WINNIPEG — The Air Line Pilots Association has failed to persuade an arbitrator that two pilots with Perimeter Aviation were unjustly terminated for refusing to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Winnipeg-based Perimeter is a regional carrier serving Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario.
One of the pilots involved in the arbitration was based at Sioux Lookout while the other lived in Manitoba in October 2021 when the company implemented a mandatory vaccination policy as required by an order from Transport Canada.
Both pilots had flown for Perimeter since 2018.
The company placed them on unpaid administrative leave in November 2021 after they missed the deadline for complying with the vaccination policy.
Citing Christian beliefs, they had each submitted a request for an exemption on religious grounds, but were denied.
Six months later, In May 2022, after being given a final opportunity to provide proof of vaccination, their employment was terminated.
As it happened, Transport Canada suspended the vaccination requirements for the transportation sector the very next month.
The Air Line Pilots Association submitted grievances against the dismissals on behalf of the two pilots.
Arbitrator Arne Peltz denied the grievances in a decision released earlier this month.
"I find that the grievors have not established a sincere religious belief that required them to refuse COVID-19 vaccination," he wrote. "Without doubting their Christian values and longstanding practices...the evidence shows that the objection to vaccination is really a personal belief."
Specifically referring to the pilot from Sioux Lookout, Peltz found his refusal to be vaccinated was rooted in strongly-held views about personal liberty and government policy-making.
"It was telling, although not determinative," he said, "that these were the objections (he) presented in his communications with the union before the (Transport Canada) order was enacted. Religious objections were not raised."
The arbitrator believed the pilot turned to religious belief as a last resort "when nothing else worked and he constructed his exemption application based on what he heard had been successful elsewhere."
He found that neither pilot met the test for religious freedom established in a 2004 case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, which requires sincere belief in a practice "having a nexus with religion, which calls for a particular line of conduct."
Peltz wrote "Applying the established legal test to the facts, I find that the grievors have not established a sincere religious belief that required them to refuse COVID-19 vaccination. Their religious beliefs as articulated do not call for a particular line of conduct. There is no prescription against receiving a vaccination."
He also rejected the Air Line Pilot Association's contention that Perimeter should have allowed the pilots to remain on unpaid leave rather than dismiss them, especially since the federal order was rescinded the following month.
The arbitrator said the union's argument for greater patience had "a superficial attraction" but was based on after-the-fact reasoning.
"In fact, the company was patient," he said, pointing to other cases in which employers moved to termination much sooner.
"Several years removed from the stress and trauma of the pandemic," Peltz said, "we may tend to forget the reality of the moment...The course of the pandemic was unpredictable, with the degree of risk increasing and abating and frequently evolving."
