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Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal heard arguments Monday in a “landmark” lawsuit alleging the country’s COVID-19 travel restrictions for the unvaccinated violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Rebel News reported.
Karl Harrison and Shaun Rickard sued the Canadian government in March 2022 over restrictions placed on the unvaccinated in 2021. According to True North, these regulations “prevented an estimated 5.2 million unvaccinated Canadians from freely travelling by air, rail, or boat.”
At Monday’s hearing in Toronto, plaintiffs’ attorney Sam Presvelos told the court that the travel restrictions were unprecedented.
Presvelos said:
“Never before in Canada’s history did you have to submit to a vaccine mandate or other public health measure in order to qualify to travel …
“Equally as novel is the choice that was hoisted upon Canadians who desired to travel but did not desire to get the vaccine, so they had to choose one [right] or the other …
“If they did not want to submit, then they had to forego their ability to travel, which is novel because Canadians never had to make a choice like that… I’m not aware of any constitutional trade-off of this sort where the consequence of protecting one right or freedom was the compromise of another right or freedom.”
Lawyers for the Canadian government told the court that the choice to refuse COVID-19 vaccination and the subsequent loss of mobility rights “was a consequence, not a Charter breach.”
Rickard told The Defender that the lawsuit “is without doubt the most important landmark charter challenge lawsuit that has been filed against the Canadian Federal government in recent Canadian history.”
UPDATE – Some key takeaways and detailed analysis’ of @KarlDHarrison and I’s Vaccine Travel Mandates Lawsuit hearing at the Federal Court in Toronto yesterday, from our good friends and legal/statistical experts/analysts, Eva Chipiuk (@echipiuk) and Dr. Regina Watteel… https://t.co/ZzeduqzGj3
— Shaun Rickard (@ShaunRickard67) November 4, 2025
In 2022, the Canadian Medical Association Journal wrote that Canada had “among the most sustained stringent policies regarding restrictions on internal movement.” That year, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he never forced anyone to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
In their lawsuit, Harrison and Rickard said they refused the COVID-19 vaccine on the grounds of bodily autonomy, and that Canada’s travel restrictions violated several sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including:
- Section 6, which protects the right to mobility.
- Section 7, on the protection of life, liberty and security of the person.
- Section 12, which protects against cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.
- Section 15, which protects minority rights.
They also alleged that the travel restrictions prevented them from visiting their elderly parents in the U.K.
Canadian court previously dismissed two of plaintiffs’ claims
In October 2022, a Canadian court ruled that lawsuits challenging Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate and its travel restrictions for the unvaccinated were moot because the government had suspended the restrictions in June of that year.
The ruling stated that it is not the court’s role to dictate or prevent the government’s future actions.
In November 2022, Harrison and Rickard appealed. In May 2023, the attorney general of Canada asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit — a request the court partially granted last year, dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims under sections 7 and 12 of the Charter but upholding their claims under sections 6 and 15.
In November 2024, the plaintiffs appealed the dismissal of their claims under sections 7 and 12 of the Charter, resulting in Monday’s hearing.
“At the core of the challenge … is the question: can Canadians be forced to surrender their mobility rights under Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they declined a medical intervention — in this case, a COVID-19 vaccination — and thereby sacrifice the right to bodily autonomy and liberty guaranteed under Sections 7 and 12?” Rebel News reported.
Canadian novelist Colin McAdam said the case “will highlight whether our Charter of Rights has any value.” He added:
“A lot of us learned through COVID that it is a pretty meaningless document. Canada’s highest ideal is the functioning of government.
“The first section of the charter says that it ‘guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.’ In other words, we have rights as long as they don’t interfere with terms that the government can arbitrarily define.”
Evidence indicates Canada’s COVID rules were based on politics, not science
According to Rebel News, the plaintiffs’ case is bolstered by “roughly 15,000 pages of internal communications and cross-examinations of federal officials,” which reveal that Canada’s COVID-19 restrictions were not based on scientific evidence or recommendations.
“Neither the Public Health Agency of Canada … nor Health Canada formally recommended the travel-vaccine requirement. Instead, the plaintiffs argue, the mandate was a political decision imposed on Canadians by then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,” Rebel News reported.
In 2022, The Free Press reported that no one in Canada’s COVID Recovery Unit, including its director-general, Jennifer Little, had any formal education in medicine, public health or epidemiology.
“Far from following the science, the prime minister and his Cabinet were focused on politics,” according to The Free Press.
Rickard said that despite these revelations, Canadian mainstream media has largely ignored the case.
“For four years now, all major Canadian state-funded mainstream media news organizations have refused to report on this case and have avoided us like the plague,” Rickard said.
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Plaintiffs hope lawsuit prevents similar government overreach in future
Rickard said he and Harrison intend for the case to reach trial, “and to set a precedent and create case law which would prevent any current or future government from perpetuating such measures and overreach on Canadians ever again.”
In an interview with Rebel News last month, Rickard said Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions “were never revoked — only suspended.”
“If no ruling is made, then any government moving forward would be free to do the same thing again,” Harrison told Rebel News during the interview.
According to a media update document reviewed by The Defender, the plaintiffs expect the Canadian government to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada if the Federal Court of Appeal rules against it.
“Canada’s mandates were not based on scientific evidence; indeed, they directly contravened it,” said writer and blogger Margaret Anna Alice, who has written extensively on Canada’s restrictions on the unvaccinated.
She added:
“A victory in favor of the plaintiffs would establish a legal precedent that the travel mandates and restrictions targeting the unvaccinated were indeed a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This should make it more difficult for Canada to enact such tyrannical legislation in the future.”
Alice said a ruling favoring the plaintiffs would build on a January 2024 decision by Canada’s Federal Court that found the Canadian government guilty of illegally invoking the Emergencies Act in 2022 against truckers participating in the “Convoy for Freedom” — a protest against the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Lest we forget – Everything you need to know about Trudeau’s tyrannical vaccine mandates and the unlawful discrimination & charter rights violations that he perpetrated against 6-7 million federal employees, healthcare workers and Canadians who were banned from travelling on… pic.twitter.com/qpFZDk1EB1
— Shaun Rickard (@ShaunRickard67) November 4, 2025
The court ruled that the government’s use of the act was “unreasonable” and violated several articles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
However, in February, a Canadian court sentenced one of the convoy’s leaders to three months’ house arrest.
Related articles in The Defender
- Canadian Truckers Score Big Victory Over Trudeau in Federal Court
- Canada Suspends COVID Vaccine Mandates for Federal Workers, Domestic Travel
- Leader of Canada’s Freedom Convoy Tells RFK Jr. Government Canceled Credit Card ‘Without Due Process’
- ‘Convoy for Freedom’: Canadian Truckers Hit the Road in Fight Over Vaccine Mandates
- ‘Not Going to Let Canada Tell Me What I Do and Don’t Put in My Body,’ Phillies Catcher Says on Missing Blue Jays Series
