VANCOUVER, British Columbia (LifeSiteNews) — A British Columbia Supreme Court judge has upheld a labor arbitrator’s decision that Purolator employees fired for refusing the COVID shot must be compensated.
On January 30, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bradford Smith ruled that shipping giant Purolator must compensate employees it fired for refusing to take the COVID shot, in accordance with a Labor Arbitrator‘s decision in December 2023.
“I find there was no procedural unfairness to Purolator,” Smith wrote in his ruling.
Beginning September 15, 2021, Purolator, like many Canadian companies around that time, mandated that its workers get the COVID shot to continue working. Workers were given until December 25, 2021, to comply, with the full policy coming into force on January 10, 2022.
However, last December an arbitrator ruled that Purolator’s vaccine mandate was reasonable only until June 30, 2022, when evidence sufficiently proved that the COVID vaccine did not prevent transmission of the COVID virus.
“[The arbitrator] determined that the balancing of interests was not fixed in time, but something which could change as circumstances changed,” wrote Smith.
“He found that as of the end of June 2022, circumstances had indeed changed, such that the [vaccination policy], although reasonable when it was implemented, was no longer reasonable after that date,” he continued.
Regardless of this development, Purolator kept the mandate in place until June 2023, barring unvaccinated employees from working.
As a result, Arbitrator Nicholas Glass ruled that Purolator must give compensation to its hourly employees who did not get the COVID shots, which included the lost benefits and wages they would have earned between July 1, 2022, and May 1, 2023.
Purolator had also been ordered to give compensation to owner-operators beginning from the first date they lost income.
Following this decision, Purolator took the case to the B.C. Supreme Court, only to have the ruling upheld by Smith.
“The Arbitrator clearly proceeded on the basis that employees’ personal autonomy and bodily integrity interests were engaged, and it was reasonable for him to do so,” reads the decision.
“I find the Decision is transparent, intelligible and justified, and thus reasonable,” wrote Smith.
The favorable ruling for the Purolator workers is one of the latest positive outcomes for Canadians who lost income, or their jobs outright, for choosing not to get the COVID shots.
In October 2023, LifeSiteNews reported on how a Canadian arbitrator in Saskatchewan ruled in favor of two oil refinery workers who were discriminated against at their workplace for not complying with COVID dictates.