Comment on Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership by David Hamstra.
(The comment system is not letting me lodge a reply to your recent comment, so I am replying to my most recent one instead.)
I’m not a lawyer nor the son of a lawyer, but I do know that at the end of the day the law is what the courts interpret it to be, they interpret it depending on circumstances, and they don’t always agree.
In these cases, as the article explained, the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal (AHRT) is at odds with the most recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision that addressed the question of whether to test the bona fides of a religious exemption claim against objective evidence. (And it turns out that, on bit of digging, the AHRT was following the lead of the equivalent BC tribunal on this point.) But we’ve also seen the SCC reverse its interpretations of religious liberty to accommodate changing LGBTQ2S social norms (compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Western_University_v_British_Columbia_College_of_Teachers and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Western_University#Supreme_Court_of_Canada_Decisions). So who knows if the SCC would stand by it’s earlier decision in the pandemic environment. The better part of valor for religious liberty was probably not to roll the dice on that one.
So, at the end of the day, the law is what the last court you are willing or able to appeal to says it is.
Could the church have drafted a statement that better protected conscience assertions by its members? I don’t think so. Not without being dishonest about it’s actual position of vaccines. My Adventist historian friends tell me that the church adopted a strict non-combatancy position during the Civil War to protect members from the draft, even though Adventists were joining the Union Army, to protect the consciences of those who did not believe they could take human life. But the church is too large and widespead and the media environment is too transparent for us to get away with that today.
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Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership
It seems that the law student you cite is saying that an individual choice approach to religious liberty in Canada limits the imposition of blue laws. I agree with that.
However, to claim a religious exemptions, the human rights tribunal in the province where I live (Alberta) have ruled that an individual must provide “objective evidence, and that merely stating ones personal convictions is subjective. Here’s how that played out (FYI, CNRL is a large oil and gas company):
“In Haahr v Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, 2024 AHRC 26, the complainant applied for an exemption from the Policy and provided a personal statement explaining his belief and that he would follow his “personal conscientious convictions.” Notwithstanding requests from CNRL, at no time did the complainant supply objective confirmation from a religious authority that vaccination was prohibited. Based on the complainant’s failure to comply with the Policy requirements, he was suspended without pay.
“In Sheppard v Canadian Natural Resources Limited, 2024 AHRC 37, the complainant requested an exemption from the Policy and submitted a vaccine exemption form, a letter from a Reverend, and a document containing the complainant’s reasons for making the request for an exemption. CNRL ultimately denied the exemption application on the basis that the request was based on personal conviction and not on an objective tenet of faith, and it eventually suspended the complainant without pay due to non-compliance with the Policy.
“In Scott v Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, 2024 AHRC 42, the complainant requested an exemption from the Policy and provided a letter from his lawyer in support, which stated that “As a Christian, Mr. Scott sincerely holds to religious beliefs that preclude him from taking the COVID vaccines.” The letter further detailed the complainant’s beliefs. Beyond that, the complainant did not submit written confirmation from any religious authority. Subsequently, CNRL suspended the complainant from work without pay for Policy non-compliance.
“In Ducharme v Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., 2024 AHRC 44, the complainant requested an exemption from the Policy, and in support provided a letter from Christ’s Forgiveness Ministries signed by its General Overseer and a personal statement. Following receipt of the application, CNRL suspended the complainant without pay for failure to comply with the Policy.
“In all four decisions, the Tribunal upheld the Director of the Alberta Human Rights Commission’s original decisions to dismiss the respective complaints.”
…
“For there to be discrimination on the ground of ‘religious beliefs’ in Alberta, a complainant must establish that the complainant’s belief has an objective foundation that links it to a ‘tenet of a religious faith’ or that ‘it is a fundamental or important part of expressing that faith.’ Establishing the foregoing requires appropriate evidence beyond merely providing a personal statement, a letter from a religious centre, and/or a letter from a lawyer. The evidence must show that, by an objective standard, the mandate is prohibited by the complainant’s faith.”
https://www.mross.com/what-we-think/article/the-evidence-required-to-establish-when-the-protected-ground-of-religious-beliefs-is-engaged
I understand that the situation is similar elsewhere in Canada, although I am most familiar with the situation in Alberta.
Conrad Vine Continues to Attack Church Leadership
Thank you for another detailed response. I especially liked your treatment of the risks of the vaccines relative to COVID-19 for young men.
Allow me to point out the the legal environment relative to civil liberties is different in countries like Canada—where I am located—than in the United States, and in Canada the reaffirmation statement was used against Adventists who attempted to claim conscientious exemption from the vaccines. I suspect that the same may have been the case for other countries.
