In the ongoing fight for individual rights and freedoms in Canada, a recent decision from Arbitrator James Hayes has supported the individual rights of the Air Canada pilots placed on unpaid leave, after their religious exemptions to the Covid-19 vaccination policy were denied.

Seven Pilots expressed objection to the mandate on deeply held religious grounds. Air Canada rejected their requests for exemption, forcing them onto unpaid leave while granting paid exemptions to others. Months later, after further review, the accommodations were eventually granted, but the damage was already done.

In his ruling, Hayes found Air Canada’s process discriminatory under the Canadian Human Rights Act and the collective agreement. The airline had demanded a “personalized, written, and dated explanation from your religious leader,” an intrusive test of their sincerity that improperly outsourced validation to a third-party. Instead, Hayes insisted employers must assess an employee’s subjective belief directly, saying that “acceptance of an individual affirmation of religious belief is not dependent upon production of endorsement from someone else.”

Hayes ordered full back pay for the almost seven months during which these employees were unpaid, placing these pilots on the same paid-leave footing as colleagues who had been granted exemptions previously, and firmly rejecting the notion that collective safety trumps individual conscience.

This decision rebukes blanket mandates, affirming that personal religious freedom, bodily autonomy, and conscience prevail over corporate or governmental pressure, even in “public health” emergencies.

We firmly support Arbitrator Hayes’ interpretation and ruling. Not everyone who holds sincere religious beliefs are public in their devotions and should not have to source outside proof to justify their internally held beliefs.

We have seen numerous manipulative interpretations of our Charter Rights and Freedoms in the years since Covid turned our lives upside down. We must continue to resist these conditional interpretations and stand firm on our rights as they were originally intended; to protect the citizens of Canada from the invasive overreach of government policy intent on trivializing our individual freedoms.

To read the decision click here