[00:00:00]

Kassy Baker

Good afternoon, Mr. Chabot. Can you please spell and state your name for the record?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, it’s J-E-A-N, dash, P-H-I-L-I-P-P-E. Chabot, C-H-A-B-O-T.

Kassy Baker

I apologize for my mispronunciation. Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth regarding your testimony to us this afternoon?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yes.

Kassy Baker

Very good. Now I understand that you were employed by the CBC and that you were subsequently suspended because you refused to disclose your vaccination status. Is that correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

That’s correct.

Kassy Baker

Before you tell us a little bit more about that experience, can you just start by telling us a little bit more about yourself? I understand that you’re married, is that correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, I’m married. I have four children: three girls, ages seven, five, three, and a seven-month-old boy. I’m a French Canadian. I was born in Montreal in 1982. I’ve worked as an analyst most of my career, including 10 years in mainstream media. Software quality analyst, mostly.

Kassy Baker

Very good. And were you trained for this line of work or how did you come to have this profession?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, I had a little bit of training, did a little bit of computer science in CÉGEP [Collège d’enseignement general et professional]. But mostly I’m self-taught. I mostly learned on the job.

Kassy Baker

Very good. When did you first start working for the CBC?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

I joined the CBC in 2018, specifically, Radio-Canada’s Médias numériques. And by the way, I’m going to be saying CBC a lot. But most of the time I mean CBC/Radio-Canada. So I joined the Médias numériques, which is where they do most digital projects for the French-speaking audience. So websites, mobile apps, all the infrastructure underneath the streaming services. Myself, I worked mostly on TOU.TV when I was there. So it’s the equivalent of CBC Gem. It’s the streaming service, the French streaming service.

Kassy Baker

I understand from your description that this was a largely digital role or something that you largely performed with computers. Is that correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah.

Kassy Baker

Where were you required to perform these duties?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, when I joined, we were at the office in Montreal. But when the pandemic started, I was on parental leave. And when I came back from parental leave, everyone was already working 100 per cent from home. Everyone at Médias numériques.

Kassy Baker

When you returned to work after the pandemic had started, were you able to fulfill all of your duties from home or only most of them?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Oh, yeah.

Kassy Baker

Sorry, all of them?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, all of them we could fulfill from home. There was no use case that required me to go on the premises. And it was the same for almost everyone.

Kassy Baker

And so, most employees at that point in your division were working from home at that point. Is that correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, to my knowledge all of them. All of us were working at home.

Kassy Baker

Prior to having left for a parental leave and the onset of COVID, what was your relationship like with the CBC, your employer?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, I really enjoyed working there. I would describe it as an extremely positive experience. Professionally, it was an ideal place for someone in my field because there were many issues to tackle and a lot of freedom to use our creativity, our problem solving. It was just incredibly positive. For me, it was a source of motivation that it’s a public entity. I felt like a civic responsibility working there. So that was important. Overall, I felt it was an important institution. And the work we did there, even though it’s not life or death deciding services that we worked on, but it’s every Canadians’: we’re all co-owners of the CBC and what they produce there. So that felt good working on that kind of thing.

And overall, like the culture there, the attitudes of my colleagues, they were a good fit.

[00:05:00]

The three years and a half that I was there, I met a substantial amount of people that I really enjoyed working with and being around. It’s basically where I wanted to be for the rest of my career. I just loved it there. I made plans to keep working there, and it didn’t happen.

Kassy Baker

Alright, so you are no longer working for the CBC at this point in time, correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

That’s correct.

Kassy Baker

Why is that?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, they implemented mandatory vaccination, and I didn’t disclose my vaccination status. I was put on indefinite leave without pay for a while. But overall, all the measures they took for that policy, it just led to me not being able to continue working there or to work there ever again, I feel.

Kassy Baker

When was the idea or the suggestion of a vaccination policy first raised or introduced by your employer?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, we’d have to go back to spring or summer of 2021. During that time, mandatory vaccination, or just vaccination in general, was a heavily discussed topic. I think it’s June or July, the CBC felt compelled to, at one point, state its position on mandatory vaccination on the internal employee website. They posted a statement that basically said that vaccination was a personal choice and that they couldn’t impose it unless a law was requiring it. So that’s the first time we started hearing about it internally. So, yeah, that’s the first time.

Kassy Baker

Obviously, at some point, that policy changed. When did that policy change?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, not long after that. I think it was the early fall or the end of August or September. I was hearing the federal government talking about mandating the vaccines for federal workers. So I was concerned. Even though the CBC stated that it was a personal choice and that they couldn’t impose it, I wasn’t really reassured by that. But at one point, the CBC announced that they would ask us to disclose our vaccination status. I think they announced it at the end of September, and on October 1st, we got the form that we needed to fill to disclose our status.

Kassy Baker

Did you complete the form?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

No, I didn’t complete it because I didn’t want to disclose. I didn’t think, at that point, it was even in their right to ask for our vaccination status, which I consider to be personal medical information. So I didn’t disclose. And on the form, there was not even an option, something like—I opt out; I prefer not to disclose. There wasn’t that on there. But I screenshotted the form and photoshopped in an additional option that said I prefer not to disclose. That’s what I sent in just because I didn’t want them to accuse me of not replying. So I did reply in that way.

Kassy Baker

What response did you receive when you submitted this altered form?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

They acknowledged my response, and they basically just said thank you. But at that point, they had already given us a deadline up until October 31st to do it. But, yeah, they acknowledged it.

Kassy Baker

I understand you did some research in coming to the decision of whether or not you would complete the form. Can you tell us a little about that?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yes. So the reason I didn’t want to disclose, like I mentioned earlier, I didn’t think they were in their right. And that’s because I’d found out on the CRHA website, which is the l’Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines agréé, which is a professional association in Quebec— Well, I guess these HR directors, there’s a few of them, but those that were communicating this stuff to us at the CBC,

[00:10:00]

I guess they were part of this association because they have this title in their signature, CRHA.

So they put out a statement, not a statement but more like a dossier, like a webpage with information on vaccine status disclosure. And in there, it said very clearly that disclosure had to be voluntary and that no reprisals could be brought upon an employee who refused to disclose. They cited different laws: they cited the Charter; they cited the Code civile du Québec and other laws. So I felt pretty confident that I was right, that I didn’t need to disclose. Like I said, I was working remotely, so it didn’t even matter whether I was vaccinated or not for me at this point.

Kassy Baker

If I understand correctly, the form was due October 1st, is that correct? The disclosure form.

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, they sent it to us October 1st, but we had a month to reply to it.

Kassy Baker

When was the mandatory vaccination policy brought into effect?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, the federal government brought its directive for mandatory vaccination of the federal— Well, not all federal workers, but it was central administration workers and the RCMP. That came down on October 6th. I don’t know when it was announced, but they had been talking about it for a couple of months earlier. And not long after, October 21st, the CBC announced its own mandatory vaccination policy. Most people had disclosed their status at this point. But this new policy was announced, and we had until December 1st to show proof of having had two doses. This applied to every employee, pretty much like it was announced by the federal government. There were also people working remotely in the central administration, but probably the RCMP, as well. It affected even people who worked 100 per cent from home. So the CBC pretty much copied the federal government in that sense.

Kassy Baker

You’ve said that the policy required all employees to show that they had received two doses by December 1st or that they would be put on indefinite leave without pay. Was there any option to test instead of receiving the vaccination?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Nope.

Kassy Baker

I think you’ve already answered this, but just to be very clear—was there any exemption offered to those employees who were working 100 per cent remotely?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yes, there were exemptions offered to everyone, even people working on premises. So you could request a medical exemption or a religious exemption. But what bothered me is that when they announced that, right from the start they said that— Well, medical exemptions, probably they would honour that. But it’s rare that people have a medical condition that prevents them from getting those vaccines.

But the religious exemptions, a lot of people applied for them. But right from the start, the CBC told us that very few would be granted. So I don’t know. That just didn’t resonate well with me. I didn’t apply for one myself. That’s not the path I chose to defend my case. I spoke to many people who applied for one, and every single one was rejected. Even those who seemed bulletproof, basically, who were signed by their bishop, and they were all turned down. So that was kind of disappointing.

But the way they announced it, I kind of expected that. It was supposed to be based on your sincere belief. So if you hold a sincere belief, you’ll be able to get an exemption. But I think there was something else going on with the process. It seemed like it was based on something other than the person’s sincere belief—the decision to grant the exemption or not. Some people even received

[00:15:00]

their letter informing them that they were being put on leave without pay. Around November, just before the deadline of December 1st hit, some people even received confirmation that—”Yes, you’re being put on leave without pay for not complying to the policy,” while they were still waiting for a decision on their religious exemption. So something’s not right there.

Kassy Baker

What did you do in those few weeks between when the policy was announced and when it was actually going to be implemented?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

I wanted to resolve this, so I wrote to HR. They had set up this generic email for all of these issues that had to do with the policy. So I wrote to that email and I asked them if it was legal, what they were doing, if it was constitutional. The answer I got back was that it was mandated by the government. So one of those HR directors told me that it had been mandated and that the mandate applied to the Crown. Well, it was mandated through a directive that applied to federal workers, including Crown corporations.

I also brought all these arguments that the CRHA, the l’Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines agréé, put out; I also sent that to my union. So I was in discussion with both the CBC and my union at that time.

That’s also what my union told me: that it had been mandated by the federal government. After that, I asked them— Because I had read the directive. So when they mentioned that, I had already read it. And I knew, at least from what it seemed—and I had other people read it as well, just to make sure—it didn’t apply to Crown corporations. It didn’t apply to us. It was limited to the central administration and RCMP, and there was no mention of Crown corporations in there.

Kassy Baker

Did you specifically point that out to your employer and to the union that it appeared from your reading that it did not apply to Crown corporations?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

I did.

Kassy Baker

What was their reply?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, I pointed it out to the union. I sent them the text. I basically walked them through it. And my union ignored it. What I asked the CBC—when they mentioned that directive—I just asked them very simply, “Which directive is that? Can you tell me where it says who it applies to, just to verify that it applies to Crown corporations?” And they basically shut the door to any further discussion when I mentioned that.

Kassy Baker

I understand that the CBC also has an appointed ethics commissioner. Did you attempt to raise this issue with the Commissioner?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Not myself. But because we were able to form a little group of people who were in the same situation, we reached out to each other via different means. I know that one person in the group wrote the ethics commissioner at the CBC and basically showed her that the mandatory vaccination policy violated many, many points in the CBC’s own Code of Conduct. I don’t remember a reply exactly, but it was something like— well, she just basically stated that it was out of her purview. She didn’t seem to want to get involved with us at all.

Kassy Baker

Okay, and what did you do when the deadline came along finally?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

I’m just checking to see if we missed anything.

Kassy Baker

You mentioned to me at one point that you believed, you referred to the CBC Code of Conduct. I believe that you’ve mentioned certain criteria that you believed they would be required to meet in order to implement a mandatory vaccination policy. Is that right?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, exactly. That’s a very important point. One thing I want to mention before that. You know those statements that l’Ordre des conseillers en ressources humaines agréé put out on their website. I found out later that Radio-Canada, in French, put out an article where Manon Poirot,

[00:20:00]

which was the head—I don’t know if she’s still the head of that order—but she basically stated in the article exactly those points: that a vaccine disclosure had to be voluntary and that no reprisals could come to employees who refused to do it.

So regarding these other points that I brought to the attention of my union— because the CBC had refused to discuss this with me and since my collective agreement and my contract didn’t allow me to represent myself, I had to go through my union. So at this point, I was basically trying to convince my union. And one way I attempted to do this is using Charter law. Because I read that— well, to me, mandatory vaccination was pretty clear that it was by itself a violation of your Charter rights. There were limited circumstances under which Charter rights could be suspended, I guess. But from what I’d read, the law really seemed to be on my side. Because I’d read, for example, that it had to be demonstrably justified. It had to be the least infringing measure available. And it had to be proportional. This principle of proportionality, it has to do with the means of attaining an end being no more than what’s necessary.

When I read those things and I considered the CBC’s policy and my context—I’m being remote, working from home all this time. I didn’t think the policy met those criteria. So I felt pretty confident that if I demonstrated that and showed all that to my union they would have to, even though I knew that they were reluctant. It was obvious that they didn’t want to represent me. I thought that if I did the work—that’s supposed to be their work—if I did that, like in a well put out manner, that it would have to represent me. But yeah, that’s not what happened.

Kassy Baker

Did your union ever end up filing a grievance on your behalf?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

No, they refused to do it. And I did multiple demands for a grievance. Because initially, I argued on that front using Charter case law—that it was just that the CBC could meet that threshold of implementing mandatory vaccination. They rejected that demand for a grievance based on that. I also asked them to grieve the fact that the CBC was using “leave without pay” as a disciplinary measure, which is not something that’s in the collective agreement. It’s not something that’s in my contract, either. But my union basically just said that the CBC was fully in their right in doing those things. They cited a clause, I don’t remember exactly, but there’s a clause in the collective agreement that says something like, “for every point that’s not stated explicitly in the collective agreement, well the employer can do pretty much carte blanche whatever it wants.”

Kassy Baker

When the mandatory policy took effect on December 1st, what happened to you on that date?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, you know, I’d been working from home all this time. So that morning, just like usual— I knew this was coming, and, at that point, I was pretty sure that they would enforce it—but I went on the computer, tried to log in to do my work and meet my team, and all my access were revoked. So even basic things like email, access to the employee portal. Like email and employee portal, I don’t think someone— because usually leave without pay, the employee has to ask for it; it’s something that the employee requests. When they do it under normal circumstances, I don’t think their email access is cut off. I don’t think their access to employee services, like the portal we have, is cut off, either. So seeing all that was kind of a shock. To me, it just meant that they really didn’t want us even communicating amongst ourselves,

[00:25:00]

or communicating easily, at least, with each other using our work email. So, yeah, that was a shock on December 1st.

Kassy Baker

What impact did the suspension have on you and your family financially?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Well, I lost my income. And we didn’t have access to EI [employment insurance]. I say “we” because that’s basically the experience of everyone I’ve spoken to that was in my situation. We didn’t have access to EI because it was considered misconduct to not comply to these policies. So having to find work—this was December—so having to find work or other sources of income during the holiday season, that’s not ideal.

Kassy Baker

Were you the sole earner of the family?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, I was. Yeah, my salary was my family’s only income. So that was stressful not only for me but for my wife as well. And when two parents are stressed out or anxious about something like that, about the financial strain like that, it had an impact on my children, as well. And they’re young, so they’re sensitive to this kind of stuff. They can’t understand yet what was going on.

Kassy Baker

Now, something you’ve mentioned to me earlier that I would just like to talk about a little bit. So you were not dismissed or terminated, but, instead, you were suspended without pay. I understand that you were also required to maintain your insurance and benefits. Is that correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, that’s correct. That’s part of the policy. The CBC told us that— well, they didn’t leave us a choice, really. They said, “You will be keeping your insurance and benefits, and the cost will effectively double because we won’t be covering half of it,” like they normally do. So that was an extra financial burden that they were putting on us. I guess what bothered me about that is that the union didn’t bat an eye at that. They seem to endorse that kind of stuff as well.

Kassy Baker

Were you aware of other employees who were similarly suspended as you were on December 1st?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, like I mentioned, we were able to organize a small group so that was incredibly beneficial because none of us had to go through this alone. I can’t imagine having gone through this. I wouldn’t be here. If I had gone through this alone, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here testifying because it would have made things much, much worse.

I heard their stories, as well. Because I was one of the lucky ones. I found work pretty quickly. I mean, the kind of work I do, there’s a ton of demand for it right now. So even during the holidays, I was able to use my remaining vacation time, use just a little bit of my savings to keep everything going, basically feed my family. And then I could work again pretty quickly. Even though I had no EI, it went pretty smoothly. So I’m one of the lucky ones.

But some of the stories I’ve heard. People were put in very vulnerable positions by these measures. I’ll give you an example or two. I know this woman who’s 58 and she was employed at the CBC. She has a specialized skill set in broadcasting, TV broadcasting, so there wasn’t any work for her in her field when she was put on leave without pay. She’s a single mom. She has a house; she has a daughter in university. So just to keep things together, keep her house, keep her daughter in school, she had to look for a job. Basically, she found a minimum wage job, and she had to burn through all her retirement savings, her RRSPs, just to keep things going. And she’s not seeing that money again. So that’s one example.

Other examples, well, just in general, there were other measures affecting the unvaccinated at this time. So people couldn’t travel.

[00:30:00]

I had a colleague who had family overseas who wanted them to come over because a family member was dying. They were sick. They were dying. They wanted to see their family one last time. This person, on top of being put on leave without pay, they couldn’t travel. So that’s compounded pressure on these people. That’s just horrific.

Kassy Baker

Now, we’re nearly out of time. I don’t want to rush you, but there’s just a couple of more quick points that I would like to talk about. The vaccine policy was actually suspended at some point. I believe you told me it was June of 2022, is that correct?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yes.

Kassy Baker

Were you asked to return to work at that point?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, I was asked to come back to work after being on leave for seven-plus months, receiving no communication from the CBC. I considered personally myself constructively dismissed at that point. So I told them, “No, I won’t come back to work.”

And one of the other reasons is that because— they had basically mirrored what the federal government was doing, and the federal directive that applied to federal workers also ended just before the CBC ended theirs. And it was clear in one of the documents that the Treasury Board put out—that they called the manager’s toolkit that talked about people coming back from leave without pay—that they were only suspending the policy. They weren’t revoking it. So I couldn’t see myself going back there and having this Damocles’ sword above my head that this could happen all over again. It was just too much pressure.

People in my group, some of them wanted to go back. Some of them considered it, but they engaged with the CBC. They asked questions: “Well, if I come back, what will happen? If you decide to bring the mandate?” All that stuff. Well, first of all, the delay that they gave us to come back was very short. So in those short few days or weeks, the people asking questions weren’t really getting the answers that they were expecting. The CBC was putting pressure on them, and some of them were resigned. Without even resigning themselves, the CBC just stopped talking to them, stopped answering to them, and they learned through employee services that they had been effectively resigned.

Kassy Baker

My final question, subject to any questions that the commissioners of course may have, is why did you want to testify today?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, so the main reason I wanted to testify was because I want people to be able to have an informed opinion on the CBC and what it stands for. It’s an important institution, like I said, and I think you can learn a lot about an organization by the way it treats its employees.

We haven’t really talked about this, but the stated goal of the CBC, by implementing mandatory vaccination, was to ensure the safety and the security of its employees in the workplace. So I don’t understand why that would apply to people working remotely. I mean, it’s not even logical. So it looks like they put aside even the most basic logic in favour of this all-vaccine ideology. Everyone had to be vaccinated. I was supposed to continue working from home. During those seven-plus months, almost everyone in my department was working from home. Here and there, people who wanted to could go to the office. But they were allowed to work from home during all this time. Even today, remote work continues. This had been communicated to us that the remote work would continue, by the way, even before the policy began. So everything pointed to remote work, and this is what the union should even have pushed for. There’s no better measure to ensure the safety and security of people in the workplace than remote work.

So I don’t know why they coerced me. But when you have a stated goal that there’s no logic with the measures you’re taking—this has to do with also being demonstrably justified and the least infringing and all that stuff. If they followed the law, they would just have kept the status quo and allowed me to continue working from home. But they didn’t. So that really bothers me.

[00:35:00]

And to me, it feels like that’s not the real goal. The official one that they stated is not the real goal. It bothers me that the CBC seemingly tried to use one ostensible purpose “safety in the workplace” to make this policy appear acceptable, while they don’t disclose the real reasons behind it.

So I want people to think about that and to reflect on the fact that, yes, you can learn about an institution or any organization as a whole by the way it treats its employees. There was no justification to treat us this way, to prevent us from keeping working from home. And I wonder, I want people to ask themselves—if the CBC can’t be trusted to be ethical in the way it treats its employees, people should ask themselves if it can be trusted to be ethical in its other activities, including news reporting and all that stuff.

So that’s the main reason I wanted to come and tell this story.

The other reason is because I don’t know how many people the CBC coerced into getting these vaccines. I know some people didn’t want them and some people had to betray their own conscience to comply to the CBC’s policy. So those people, I want to acknowledge that they exist. I know that some of them have been harmed physically by the vaccines. I wish I could have reached out to them just for mutual support and to tell them that they were not alone. So those are the reasons.

Kassy Baker

Thank you. Okay, there’s one question. Please go ahead.

Commissioner Massie

Thank you, Mr. Chabot, for your testimony. Do you consider yourself as an informed citizen?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yes, yes, I do. I’m an analyst by trade, so I’m used to dealing with information in general, and I’m someone who grew up with the internet at their fingertips. So, yeah, I do consider myself pretty informed.

Commissioner Massie

What kind of research would you have done to raise doubt about the vaccination to the point that you were willing to put everything on the line not to get vaccinated?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Very simply, I just thought that the risk–benefit ratio was not in favour of the vaccines at all, at all. The risks were scary, and the benefits, I didn’t see any evidence of that. The CBC, when they tell you, “Well, we have this objective of ensuring safety and security in the workplace,” I would assume that they would show evidence that it has an effect on safety and security in the workplace. I haven’t seen that evidence myself. And the CBC certainly hasn’t produced any to show to its employees. So from the research I did, the benefits didn’t seem to be there, and the risks seemed huge. I have four young children—so I can’t afford to be injured or killed by these injections and leave them without a father. So for me, it was out of the question, mostly because I’m a father and I didn’t want to put that risk.

Commissioner Massie

Did you have the opportunity to discuss your analysis or your questioning with some of your colleagues within your environment?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yes, I did. I discussed it. It’s something I talked about openly with my colleagues. But my environment was—we were not news people. We were analysts, programmers, project leaders, and our world, it’s digital. And most people there already had gone and gotten two doses of their own volition. People were scared at that time. They weren’t really open to— even though I thought my arguments were good, now is a much better time to use reason. People are much more open to those kinds of arguments. So I wasn’t able to have a huge impact, even though I tried.

But yeah, it’s sad because even though I discussed it, and I discussed not only the reasons for not getting vaccinated—the risk–benefits and all that stuff—I also discussed the ethical implications.

[00:40:00]

People at the CBC, not just people close to me but people in general at the CBC—what I heard from my other colleagues who went through this—there was very much a lack of empathy and indifference over there. Friends that I’d been friends with for 10, 15 years, I mean, people who actually got me to join the CBC, and I was very close with, who just willfully looked the other way while this was going on. I lost those friendships. That’s the same experience my other colleagues have gone through. So yeah, at that time, most people over there were really in the narrative. I’ve wondered a lot about why that is: why did people stick to that narrative and have this very narrow way of navigating through it?

Commissioner Massie

What is your current condition with respect to your family or people around you? How do you feel about the decision and even though it was somewhat hurtful, how do you feel about the whole situation right now?

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Yeah, it went good for me. I found work. I found a consulting firm that hired me, and they gave me a contract for a big bank. And while the CBC had mandatory vaccination in place, at that bank, even though it was mostly remote work, I could go meet my team. And I did. There was testing that was offered to people who weren’t vaccinated, and we could meet in the office. You wore your mask when in the corridors and when you’re in the meeting room with your team, you can take off the mask. And really quickly even that requirement of testing went away. I don’t know if it’s because public health guidance changed, but the experience I had in that bank was so refreshing because it was a good example, basically, of proportionality. They didn’t go beyond what was absolutely necessary and what made sense.

So really quickly, even though I was unvaccinated—I couldn’t go in the CBC—I could go meet my team there at the bank and work remotely. People had such a different culture. It didn’t really matter to anyone. They hadn’t been subjected to this very strong pro-vaccine bias that was present at the CBC. So it was an incredible experience to get out of the CBC and feel like in a normal work environment again where it’s just not a concern. So that was good. I don’t work for that bank anymore because I went on parental leave again. But I’m still with the consulting firm and am very happy now.

Commissioner Massie

Thank you very much.

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Thank you.

Kassy Baker

Very good. On behalf of the National Citizens Inquiry, I’d like to thank you very much for your testimony here today.

Jean-Philippe Chabot

Thank you.

[00:43:30]

Final Review and Approval: Margaret Phillips, September 6, 2023.   

The evidence offered in this transcript is a true and faithful record of witness testimony given during the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) hearings. The transcript was prepared by members of a team of volunteers using an “intelligent verbatim” transcription method.

For further information on the transcription process, method, and team, see the NCI website: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/about-these-transcripts/

Summary

Jean-Philippe is a French-Canadian father of 4 children and was employed by the CBC/Radio-Canada, digital projects (the French streaming service) since 2018, a job he loved. On parental leave when COVID started, everyone in digital projects was already working 100 per cent from home when he returned to work. It was not necessary for him to go on the premises for his job. In the beginning, CBC posted a statement for employees saying that the shots were a personal choice and they could not enforced. However, on October 1^st of that year, employees received a form to complete disclosing vaccine status. Jean-Philippe submitted his, saying he did not wish to disclose his status. His research on the CRHA website found that disclosure had to be voluntary and that no reprisals could be brought upon an employee who refused to disclose.

October 21^st the CBC announced they were mirroring the federal government mandatory vaccination policy and proof of receiving two doses was required by December 1^st. This applied to every employee with no option for testing allowed. Exemptions were allowed but in reality, seldom granted. Jean-Philippe persued HR and his union in attempts to find support for his charter rights but was told it was mandated by the government through a directive that applied to federal workers, including Crown corporations. The ethics commissioner at the CBC stated to a fellow employee that it was out of her purview.

On December 1^st all his computer access had been revoked. Jean-Philippe was suspended without pay, and was also required to maintain his insurance and benefits, as part of CBC policy. Although that doubled the financial burden, as the company didn’t cover their half, the union still wouldn’t intervene. In June 2022 the vaccine mandate was suspended and he was asked to come back to work after being on leave for seven-plus months and receiving no communication from the CBC. He declined.