A former health authority employee whose religious discrimination complaint had been dismissed returned to the BC Human Rights Tribunal asking it to reconsider. In Friss v. Provincial Health Services Authority and another (No. 2), 2026 BCHRT 199, the Tribunal refused. The important point wasn't a fresh assessment of COVID vaccination requirements. It was the much narrower question of when a tribunal can reopen a decision it has already made.
Noams Friss had worked for the Provincial Health Services Authority. His employment ended after he did not comply with provincial health orders requiring affected employees to be vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination. He alleged religious discrimination against the authority and the Office of the Provincial Health Officer. In its July 2026 decision, the Tribunal dismissed the complaint. It found that the public health officer's alleged conduct did not fall within the employment discrimination prohibition in section 13 of the Human Rights Code. As against the employer, the Tribunal concluded that the complaint had no reasonable prospect of success because the employer hadn't been told about Friss's religious objection when it terminated him.
Friss sought reconsideration. He pointed to the difficulty of representing himself against professional lawyers and argued that the Tribunal's treatment of his undisclosed religious objection had been unfair. He also disputed the premise that telling the employer about his objection could have made a difference, given the provincial orders.
The Tribunal drew a clear line between an unfair process and a disagreement with an outcome. Under Rule 36, reconsideration is exceptional. It can address a failure to decide an issue that needed deciding or a genuine procedural fairness problem. It doesn't provide another opportunity to argue that the Tribunal misunderstood the evidence or reached the wrong conclusion. The submissions before the Tribunal went to its earlier reasoning, not to a defect that justified reopening the case.
The application was denied and the earlier dismissal stands. This ruling doesn't create a new general rule about vaccine mandates or religious accommodation. Its practical significance is procedural: parties need to distinguish a complaint about the fairness of the hearing process from an attempt to relitigate the merits. It also illustrates why timely communication of an asserted workplace accommodation need can become significant in the original record.