Canada’s Constitution makes it such that the presumptive and preeminent jurisdiction in matters of employment, labour relations writ large, privacy and health and safety at work is provincial, not federal. This is in marked contrast to the U.S. In Canada, federal legislation applies only to select industries where the federal government is given exclusive or at least primary legislative competence by specific constitutional provisions or, whereas in the case of privacy, specific provinces have opted to apply the federal regime rather than create their own.

Vaccine mandates and responses to COVID-19 raise concerns that involve privacy, health, and safety at work and, as some allege, issues of “inherent civil rights” that intersect with and challenge public interest. This may and does lead to differing responses as between provinces. Ideology of the governing party of each of the provinces and that of the federal government also plays an important role in determining each jurisdiction’s response. That the debate regarding COVID-19 responses — vaccine mandates, obligatory mask wearing etc. — has become politicized and polarized is reflected by the ongoing “truckers’ occupation”, in Ottawa, the nation’s capital, and the virtual blockage also by “truckers” of the Alberta– U.S. border, COVID-19 fatigue has melded with certain populist ideologies to produce civil disobedience which, while its primary focus may have begun as opposition to vaccine mandates, compulsory masking and/or other governmental controls, has now morphed into demands upon governments that are as ill-defined as their impact is substantial. In short, as respects COVID-19 responses and constraints, one size definitely does not fit all, and varies from province to province, shifting and evolving even as we speak. Definitely a work in progress.