Citizens argue the passport scheme violated Charter rights and freedoms

TORONTO, ON: The Justice Centre supports Sarah Harjee, Evan Kraayenbrink, and six other Canadians as they bring their case against Ontario’s vaccine passport to the Court of Appeal for Ontario on Tuesday, October 24, 2023.

These eight citizens filed a constitutional challenge against the vaccine passport mandate in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice on October 18, 2021. After two days of hearings in November 2022, the court upheld the mandates in a ruling released December 13, 2022. The trial judge concluded that the vaccine passport system did not violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The provincial government’s vaccine passport came into effect on September 21, 2021. Those who did not get injected were not allowed into restaurants, gyms, and other venues. Businesses were obligated to enforce the system or face fines up to $100,000, while owners could be sentenced up to a year in jail. The passports were not rescinded until March 2022, as more and more evidence continued to emerge showing that both those receiving the new Covid vaccine and those not receiving it were transmitting Covid equally.