The "misconduct" of refusing vaccination

Canadian courts and tribunals have been denying state employment insurance benefits to employees suspended or terminated for declining vaccination, on the basis of "misconduct"

Update 2025-02-25: My hearing went well. Many thanks to the five members of the public who came to observe. The text of my oral submissions at the hearing is available to read here.

In the fall of 2021, the Canadian government ordered that federal public sector employers create policies requiring their employees to get vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine.

As part of its coercion to make people get vaccinated, the government also directed that employment insurance (EI) benefits would be denied to those who lost income due to refusing vaccination.

In this post, I explain my efforts to obtain justice in my own case of being denied state employment insurance benefits after losing my employment for refusing vaccination.

My case is currently before the Federal Court of Canada with a hearing scheduled for February 23, 2026 (1:00 p.m., at 90 Sparks Street in Ottawa).

My case

I was working as a data scientist at the Bank of Canada (a federal Crown corporation) in autumn 2021, and refused my employer’s demand that I receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

I explained my reasons for declining vaccination to my employer in a letter, and asked for an accommodation on medical, religious, and human rights grounds.

Like all of my colleagues, I had been working entirely remotely since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. I asked to be accommodated by being allowed to continue working remotely. Coincidentally, all of my (vaccinated) colleagues continued working entirely remotely throughout the entire period the vaccination mandate was in place (the mandate was lifted in June 2022). There never would have been any need for me to be in physical contact with any of my colleagues during the period the vaccination mandate was in place.

My employer refused my accommodation request, suspended me without pay for not being vaccinated, and stated my employment could be terminated if I did not get vaccinated.

In March 2022, while still under suspension without pay for not being vaccinated, I submitted a detailed internal appeal to my employer of its decision to deny me an accommodation (media article here). My internal appeal contained extensive scientific evidence demonstrating the known health risks from the COVID-19 vaccines.

While under suspension without pay, I also applied to the federal government for Employment Insurance (EI) benefits. EI benefits are normally provided to Canadians who lose their income through no fault of their own.

The federal government, in the form of the Canadian Employment Insurance Commission (CEIC) denied my application for EI benefits. The CEIC decided that I had committed “misconduct” pursuant to the Employment Insurance Act (EI Act) by refusing my employer’s demand that I be vaccinated.

I appealed the CEIC’s decision to the Social Security Tribunal of Canada (SST) in July 2022. My March 2022 internal appeal to my employer (linked above) forms a substantial part of the evidentiary record in my case before the SST and the Federal Court.

Documents from the proceedings of my case before the SST and the Federal Court are hosted on the website of the Ontario Civil Liberties Association (OCLA) and can be read at the following link: https://ocla.ca/is-refusal-to-be-vaccinated-misconduct-under-the-employment-insurance-act-ocla-ed-raises-constitutional-issues-in-social-security-tribunal-appeal/

My case at the SST lasted from July 2022 until a final decision denying leave to appeal within the tribunal was issued in May 2025. My SST case involved many steps, including my attempt to challenge the constitutionality of the “misconduct” provisions of the EI Act. The SST decided to bar my constitutional challenge on the basis that my legal argument had no chance of success, without ever allowing me to make the argument itself!

In the SST’s final decision on the merits of my case, it applied a legal “test” for misconduct that finds any willful refusal by an employee of an employer’s demand constitutes misconduct, irrespective of the nature of the demand. Following the SST’s logic, an employer could ask an employee to murder someone, and if the employee refuses, the employee would be found to have committed “misconduct” disqualifying them from receiving state EI benefits.

I applied to the Federal Court of Canada for judicial review of the SST’s final decision and the hearing will be on February 23, 2026 (1:00 p.m., at 90 Sparks Street in Ottawa).

I ultimately was not brought back to work at the Bank of Canada, and ended my employment by negotiated mutual agreement.

My upcoming judicial review hearing

In my judicial review hearing at the Federal Court, I will argue my position that refusing to follow an employer’s order to be vaccinated is not workplace “misconduct”.

The following is the Summary from my factum for my judicial review:

SUMMARY

I was a data scientist fired for refusing to follow my employer’s directive to be injected with a COVID-19 vaccine while working entirely from home. My expressed concerns were based on many scientific studies and published governmental data about COVID-19 vaccine adverse effects, especially proven heart inflammation (myocarditis and pericarditis) for males in my age group.

The Social Security Tribunal of Canada (SST) decided that my intentional refusal to follow my employer’s demand to get vaccinated constitutes “misconduct” based entirely on refusing to do whatever the employer asked, without giving any consideration to the nature of the employer’s demand or its impacts on my health or fundamental rights.

According to the SST, my intentional refusal to be injected with a substance while working from home constitutes misconduct, irrespective of what my employer was demanding of me and the health risks involved.

On the basis of this supposed “misconduct”, I was denied Employment Insurance (EI) benefits following Federal Cabinet directives in the exceptionally politicized environment of the COVID-19 pandemic period.

In section 3.1 of my factum, I argue that the SST’s application of a legal “test” that finds an employee commits misconduct by disobeying ANY order or request made by the employer, without any consideration of WHAT the employer was demanding, amounts to arbitrary state action and must be corrected.

I also plan to argue that my case is distinguished from the many other cases of EI denial for the “misconduct” of refusing vaccination that have come before the Federal Court and Federal Court of Appeal for several reasons:

• I worked exclusively from home, had been doing so for 20 consecutive months, and all of my vaccinated colleagues continued working entirely from home without any required attendance at the physical office during the period the vaccine mandate was in place.

• I submitted (to my employer, the SST, and now to the Federal Court) extensive and conclusive scientific evidence about the dangers of the COVID-19 vaccines which include permanent disability, serious injury, and death. The said scientific evidence is not contested.

• I am trained interdisciplinary scientist with the ability to gather and knowledgeably present the said scientific evidence regarding vaccine harms.

• I am male and was under 40 in November 2021 (I was 36 at the time) — under-40 males are at significantly increased risk of dangerous heart inflammation (myocarditis and pericarditis) following COVID-19 vaccination, which is overwhelmingly demonstrated in the scientific evidence on record in my case.

• I squarely put it to the SST that I could not take the vaccine because it was dangerous for me and there was no valid reason I could not work from home

• I explicitly invoked my rights pursuant to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (sections 2 and 7), which are violated by the directive of mandatory vaccination. The said Charter violations are an inseparable part of the nature of the employer demand that I refused.

My court hearing on February 23, 2026 (1:00 p.m., at 90 Sparks Street in Ottawa) is open to the public. The hearing is scheduled to last up to three hours.