(Ottawa) Major-General Dany Fortin has decided to appeal after a Federal Court judge quashed his request to be reinstated as head of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
Dany Fortin’s legal team filed a notice of appeal of the verdict on Friday, saying Judge Ann Marie McDonald erred in her ruling last week that the senior officer should have filed a complaint with the army before going to court.
Major-General Fortin is fighting for his reinstatement after being abruptly removed from his post as chief of the immunization deployment in May due to a police investigation that resulted in a sexual assault charge in August.
Dany Fortin has proclaimed his innocence and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior Liberal government officials of excluding him from the vaccination campaign for purely political reasons.
Government lawyers in turn argued in a two-day hearing last month that if Dany Fortin was not happy with the decision, he should have filed a grievance.
But Dany Fortin’s legal team in its notice of appeal said Justice McDonald erred in accepting the government’s position by failing to consider the exceptional circumstances surrounding their client’s case as well as the shortcomings of the army grievance system.