In a recent judgment, a British Columbia Supreme Court justice has denied a class-action lawsuit aiming to represent all adults in the province who allegedly had their rights infringed by provincial directives during the COVID-19 crisis. Justice David Crerar’s ruling, issued after a thorough review of evidence from 30 days of hearings and submissions comprising extensive documentation dating back to 2022, deemed the lawsuit unviable due to numerous inherent issues.
The legal action was initiated by a group of 171 individuals under the banner of the Canadian Society for the Advancement of Science in Public Policy, who sought redress for purported damages stemming from what they claimed were unjustified COVID-19-related mandates imposed by Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and the government. The litigants argued that these measures, founded on allegedly baseless scientific and legal grounds, had led to severe repercussions for adults in the province, infringing on various rights enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Had the lawsuit succeeded, it could have potentially triggered millions of individual trials for British Columbia’s approximately four million adults, with resulting lump sum payments to be funded by taxpayers. However, Justice Crerar’s ruling did not delve into the factual merits of the allegations but rather assessed the feasibility of the case as a class action. He concluded that the lawsuit was an abuse of process, attempting to bypass established judicial review mechanisms and violating procedural norms, including persisting with vexatious arguments across multiple claim iterations.
Crerar further emphasized that the lawsuit failed to meet the necessary conditions for certification, notably lacking a suitable representative plaintiff capable of adequately advocating for the class members’ interests. The court proceedings in December 2022 highlighted the broad spectrum of grievances, from individuals discontent with vaccine distribution timelines to those adamantly opposed to vaccination altogether.
While acknowledging the potential for a more focused legal challenge against provincial COVID-19 directives, Justice Crerar determined that the current lawsuit did not meet the requisite standards.