The province’s travel ban: a necessary measure for public health protection in a pandemic, or an arbitrary, unwarranted law that breaches Canadians’ fundamental rights? It’s now up to a Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court judge to decide.
Lawyers involved in a legal challenge of the COVID-19-related travel ban wrapped up their closing submissions to Justice Donald Burrage Wednesday, leaving him with about a week’s worth of testimony and several volumes of written material to consider as he determines the constitutionality of the controversial measure.
The province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald issued the travel ban as a special measure under the Public Health Protection and Promotion Act on April 29, barring all but permanent residents, asymptomatic workers and those granted exemptions from entering the province. The ban was amended at the beginning of July to allow residents of the Maritimes to enter as part of the “Atlantic bubble.”
The province has issued close to 14,000 travel ban exemptions so far.
Lawyer John Drover filed a constitutional challenge to the ban on behalf of Kim Taylor, a native Newfoundlander and current Nova Scotia resident, who was denied an exemption when she wanted to come here for her mother’s funeral in the spring. The province reversed that decision and gave her an exemption 11 days later.
Drover is joined in the challenge by lawyer Rosellen Sullivan, who is representing the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, an independent rights watchdog. They aren’t looking for compensation, but a declaration that the travel ban is unconstitutional.
Fitzgerald and the provincial government are represented by lawyers Justin Mellor, Don Anthony and Mark Sheppard.
Over the past week, Drover and Sullivan cross-examined a number of the province’s expert witnesses, including epidemiologists Dr. Proton Rahman and Dr. Patrick Parfrey and public health physician Dr. Brenda Wilson, as well as Fitzgerald herself.
Burrage has not set a specific date to deliver his ruling, but plans to do so in writing.
