To avoid 'complete chaos,' lawyer to challenge Quebec vaccine mandate for health-care workers in court
CTV
Montreal lawyer Natalia Malone plans to file a legal challenge on an urgent basis on Tuesday to ask the court to suspend the vaccine mandate for health-care workers.
The government decree, announced in September, will take effect Oct. 15 and will force all health-care workers who are not fully vaccinated to be suspended without pay, regardless of whether or not they have direct or indirect contact with patients. The decree applies to all workers, from nurses to cleaning staff.
Despite calls from some health-care workers’ unions and opposition parties to push back the deadline over concerns the health-care system won’t be able to cope, the François Legault government said it won’t budge and the deadline still stands. As of Thursday, there were still more than 27,000 workers who are not fully vaccinated.
Natalia Malone, a civil litigation lawyer, will file a safeguard order on Tuesday in Quebec Superior Court in Montreal, in what is believed to be the first legal challenge of the decree.
She is asking the court to suspend, on an urgent basis, the directive until a decision has been rendered on the validity of the measure. She intends to argue in court that the mandate for health-care workers violates their rights and that suspending workers is against the public interest.
