Based on coverage from Castanet and CHAT News Today.
A former B.C. health executive who lost his job for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine on religious grounds has hit another legal wall in his attempt to collect employment insurance (EI). The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed Donald Sturgeon’s case, leaving him without EI nearly five years after he was fired.
Sturgeon’s lawyer says they are now weighing whether to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the matter.
Federal Court of Appeal rejects EI claim
The Federal Court of Appeal decision came Tuesday in Vancouver. The court dismissed Sturgeon’s bid to challenge earlier rulings that denied him EI after his termination from Interior Health in November 2021.
Sturgeon, who lives in West Kelowna, served as Interior Health’s executive director of medical affairs. Interior Health fired him after he refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
His fight for EI has moved through multiple levels: the Social Security Tribunal, the Federal Court, and now the Federal Court of Appeal. Each step has ended the same way, with Sturgeon losing.
Interior Health vaccine refusal and firing
Sturgeon has consistently framed his refusal as a matter of faith and conscience. After the Federal Court ruling in 2024, he told The Canadian Press he acted according to his Roman Catholic beliefs and his “moral conscience” when he declined the vaccine.
He also said he wanted his case to speak for others who lost their jobs during vaccine mandate periods, pointing to workers he said were hit hard financially. He described knowing of “a single mom who has children in a mobile home” who lost her job, received no severance, and also received no EI, “just like me.”
The current Appeal Court decision doesn’t revisit the broader debate over vaccine mandates so much as it deals with how (and when) constitutional arguments were put before the tribunal system.
Charter religious freedom arguments disputed
Sturgeon argued that his EI case was not meant to be a direct challenge to Interior Health’s vaccination policy. Instead, he said the Social Security Tribunal failed to properly interpret how “misconduct” should be weighed against religious freedom protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
That distinction mattered to Sturgeon’s side. In EI cases, a finding of “misconduct” can disqualify a claimant from benefits. Sturgeon’s position was that the tribunal’s approach did not properly account for Charter-protected religious freedom when assessing what counts as misconduct.
The Federal Court of Appeal wasn’t persuaded. The court found Sturgeon did not properly raise his Charter arguments with the tribunal in the first place, and dismissed the appeal.
Access to justice concerns for self-represented Canadians
Sturgeon’s lawyer, Lee Turner, said he believes both the court and the tribunal have not properly considered Charter religious freedom arguments. Turner said they are considering an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Turner also raised a broader access-to-justice point: Sturgeon was self-represented at one stage and, according to Turner, did not fill out an appeal form correctly. Turner said that creates real problems for people without lawyers who are trying to navigate technical systems while asserting constitutional rights.
“It’s very difficult for laypersons to represent themselves,” Turner said, calling it a “real concern” what people must go through to have those rights decided.
What the 2024 Federal Court ruling found
This isn’t the first time courts have rejected Sturgeon’s path forward. The Federal Court dismissed his case in 2024, finding his appeal fell outside the Social Security Tribunal’s mandate.
Now, with the Federal Court of Appeal also rejecting his bid, the next possible step would be an application to the Supreme Court of Canada, if Sturgeon proceeds and the court agrees to hear it. For Canadians watching similar workplace and EI disputes from the pandemic era, the case is a reminder that how an argument is raised, and where, can be as decisive as the argument itself.
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