(LifeSiteNews) –– A man denied work as a poll worker in 2021 because he chose not to wear a mask has lost a legal battle after Canada’s Federal Court ruled in favor of Elections Canada, who had in place a mask mandate for its workers during the last federal election.  

Justice Michael Manson, in his ruling, wrote that in his view, “There was no procedural unfairness” regarding Elections Canada mandating masks for poll workers in the 2021 federal election.  

At the time, Elections Canada said that “all poll workers” had to wear a mask.  

The case concerns a man from West Vancouver who was denied work as a deputy returning officer because he did not want to wear a mask. 

In the 2021 federal election, Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault had suggested that maskless voters would be denied the right to vote.  

“If you have a medical exemption and you have not been able to vote by mail in advance and you have a medical reason not to wear a mask, then you will not be denied a right to vote,” he said. 

He added, “But if it’s just a matter of personal choice and the mask is mandatory in the jurisdiction in which you’re voting, then we will apply those rules.” 

When it comes to federal elections, there is no Act from Parliament that allows to disqualify voters who are maskless. As for the 2021 election, results from a 2022 Survey Of Election Offices For The 44th Federal General Election show that 39 percent of election workers said they experienced harassment while working in the election due to COVID rules. 

As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, an Alberta man claimed he was turned away from casting an early vote for municipal elections at a polling station inside a college because he did not have the COVID jabs.  

In Canada, mask mandates, which were in place nationwide for a time, were deemed pointless according to results from focus groups commissioned by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s own Privy Council, which in a May 16, 2022 report, noted masks had “little impact overall with some feeling in many cases they had done more harm than good.”