MONTREAL – A legal challenge to Quebec’s vaccination mandate for healthcare workers was in Quebec Superior Court on Wednesday, with the judge assuring that he would sue even if the province decided to further postpone a deadline set to next month.
The provincial government is threatening to suspend unvaccinated health network personnel as of November 15, but Premier François Legault this week raised the possibility of extending the deadline. It has already been pushed back once after initially being set for October 15.
Superior Court judge Michel Yergeau began hearing arguments for an injunction on Wednesday and said he would render a decision on November 15, regardless of the government’s decision. Unvaccinated healthcare workers are calling for the vaccination order to be delayed until their legal challenge is heard.
The fundamental question in court is whether compulsory vaccination and suspension without pay for those who refuse are legal and constitutional. The trial on this issue will not take place until next year.
A lawyer representing unvaccinated workers argued that the government has a legal obligation to protect the public and “protect, maintain and improve” health services.
Natalia Manole argued that the government’s decision to postpone the October 15 deadline, citing concerns over a service disruption, shows that the enforcement of the decree would do more harm than good to the people.
Manole cited the recent reduction in emergency department services at Lachine Hospital in Montreal as an example of the type of impact a large-scale suspension would cause.
She raised the possibility of unnecessary deaths, delayed surgeries and the closure of long-term care beds and hospitals across the province. “You are the only one who can intervene so that this situation does not happen,” she told the judge.
Outside the courtroom, she said that “the deaths, the suffering, the absolutely catastrophic situations” that would result from the suspension of unvaccinated workers meet the test of irreparable harm required to grant an injunction.
Yergeau noted in court that the government had already extended the deadline citing dangerous consequences. He also reminded Manole that he is obligated to assume that the government is acting in the public interest. He told the court that his role is limited to assessing the legality of the decree and not its political merits.
“If the government made the wrong decision, it will have to account to the people,” said the judge.
Provincial government lawyers were due to respond later Wednesday.
– This report by The Canadian Press was first published on October 27, 2021.
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