things. But we’re not here to speculate why the source from a employment law firm was remove that was supposed to be a 3rd party resource for BC Human Rights Commissioner outrageous claim employers have the rights to breach employee Human Rights.
Sources from “here, here and here” claim
1. Roper Greyell – This resource brings us to a bunch of posts from 3rd party Roper Greyell and one of their newest posts contradicts the claims made by B.C. Human Rights Commissioner by saying “Opposing Government Rules Regarding Vaccination “Could Be” a Political Belief Under the Code”. Date posted was September 10, 2021
2. Kent Employment Law – Error 404 page not found. Usually pages and posts are removed when they are incorrect. Now because B.C. Human Rights Commission was pointing to them as a third party resource to back up their claim that breaching Human Rights and civil liberties was ok. It really bags to ask the question. Why is the page deleted? Maybe because it was just simply not true.
3. Forte Workplace Law – “Refusing a vaccine is unlikely to be accepted as just cause for termination, which means severance pay would be owed. Unvaccinated workers can also expect a tougher time in a job search, which could increase the amount of severance pay due”
