Fourteen former British Columbia public servants brought a lawsuit after losing their jobs under the Province's vaccination policy. Their employment histories ranged from about 1.5 to 36 years, and most had worked for the government for more than a decade. They challenged the loss of their employment and the government's decision to treat those dismissals as being for just cause. The Province argued that its policy and the regulation supporting it provided a lawful basis for what happened. Before a trial could begin, the Supreme Court of British Columbia was asked to decide whether the former employees had pleaded legal claims capable of proceeding.
The policy dated to November 2021, when provincial public servants were required to provide proof of vaccination, subject to exceptions. Employees who didn't comply could be placed on leave without pay. After 3 months, those who still hadn't become at least partially vaccinated could be dismissed. A regulation made the policy a condition of public employment and went further by deeming dismissals under it to be for just cause. Those few words mattered because they potentially deprived employees of common law notice and severance rights without examining each dismissal individually. The former employees questioned whether the legislation authorizing the regulation actually allowed Cabinet to do that.
In Anderson v. British Columbia, 2026 BCSC 1866, Justice Masuhara was dealing with the Province's application to strike the former employees' pleadings before trial. On that kind of application, the court assumes the facts pleaded are true and asks whether the claim has a reasonable prospect of succeeding in law. It's an early examination of the legal arguments, rather than a determination of disputed evidence or an assessment of whether the dismissals were justified. The employees had advanced 3 claims, relying on sections 7 and 2(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as wrongful dismissal. Their constitutional arguments centred on the choice between vaccination and employment, while the dismissal claim asked a further question about the Province's power to set the consequences of that choice.
The section 7 claim concerned liberty and security of the person. The employees said that making continued employment depend on vaccination imposed serious pressure on their personal medical choices. The consequences, they argued, went well beyond lost wages, affecting financial security and other aspects of their lives. Justice Masuhara followed decisions distinguishing an obligation to undergo medical treatment from a rule that leaves a person free to refuse treatment while attaching employment consequences to that choice. Under those authorities, the consequences described in the pleadings, however significant, didn't establish a deprivation of liberty or security of the person protected by section 7. The judge struck this claim without permission to amend it.
The employees also relied on freedom of conscience under section 2(a). Here, the problem was what their pleadings said about their beliefs. They described objections to vaccination, concerns about safety and efficacy, and their opposition to being required to choose between vaccination and continued employment. What they hadn't explained was the broader moral or ethical framework that made refusal a matter of protected conscience, rather than a strongly held position on a particular policy. The court found those missing facts essential to the claim as pleaded, but it didn't rule out the possibility that an individual could properly plead a conscientious objection. The employees were therefore allowed to amend this part of their case.
Their wrongful dismissal argument raised a separate question about the source of the government's authority. The Public Service Act permits regulations addressing the management of public employees, including their conditions of employment and dismissal. The Province said that power was broad enough to make vaccination compliance a condition of employment and to deem any dismissal under the policy to be for just cause. The former employees argued that Cabinet couldn't use that general authority to extinguish common law notice and severance rights across an entire group of workers. Justice Masuhara found it wasn't plain and obvious that this challenge would fail. The employees could amend their pleadings to put the question of the regulation's validity squarely before the court.
The order that emerged from those arguments was mixed. The Province succeeded in having the section 7 claim dismissed and the existing freedom of conscience pleading struck, while the former employees retained an opportunity to make a more particularized conscience claim and to challenge the authority behind the regulation's just cause provision. The court didn't find the regulation invalid, decide that the employees had been wrongfully dismissed, or award anyone damages. Those questions weren't resolved on this application. What remained arguable was whether a regulation governing employment conditions could also remove rights that might otherwise follow from dismissal, a distinction that mattered directly to the employees' ability to pursue notice and severance.
Justice Masuhara gave the former employees 30 days from the October 2, 2026 decision to amend, unless the parties agreed to another period. The uncertainty in Anderson now concerns the statutory authority behind a rule that treated an entire category of dismissals as just cause. That issue survived because the court wasn't prepared to conclude, at the pleadings stage, that the Province's interpretation of its powers was necessarily correct. Whether the regulation can lawfully have the effect the Province attributes to it will depend on further proceedings. The full reasons are available from the Supreme Court of British Columbia.