A nurse prepares a Pfizer vaccine on Oct. 3, 2021. (Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)
By Jeff Sandes
A lawsuit launched more than two years ago by a group of former Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students over the school’s COVID vaccination policy has been given clearance to proceed.
Ryan O’Connor has been representing 18 students from the university, which was formerly known as Ryerson, since they launched their lawsuit in 2022. Despite the long delay, a judge has now decided enough evidence exists to move the case to discovery, he told The Epoch Times.
“[TMU lawyers] wanted to appear in court to attempt to schedule a summary judgment motion and have the lawsuit tossed, claiming there was no viable cause for action that the students had against the university,” Mr. O’Connor said.
However, in February the court decided “this is a case that ought to go through the normal legal process,” he said. He expects the sharing of evidence and oral cross-examinations to begin sometime this summer.
“This is an opportunity to review the university’s evidence and the rationale behind why it decided to adopt the policy it did,” Mr. O’Connor said. “And let’s be clear, they had to adopt a vaccine policy but they were not required to deregister or otherwise discipline students who were not able to be vaccinated for whatever reason.”
He said the more time passes since the policy was adopted, “the more we’re understanding the risk [of vaccination] far outweighed any sort of reward. We also knew that at the time, the vaccines were not stopping transmission. And the university would have had that evidence at the time the policy was adopted in the fall of 2021.”
Vina Quiambao is one of the plaintiffs. When the policy came in, she already had bachelor’s degrees in commerce and philosophy and had met the demanding qualifications to pursue her master’s in philosophy. She was also working two jobs on campus.
Distracted and worried her choice to remain vaccine-free would lead to her expulsion and loss of employment, she says she struggled to meet her academic requirements.
‘My Entire Life Was on the Line’
“I basically had to fail the course because I didn’t have it in me to write when my entire life was on the line,” she said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
“Because of that, they had to withdraw me. So I actually can’t enrol in that program anymore.” She said the loss left her devastated.
Ms. Quiambao found other TMU students in the same situation. Together, they tried working with the school’s administration to find a solution, she said. Many had applied for exemptions but were rejected, she noted, and were told by the school there were no plans to accommodate them.
“At that point, we thought it was time that we take it more seriously and actually consider legal action together,” Ms. Quiambao said.
“Starting a lawsuit is not something you do lightly, and patience is just something that we committed to,” fellow plaintiff Curtis Heinen told The Epoch Times.
“[TMU] is trying, I guess, to make us go away. The longer this takes, the more likely they probably think we are going to leave them alone. But we won’t. I think the longer it takes, the better our case is becoming. So we have every reason to be patient. We expected this from the get-go,” he said.
Mr. Heinen was in his third year of the urban and regional planning program at the TMU when the COVID policy was implemented. He says he believes the university overstepped its boundaries by demanding personal medical information it had no authority to have.
Standing by his principles on the issue, he refused to declare his vaccination status until the school deregistered him, which he says forced him to return to his work as an electrician.
Seeking Justice, Accountability
“It’s the justice and the accountability,” Mr. Heinen said about why he’s committed to this legal fight.
“I want to see justice. I want to see accountability. I want to see this not happen again.”
TMU has not rescinded the mandate, he said, and it could be reinstated at any point. “They still hold the position that it was entirely justified and they haven’t given any indication that they’ll never do this again.”
Like Ms. Quiambao, Mr. Heinen said school administrators made little effort to dialogue with students or budge from the position that the policy was required by the provincial government.
“But at some point, the chief medical officer of health himself said that he never mandated universities to do what they did. They were never required to deregister students, we know this. So it’s only a matter of time before that argument falls on its face.”
TMU posted the COVID policy on its website in August 2021, saying it had to be followed by students, staff, and others coming to campus.
“To protect the health and safety of community members on campus and to comply with the recommendations from public health authorities and the provincial government’s mandate, Ryerson, like other post-secondary institutions in Ontario, will require individuals to submit proof of vaccination,” the post said.
The decision followed a letter by Dr. Charles Gardner, chair of the Council of Ontario Medical Officers of Health, advising Ontario post-secondary institutions to create mandatory vaccination policies following the advice of then-Ontario Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore.
In the letter, Dr. Gardner said, “The virus will continue to circulate this fall and it is important to create the conditions that will allow students to return to in person education and the post-secondary sector to operate with appropriate public health measures in place during the covid (sic) pandemic.”
Ineligible for Exemption
Curtis Heinen, one of 18 plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Toronto Metropolitan University, in a Burnaby, B.C., coffee shop in March 2024. (Jeff Sandes/The Epoch Times)
Students were given the opportunity to submit their vaccination status or apply for an exemption by the deadline of Nov. 1, 2021. Mr. Heinen said he didn’t know of anybody who received an exemption.
A few months after he was deregistered, Mr. Heinen started a podcast where he interviewed students and professors affected by school mandates. It was an effort to bridge the divisional and philosophical gap between medical decisions and bodily autonomy.
He met Justin Bulicz, a law student at York University, who, like Mr. Heinen and the other plaintiffs, also used the legal system to protest the validity of the mandates.
Mr. Bulicz complied with the first dose of the vaccine mandate at York out of convenience, he told The Epoch Times. He ended up with hypertension and tachycardia, a condition characterized by rapid heartbeats. Despite the adverse reactions, he didn’t qualify for an exemption, he says.
After unsuccessfully trying to work with the school administration on accommodation, he took legal action.
“I filed for an urgent injunction to stop them from dropping me from a number of my classes, which is what they were going to do,” he said. “And it was a bigger issue for me because one of these classes was full-term and I wouldn’t have been refunded tuition if I dropped it halfway through. I was going through a lot of physical difficulty and a lot of stress, so I wanted to get my year done if I could.”
He said the school dropped him from his classes when he filed his lawsuit, forcing him to amend the lawsuit and sue for damages.
“Shortly after, they came to the table and we sorted that out from there,” he said. “We reached a settlement and I got back into my classes and I was able to finish that first year.”
Mr. Bulicz expects to graduate this spring.
The Epoch Times reached out to TMU for comment on the lawsuit’s moving to discovery but did not receive a reply.