Wayne Lenhardt
Our next witness is going to be Amie Harbor. And I’ve got the name up on the screen so far-so far so good. Can you hear me?

Amie Harbor
Yes I can. Okay.

Wayne Lenhardt
First of all, then could you give us your name? Spell it for us, please, and then I’ll do an oath with you.

Amie Harbor
My name is Amie Harbor and it’s spelled A-M-I-E H-A-R-B-O-R.

Wayne Lenhardt
And do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth during your testimony?

Amie Harbor
Yes, I do.

Wayne Lenhardt
Okay. This is going to be about what you suffered job-wise during the COVID. Let me start you with January of 2020 and we’ll go from there. You were employed with a private company at that point. By the way, are you a licensed teacher?

Amie Harbor
No, I’m a community support worker and an education assistant.

Wayne Lenhardt
January 2020, what were you doing job-wise?

Amie Harbor
I worked for the company, Thompson Community Services, in Penticton, British Columbia, and I had worked there for about ten years. Well, previously it was McNaughton Support Services and then was purchased or taken over by a province-wide company called Thompson Community Services. And I was doing community inclusion, recreation, and helping people live independently, and then also employment counseling and job coaching.

Wayne Lenhardt
Okay, and what happened as the pandemic progressed?

Amie Harbor
So as the pandemic was progressing, it was actually around January 2021 that I started seeing a lot of messaging about vaccines being the answer to solving the pandemic. And I started thinking that they were going to be putting in some kind of mandate and possibly for healthcare services first. And my employment was actually under the umbrella of Community Living, which fell under the funding of the Provincial Health Care System. So I started thinking I was going to have to safeguard my financial situation. So I actually relinquished my full time job and I went part time, and then I accepted casual working with the school district in my town.

Wayne Lenhardt
This happened after Dr. Henry put in either her first or her second health order, I guess, was it?

Amie Harbor
Well this was actually before the health order. I was anticipating that that was the way that it was going. And so by about August of that year, things were looking like they were going to go towards a mandate. So I actually relinquished my part time position, went casual with TCS [Thompson Community Services], and then I took a full time position with the school board. So I was working casual. I was working on call and also just sort of scheduled, but not in any kind of part-time position. And then the mandates came in, in November of 2021, and I was required to be vaccinated and then disclose my vaccine status.

And it was at that point that I knew, like I had known for quite a while, that I was not going to take the vaccine. And so I actually decided to take the stand that I wasn’t going to disclose my status because I felt that that was private medical information: was not required by my collective agreement, had never been in any way, shape, or form part of my job for the last ten years. So that was sort of the stand that I took. And because I didn’t disclose my vaccine status, I received a letter saying I was deemed unvaccinated. And so I think it was December 3rd of 2021 is when I was put on unpaid leave.

Wayne Lenhardt
You tried to reduce your hours first, if I understand you.

Amie Harbor
Yeah. So I felt that actually put me in a better position actually to stand up for what I believed in, because I had already figured out how to have other employment, but I was still employed by them.

Wayne Lenhardt
Well let me first say, the job that you had that we’ve just been talking about, that was a unionized job, was it?

Amie Harbor
Yes. Yes, so that was the BCGEU, which is BC Government and Employees Union. And so yes, under my collective agreement there is provision for—political belief is actually mentioned as a protected ground. And so at that time, I put in a request for an accommodation based on political belief. And I was a member of the BC Libertarian Party. I had joined fairly recently as a paid member, and so I reached out to them and asked for confirmation of my membership. And so I had a letter from the President, actually, of the BC Libertarian Party attesting to my political belief, and that was rejected.

Wayne Lenhardt
Okay.

Amie Harbor
So I was put on unpaid leave at that time.

Wayne Lenhardt
Put on unpaid leave. And then you started to look at some school boards, correct?

Amie Habor
Pardon me?

Wayne Lenhardt
You looked for another job with some school boards, correct?

Amie Harbor
Yes, so I already had a job that I had taken in August, the full time permanent position with the school board. So over that next year, it was a very stressful time because as well, the schools were looking. Bonnie Henry was saying that she was going to be requiring the school boards to put in a vaccine mandate as well. But what she did differently in this situation is she left it up to each individual school board across the province. And so one-by-one they were starting to adopt vaccine mandates as well. So even though I had figured out how to safeguard my finances from the one job, it was starting to look like I might be put on unpaid leave from my second job as well. But thankfully by March, I think it was about half had gone to vaccine mandates, but my particular school board here in Okanagan Skaha did not go to mandate. So I was able to keep that job.

So it was a whole year, actually, that went by. It was then we’d gone through the school year, and then into December of 2022 that I had been on unpaid leave for a whole year and I had not had communication from my employer. They’d asked for my keys back. So at that point I actually finally collected my thoughts, and I decided to put in a grievance at that point. And I put it in under Constructive Dismissal.

So I had looked up under the Canada Labour Code what Constructive Dismissal was. I was still on unpaid leave, but I fit the criteria: someone else had taken over my job description; I’d given my keys back; had no communication. So I asked my union to confirm my status. My employer confirmed that I was on indefinite unpaid leave, and so I started the process of filing the grievance. And it was actually filed in January of 2023, is when I filed my grievance. And I filed it on the basis of “constructive dismissal without cause and discrimination based on political belief.”

Wayne Lenhardt
Did you do anything against the province at that point as well, as your—

Amie Harbor
I didn’t at that point. I just initiated the grievance through my union. And so I gave them all of my information. And then later that year—I think it was about June of that year, so that’s 2023—it went through the couple steps.

And then at step three, the staff rep makes a determination as to whether the likelihood of it succeeding at arbitration. And he concluded that there was no chance of succeeding at arbitration because the province is not party to the collective agreement, and the province’s mandate had created the situation where my collective agreement had to be violated. And he also concluded that I hadn’t justified or hadn’t proven my political belief. I didn’t have enough evidence for that, so it was rejected by him.

And then I immediately went to the next step, which would be the grievance appeal committee, and I sent all my information in my position on that. And that took another six months. And so I didn’t actually go to the grievance appeal committee until January of 2024 this year.

Wayne Lenhardt
So did you lose any pay? Was the second job with the school board that you found, did that one pay less than your original job with TCS?

Amie Harbor
Yes, actually. I took a fairly significant pay cut because it’s reduced hours. And then it’s not full time; it’s 32 hours a week. And then I also have all the breaks and all of the, like, summer break, which is unpaid. And that’s time that I would have stayed at my current job if it hadn’t been for the mandates. But even if I had decided to go to the school board as an EA [Education Assistant] voluntarily, I still would have kept my casual position, and I would have been able to make up the extra hours, and I would have also been covering holidays and everything all through the summer. So, yeah, it was a significant pay cut.

Wayne Lenhardt
Is there any—?

Amie Harbor
But yes. So— Sorry?

Wayne Lenhardt
Go ahead. Go ahead.

Amie Harbor
Yeah, I was going to say, so I filed the grievance appeal committee and went to the grievance appeal committee in January of this year. And my argument is that the BCGEU’s constitution actually says that when provincial legislation comes in that significantly modifies the collective agreement, that they will either negotiate with the province for that regarding that legislation, or if they can’t come to terms, that they would go to arbitration.

So that was my argument at the appeal committee. And also I looked up provincially and under the human rights code as far as political belief being a protected ground, and there’s no—like all of the justification for your political belief, the questions that the employer is allowed to ask, has to do with how they will accommodate you—not the employee having to prove their political belief. So those were my arguments in that regard.

But the grievance appeal committee came back in February and they upheld the original ruling by the staff rep that it wouldn’t go to arbitration. And so I appealed again to the provincial executive committee, and that was based on if it was—I can’t remember exactly how it’s worded—but if the ruling is incorrect according to any other legislation regarding employment. And so it was at that point that, as far as going to the appeal committee, that I drew in the Human Rights Code. Because our BC Human Rights Code says if in situations of conflict, that the Human Rights Code prevails.

So that was my argument to go to the next step, and as well that they didn’t represent me fairly, because there were some curious things done at the appeal committee itself. Anyway, the Provincial Appeal Committee refused to give me leave to appeal. So at that point, they came back in March and said that their ruling was final and binding. And so during that time, I decided to appeal to file the human rights complaint as well.

Wayne Lenhardt
And that still has not been adjudicated, am I right?

Amie Harbor
That’s right, yes. So I filed that in, I think it was February or March of this year. And the immediate email that comes back, it says that it will take up to ten months to take even a first look at any new complaints—so ten months from that date. And so I feel like because that’s again a provincially-funded agency that’s meant to protect and safeguard civil liberties, that that’s just an unreasonable time. And so I filed then an Ombudsman complaint, questioning the length of time that they’re making citizens wait for their complaints to be heard.

And then, as well, when I received the final ruling from the Provincial Executive, I filed a BC Labour Board complaint. And that’s the last one that I filed. And that’s based on the fact there’s three grounds that you can appeal or that you can make a complaint to the Labour Board on. And what I’m making it on is that they were dealing in bad faith and also discriminating against me based on being unvaccinated.

Because when I went onto the BCGEU website, I found several documents dating back to 2021 where they had sort of laid out how they were going to deal with employees that were unvaccinated. And it appears to me that there’s quite a bit of evidence showing that their comments were trying to sort of set the stage that employees, they could grieve it, but they were saying, “It was very unlikely that your grievance would go anywhere,” and those kind of things. And they also had a video that they put out that was really discouraging to anyone who was even contemplating not getting vaccinated. So I feel based on that evidence, it’s enough to at least open an investigation as to whether or not there was some discrimination right from the outset.

So those are the three. I have three outstanding complaints, and I haven’t heard from the Ombudsman yet. That’s been at least four months. And then my last email that I received from the Human Rights Tribunal said that was going to be another ten months. So, yeah, it’s a waiting game.

Wayne Lenhardt
Im going to turn you over to the commissioners shortly. But two or three quick questions. This all took place in the province of BC, correct?

Amie Harbor
Yes, yeah.

Wayne Lenhardt
Is there still a health order that’s still in place at the moment that started all of this? Bonnie Henry, I think, renewed something once or twice.

Amie Harbor
Yes. Yes, it started with the initial provincial health order in 2021, and then it has been renewed. It was renewed in 2022, I think, and then again in 2023. So it is still in place for all employees that fall under the health sector and/or funding, if the funding for their agency flows through the health agency. And it went from saying that “Unvaccinated workers were a health hazard,” to now it says “An unvaccinated workforce constitutes a health hazard.” And yeah, so she believes to this day that that’s the situation.

Wayne Lenhardt
Did you lose any income or salary or whatever relating to either unemployment insurance or pension or anything else that you haven’t told us about?

Amie Harbor
No, no. I have not received anything other than the wages I was able to replace by anticipating the situation.

Wayne Lenhardt
Okay. I’m going to ask the commissioners if they have any questions.

Amie Harbor
Thanks.

Wayne Lenhardt
I think the commissioners have no questions. So on behalf of the National Citizens inquiry, I want to thank you very much for your testimony today and good luck.

Amie Habor
Thank you for having me.

Wayne Lenhardt
Good luck with the other issues.

Amie Harbor
Thanks.