Alleging several cities in the province violated employees' constitutional rights with a COVID vaccine mandate, hundreds are asking the court to award them $550,000 each in compensation.
The class action suit involves more than 200 plaintiffs throughout the province, largely first responders and essential workers, seeking a collective $125.95 million from a variety of municipalities and taxpayer-funded service providers.
The list of plaintiffs in this latest lawsuit includes one Guelph firefighter and two Guelph-Wellington paramedics. Their employment status with the city isn’t referenced in the court filing.
“All the plaintiffs were sent home on ‘leave without pay’ and/or subsequently fired for refusing to take the COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ (inoculations) whether or not they were working from home, and/or further refused to multi-weekly PCR testing in order to continue working,” notes the statement of claim filed earlier this month in Toronto.
“All the plaintiffs possess a conscientious and/or physical /medical reason for refusing to take the COVID-19 ‘vaccines’ (inoculation).”
None of the allegations have been proven in court and no statements of defense have yet been filed.
The Town of Oakville is one of almost 50 municipalities named as defendants in the legal action, along with the Oakville Fire Department.
A similar lawsuit filed by the same lawyer against a variety of federal agencies and federally-regulated organizations was recently thrown out, with the judge calling the claims “bad beyond argument.”
In all, there are nearly 250 plaintiffs behind the lawsuit, along with almost 50 municipalities, school boards, municipal services and individuals identified as defendants.
Each of the plaintiffs is asking for $550,000 in compensation, as well as to have their employment status returned, back pay and benefits from time missed. They claim loss of their livelihood, mental anguish and distress, loss of dignity and discrimination based on their medical status.
“While ‘exemptions' to these ‘mandatory vaccine mandates’ exist, in theory, all of the plaintiffs who sought an exemption were arbitrarily denied without reasons,” the lawsuit states. “The plaintiffs further state that there is no obligation to seek any exemption before refusing the vaccines.
“All the plaintiffs are ineligible for employment insurance benefits because they were dismissed for refusing the ‘vaccines’ (inoculations).”
In the fall of 2021, many municipalities across the province implemented a requirement for workers to be fully vaccinated or to undergo regular COVID-19 testing.
The City of Burlington was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further calls on the court to declare vaccine mandates to be “not scientifically or medically based.” It further raises questions about the accuracy of polymerase chain reaction tests, often referred to as PCR or rapid response tests, used by the various employers to check infection status.
“The plaintiffs state, and the fact is, that there is no, and there has not been, a ‘COVID-19’ ‘pandemic’ beyond and/or exceeding the consequences of the fall-out of the pre-covid annual flu or influenza,” the court filing continues.
“The fact, and data is, that the COVID-19 measures have caused, to a factor of a minimum of five (5) to one (1), more deaths than the actual purported COVID-19 has caused.”
