Former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford and People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier appealed a finding that their challenge of the air travel vaccine mandate was moot during a four-hour-long Wednesday hearing at the Federal Court of Appeal.
Peckford and several other applicants were represented by Alison Prejovic. Bernier was represented by Samuel Bachand. Other applicants included Karl Harrison and Shaun Rickard.
The applicants argued that a Federal Court judge’s ruling of “mootness” was incorrect because “one of the most important factors for the mootness motion was the fact that the (government) publicly threatened to reimpose the air vaccine mandate using strong and clear language.”
“A ruling on this issue is critical – unchecked and permitted to evade review, the (government) may reimpose this travel vaccine mandate again in the future, deprived of the Court’s crucial guidance on whether its past actions constituted an unjustified violation of Canadians’ constitutional rights,” the appellants said in their overview, filed in court.
The travel vaccine mandate was brought into effect in November 2021 and prevented around 5.2 million Canadians who decided to not get vaccinated from traveling by air or train.
“Never before have millions of Canadians had their mobility rights trampled to such an extent that they were, in effect, prohibited from leaving Canada to travel overseas unless they agreed to take a novel drug which was still in the clinical trial phase, and which could cause them serious health problems or death,” the appellants argued..
Peckford and Bernier, along with other challengers, argued that the mandate violated Canadians’ right to mobility guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Affidavits filed in the appeal contended that restrictions on domestic travel in a country as large as Canada likely had significant negative impacts on Canadians.
The case was filed in February 2022 and the hearing was scheduled for October 2022. More than 14,000 pages of evidence were prepared by both parties in preparation for the hearing.
Peckford was not only a former premier but is also the last living signatory to the Charter.
Peckford’s involvement with the case led to a flurry of public interest, an additional argument against the moot ruling.
The mandate was lifted in the time between its filing and the hearing date set for October 2022. The mandate was suspended in June 2022 by then-transport minister Omar Alghabra, who also threatened its return if the public health climate warranted it.
The Federal Court dismissed the October 2022 hearing 11 days before it was scheduled, declaring it to be “moot,” in other words, no longer relevant as the mandates had since been removed.
When a case is declared “moot,” the court believes that a further continuation of the hearing would be a waste of the justice system’s resources.
In November 2022, the appellants filed their Notice of Appeal on the basis that the public interest in the case far outweighed the notion that it was a waste of judicial resources and they filed written arguments for the appeal in April 2023.
“There has never been a more egregious infringement of Canadians’ mobility rights than what occurred due to the unconstitutional and unlawful travel vaccine mandates,” said Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms president John Carpay. “For the Federal Court to find that it is not in the public interest to determine whether the Federal Government acted lawfully in prohibiting five million Canadians from flying across the country and internationally to see family members is a grave injustice that the Federal Court of Appeal ought to remedy.
The judges have not yet made their decision.
