The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) has announced it will be filing a lawsuit against Transport Canada’s Ministerial Order 47 in the Federal Court of Canada.
Ministerial Order 47 prevents unvaccinated people from boarding planes, trains, and boats anywhere in Canada.
The JCCF’s press release cites scientific and medical concerns about COVID-19 vaccines. One concern is that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people can catch and spread COVID-19. Another is that the vaccines can have harmful side effects such as myocarditis and death, both of which have deterred people from taking them.
The JCCF notes that these vaccines are still undergoing clinical trials which will not be completed until 2023.
JCCF litigation director Jay Cameron called the federal government’s travel regulations unconstitutional, dangerous and divisive
“Vilifying an identifiable group in society as ‘dirty’ or claiming that they are ‘spreaders of disease’ is a page from the playbook of history’s most abhorrent tyrants,” stated Cameron. “Ministerial Order 47 from Transport Canada is an act of appalling cruelty and persecution not seen in Canada in the past half century.”
JCCF staff lawyer Allison Pejovic said the Canadian government is escalating its persecution of millions of Canadians who choose not to take these vaccines.
“Preventing millions of Canadians from travelling by plane or train is a gross infringement of their civil liberties, and is guaranteed to hurt their employment, businesses and ability to feed their families,” said Pejovic. “Parliament has not been consulted about this blatant violation of Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which provides that Canadians have the right to freely enter and leave the country.”
Cameron continued by saying that measures stripping people of their mobility rights should not be left to the whims of one minister.
“The Trudeau government is ruling via ministerial fiat, not pursuant to any democratic checks and balances,” he said. “The Canadian Constitution makes no provision for the kind of autocratic rule that has become normal in Canada, at both federal and provincial levels, since March of 2020.”
The JCCF spoke out immediately when, this October, the Canadian government first banned unvaccinated people from leaving Canada.
At the time, Pejovic had announced that “(t)he Justice Centre is profoundly disturbed that these federal mandates will prevent unvaccinated Canadians from leaving the country. Such a mandate is an egregious and unacceptable infringement of Canadians’ constitutionally protected mobility rights.”
She added there is no scientific justification for barring unvaccinated people from international travel.
The JCCF will soon file documents in Federal Court which will request the judge uphold Charter rights in the face of government oppression.
