In the News:
Vaccination Exemptions on Religious Grounds

Des fonctionnaires exemptés de vaccination contre la COVID-19 grâce à… Dieu. Certains croyaient que les vaccins contenaient des cellules de fœtus avortés. (Civil Servants Exempted From COVID-19 Vaccination because of… God. Some believed vaccines contain cells from aborted fetuses.), Marie Christine Trottier, Journal de Québec, 2024-08-14.

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has exempted 74 employees from mandatory vaccination because of their religious beliefs, even though the majority of them gave reasons that were based on misinformation. “Vaccines manipulate the fundamental functions of human cells which amounts to assuming a power that only God should have.”

That is the argument which one employee successfully used to avoid being suspended without pay during the COVID-19 pandemic, documents obtained through the Access to Information Act show. From fall 2021 to summer 2022, the Government of Canada required its entire public service, as well as all travellers on federally regulated transportation, to be vaccinated. Most CBSA employees granted religious exemptions had erroneous beliefs about vaccination that even Transport Canada considered invalid for granting travellers an exemption.

“A belief that the vaccine […] contains aborted human or animal fetal cells or that DNA is altered by mRNA vaccines is empirically incorrect and should not be used as a justification,” the department wrote in its guidance to railways. Yet these are precisely the kinds of reasons that have been cited in most of the exemptions granted by the CBSA.

Another unwarranted privilege granted by our government to religions. Unacceptable. Laws and regulations should apply to everyone, without distinction of religious affiliation. Canada is very far from being a secular country.

See also:

• RPL Press Release: Against Vaccination Exemptions for Religious Reasons in the Federal Public Service, 2021-10-06
• Vaccination Passport: Quebec Grants Privilege to Religions, 2021-08-24