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April 24, 2025

Unlawful Suspensions in Ontario Schools – ISPA Are your child’s rights being violated?

CHD Canada has been at the forefront to protect Ontario children’s right to education and parents’ right to choose medical treatment for their children based on their sincerely held religious and conscience beliefs.

CHD Canada is supporting parents and children through education and advocacy and helping parents protect their children’s health information privacy, even through formal complaints. When parents defend their right to privacy and informed consent by learning about their legal rights and how to navigate the maze erected by public health and school officials, they are able to assert their Constitutional rights, including their children’s rights to attend school and receive an education.

Is your child facing an unlawful suspension? Please contact us here.

The following is an informational video and article outlining these rights:

Attack on medical choice and consent of school children in the USA and Canada

In the United States, legislation is being proposed to eliminate the religious exemption for school-required vaccinations. This would take away the choice for parents to decide if or when or which vaccines are best for their own children based on their genuinely held beliefs and conscience.

 

The legislators in Massachusetts seek to effectively bar children from attending both public and private K–12 schools if their families object due to their sincerely held beliefs. Another bill referred to as the “immunity bill” would allow minors to consent to vaccination, without parental consent or knowledge. It would also allow private daycares, schools and colleges to refuse religious exemptions and impose additional vaccines like the COVID-19 shots, which are not required by the Department of Public Health (DPH). In addition, the DPH would be allowed to label programs with immunization rates below a threshold as “Elevated Risk” and exclude healthy, unvaccinated children, even in the absence of an outbreak or emergency. These are the kind of laws parents of school age children in Massachusetts are fighting.

 

If religious exemptions are taken away in Massachusetts, the state would join a small handful of states that deny parents the right to object to school vaccine requirements based on sincerely held beliefs. The other US states are California, New York, Connecticut, and Maine which only allow medical exemptions, not religious exemptions. Candice Edwards, executive director of Health Action Massachusetts, is fighting to maintain the right to religious exemptions and parental consent in Massachusetts. Edwards said, “We’ve been fighting this since 2019, and it’s now become our lives to fight this and be on top of it.”

 

A similar fight is also being waged in Canada, also since 2019, to preserve the right to medical treatment of choice and the requirement for consent before vaccinating school age children, without breaching privacy rights of children, or indoctrinating and incriminating parents. In Ontario, children are required to obtain vaccines to attend schools, early years, and day care centres, unless their parents seek an exemption under the Ontario Immunization of School Pupils Act and the Childcare and Early Years Act. But these laws require parents to sign a statement that incriminates themselves for “failing to provide the necessaries of life” and which exposes them to sanction for refusal.

 

They are also required to take an “education session” before exercising their right to refuse vaccination for their children on religious and conscience grounds. If Ontario parents refuse to sign the compulsory statement and attend the “sessions” with only one-sided information, which does not include the risks and adverse effects of vaccines, their child is refused school registration and/or attendance. If the statement is not signed, a public health official attempts to bar the child from admission to, or suspension from, school. This Ontario ISPA law breaches the Constitutional rights of children and parents under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and places hurdles that cannot be overcome without relinquishing fundamental rights and freedoms.

Please equip yourselves with the knowledge about your Charter rights when it comes to the mandatory vaccines for children of school age and support CHDC in continuing our work. CHDC has prepared a FACT SHEET and RESOURCES for all parents of school age children to learn, know and defend their and their children’s Constitutional rights.

 

Please take the time to read the FACT SHEET and RESOURCES below.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT

~Children’s Health Defense Canada

 

FACT SHEET

Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA), the Education Act, the Privacy Act

and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms

 

 

The ISPA is inconsistent with the Canadian Charter.

 

Section 52 of the Canadian Charter states “The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of Canada, and any law that is inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution is, to the extent of the inconsistency, of no force or effect.”

 

This means that the ISPA is of no force or effect because it is inconsistent with the Charter. The exemption requirement creates a barrier to Charter rights. Parents are forced to pay money to have the affidavit signed by a commissioner of oaths, making it unattainable for some families.

The Charter is a right, not a privilege, you do not need to earn it, or beg for it or barter for Charter rights.

 

Section 2 of the Canadian Charter – Freedom of Speech

The ISPA exemption affidavit constitutes compelled speech, as you are not signing your own words, you are compelled to swear an affidavit of the government’s words, to access your section 2 Charter rights to freedom of speech.

 

Section 7 of the Canadian Charter – Right to Security of the Person

The government (including public schools) cannot deprive someone of their rights arbitrarily.

The Unfair application of the law, suspensions are being stayed, revoked or rescinded for kids who are doing the Ontario government Education Quality and Accountability Office

(EQAO) testing in grades 3 and 6. https://www.eqao.com/the-assessments/ Parents often have one or 2 children suspended, while their other children can attend school, and avoid suspension because the schools need the students to participate in this testing that greatly reflects the school’s performance. This highlights that the principals have the discretion to decide to not carry out PH orders, when it is self-serving. This arbitrary application of the law violates the Charter and is a complete affront to the rule of law.

 

Charter Section 8: Protection Against Unreasonable Search/Seizure

What it says: Individuals have a right to privacy against unreasonable government intrusion.

How schools and Public Health officials violate it: Demanding medical records without legal justification is unconstitutional “search.”

 

Charter Section 12: Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

Yet public health is using ISPA to remove children from school and denied education, to coerce medical records from parents. Public health advising principals to hold children in the office, children humiliated and told they need to get vaccinated to return to class, their private medical information disclosed to teachers, principals, receptionists, volunteers, other parents and students.

 

The Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA) would FAIL the Supreme Court of Canada legal test, because there is proof that PH has easily been able to accommodate many people without undue hardship. In fact, the ISPA Reg 645 outlines that PH has the discretion to accommodate (remedy) for any information that may not reasonably be possible to obtain, including an exemption affidavit but they are accommodating some parents yet unwilling to accommodate all parents equally under the law.

 

Charter Section 15 outlines Equality rights:

Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

 

Yet students are being physically barred from attending school, meanwhile every adult in the building’s vaccination status is unknown, adult’s medical records are not being extorted from them by public health. In the ISPA, as soon as the child turns 18, public health cannot order a suspension, and the students are not required to show any vaccine records or sign exemptions to attend school. This is age discrimination.

 

The suspension is unlawful: The right to education for children is enshrined in the Education Act because it is a constitutional right. Public Health suspension orders cannot constitute an order to prohibit a child from attending school because it has no basis in Immunization of School Pupils Act (ISPA) and constitutes arbitrary state action. It is contrary to Supreme Court of Canada case law.

 

There is a demonstrated lack of competence in principals to interpret and apply the ISPA and its relationship to the Education Act. The “Order to Suspend” is addressed to the principal and does not constitute a legal suspension unless a formal Notification of Suspension is delivered to the parent, as required by law. Without this proper notification, there is no legal basis for student’s exclusion from school. It is the responsibility of the school board to have some legal mechanism in place to notice the suspension.

 

Public Health lacks the jurisdiction to suspend students, so school boards are being used as an enforcement wing of the Health Units.

 

There is clear case law on the statutory interpretations of the provisions: the wording in an act (ISPA) must be given their plain ordinary meaning and not obfuscated to give public health a power that it does not have. If the legislature intended for PH to suspend a student then this would be clear in the ISPA but it is not.

 

Ontario Health Units have confirmed that the order from the Medical Officer of Health is not considered a suspension in and of itself. Unless the principal issues a legal Notification of Suspension, under the Education Act, students are not legally suspended.

 

The suspension order is addressed to the principal not the student, but when the public health recommendation is issued it is being treated as a binding suspension order, and the student is deprived of their right to education and denied access to a remedy, a fair hearing and opportunity to challenge the suspension. On the suspension order it states the appeal can be made to HSARB however HSARB is abdicating itself of that responsibility, by stating it lacks jurisdiction, as this is a suspension case under the Education Act, NOT the ISPA. Therefore, jurisdiction lies with the school boards.

 

Once the order is given to the principal, by the Medical Officer of Health, that is the end of the involvement of PH and ISPA. Then the suspensions, IF PERMISSIBLE, fall under the Education Act, and the discretion to suspend is solely under the authority of the principal of the school, under the Education Act.

 

The recommendation order from Public Health has no force or effect unless the principal gives it force or effect, under the Education Act. Therefore, the decision to suspend and the act of suspending a student are education matters, not public health matters.

 

Self Incrimination:

Under section 21 of the Ontario Education Act, attendance is compulsory for children registered in public schools. Therefore, a parent complying with an unlawful suspension forces parents to self-incriminate.

 

SIGNING AN EXEMPTION MEANS PARENTS ARE COERCED INTO AGREEING TO HEALTHY CHILDREN BEING EXCLUDED UNDER SECTION 12 of ISPA:

 

During any outbreaks that are decided and declared by Public Health, a healthy child could be excluded for days or weeks and parents have no legal recourse because they were forced to sign an exemption that they agreed to this.

 

The affidavit also requires parents to self-incriminate and state they are putting children’s lives at risk and failing to provide the necessaries or life.

 

PRIVACY VIOLATIONS: PHIPA strictly regulates who can collect, use, or disclose personal health information. Consent is not to be confused with disclosure. On page 2 of the ISPA exemption affidavit, it requires you to declare if you want your child exempt from all diseases or specific diseases. This is coercing parents to disclose private health information.

 

However, Section 18 PHIPA states you can withhold consent. Not to be confused with section 39 regarding disclosure.

 

Section 39 of the Act is amended to allow for the disclosure of personal health information for purposes related to the Immunization of School Pupils Act. This simply means public health officials and principals (who are defined in the Act as information custodians) can share information between each other without your consent but this is first predicated on you providing voluntary consent (or withholding consent) under section 18 of PHIPPA.

 

Privacy concerns are NOT without merit. In Hamilton, Ontario the “suspension program was paused” due to cybersecurity incident, involving the city of Hamilton’s IT system, so PH had to suspend the suspension program.

https://www.hwcdsb.ca/cms/One.aspx?portalId=370250&pageId=542561

 

Imagine being coerced into disclosing your private medical records and then reading that headline in the newspaper? Nothing instills confidence in a digital database like a security breech.

 

The Motivation of Public Health is financial and raises serious ethical concerns and conflict of interest.

 

Just like doctors are financially incentivized in Ontario to vaccinate children, health units are also financially motivated for their involvement in immunization programs. They are paid-and-funded by the Ontario government through taxpayer dollars to do this. Publish health employees’ salaries depend on pushing vaccines. They are not volunteers with halos trying to help children; this is not a health emergency, otherwise the whole “suspension” could not be solved with mommy or daddy signing a paper.

 

Public Health is abusing the statutory authority, to instruct principals or School boards on how to enforce suspensions, in fact, parents have observed that communication from schools and Public Health officials are often identical, verbatim, or copy pasted.

 

Public Health cannot instruct schools how to enforce the suspension, such as preventing the child from attending class, by calling CAS, or calling police to issue trespass, cancel their school bus transportation, or order children to be detained in the office, if they show up for school, and encroaching on the duty of a principal to make an independent decision under the Education Act by threatening fines to a principal.

 

The Education Act provides no authority for barring an enrolled student or parent from school under the Trespass to Property Act in the absence of a formal suspension or expulsion. The use of the Trespass to Property Act to bar access to an enrolled student without following the proper suspension procedure, is an abuse of process and lacks legal authority under the Education Act. This point further supports that a student’s exclusion from school is both unlawful and discriminatory.

 

Regulation 474 of the Education Act guarantees students and parents legal access to school property and cannot be charged with trespass. To be clear, it is illegal for a principal to refuse to admit a child to school if the student is enrolled as a student.

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/r00474

 

1. Regulation 474 governs access to school premises under section 305 of the Act.

  1. (1) The following persons are permitted to be on school premises on any day and at any time:
  2. A person enrolled as a pupil in the school.
  3. A parent or guardian of such a pupil.
  4. A person employed or retained by the board.
  5. A person who is otherwise on the premises for a lawful purpose.

(2) A person who is invited to attend an event, a class or a meeting on school premises is permitted to be on the premises for that purpose.

(3) A person who is invited onto school premises for a particular purpose by the principal, a vice–principal or another person authorized by board policy to do so is permitted to be on the premises for that purpose.

(4) Subsection (1), (2) or (3) does not entitle a person to have access to all areas of the school premises.

(5) Subsection (1) does not restrict the right of the board to lock the school premises when the premises are not being used for a purpose authorized by the board.

  1. (1) A person is not permitted to remain on school premises if his or her presence is detrimental to the safety or well–being of a person on the premises, in the judgment of the principal, a vice–principal or another person authorized by the board to make such a determination.

(2) A person is not permitted to remain on school premises if a policy of the board requires the person to report his or her presence on the premises in a specified manner and the person fails to do so.

 

According to the Education Act Ontario Regulation 440/20 Suspension of Elementary School Pupils:

YOU CANNOT SUSPEND KIDS IN JK-GRADE 3

Yet many principals are attempting to unlawfully suspend these students. https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/200440

 

(1) A pupil in junior kindergarten, kindergarten or grade 1, 2 or 3 shall not be suspended under section 306 of the Act for engaging in an activity described in subsection 306 (1) of the Act.

(2) A pupil in junior kindergarten, kindergarten or grade 1, 2 or 3 shall not be suspended under section 310 of the Act for engaging in an activity described in subsection 310 (1) of the Act unless the principal has conducted an investigation respecting the allegations.

(3) The condition set out in subparagraph 7.1 i of subsection 310 (1) of the Act does not apply in respect of a suspension under section 310 of the Act of a pupil in junior kindergarten, kindergarten or grade 1, 2 or 3.

 

The Education Act also provides that in determining the length of suspension for a student in any grade, a principal shall take into account mitigating and other factors as listed in Regulation 472/07. These factors include the age of the pupil and “whether the activity for which the pupil may be…suspended…was related to any harassment of the pupil because of race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation or to any other harassment.”

 

Along with these mitigating and other factors, a principal considering a suspension must also act according to Ministry direction as outlined in Policy/Program Memorandum 145 “Progressive Discipline and Promoting Positive Student Behaviour,”[6] which states that Principals are responsible for using a range of progressive interventions and supports for addressing inappropriate student behaviour.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=c8adb60b-edb3-4ff6-92f6-0e300a4a9f24

 

Mitigating Factors Principals must consider before Suspending

Ontario Regulation 472/07 sets out a number of factors that a principal must consider before suspending a student. These factors, which are often the focus of successful appeals, are all ones that reduce the length of a suspension or make a suspension entirely inappropriate. The factors that a principal is required to consider before suspending a student are:

  1. The student does not have the ability to control his or her behaviour.
  2. The student does not have the ability to understand the foreseeable consequences of his or her behaviour.
  3. The student’s continuing presence in the school does not create an unacceptable risk to the safety of any person.
  4. The student’s history (if it mitigates the seriousness of the behaviour).
  5. The absence of a progressive discipline approach being used with the student, if that approach was possible.
  6. Whether the activity for which the student may be or is being suspended was related to any harassment of the pupil because of his or her race, ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation or to any other harassment.
  7. How the suspension or expulsion would affect the student’s ongoing education.
  8. The age of the student (if it mitigates the seriousness of the behaviour).
  9. Whether the suspension is likely to result in an aggravation or worsening of the student’s behaviour or conduct.
  10. In the case of a student for whom an individual education plan has been developed,

 

 

SIX PARENT ACTIONS TO ADDRESS UNLAWFUL SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS:

 

1.) Parents May Formally Request a School Board Hearing to discuss the Education Act violations: 

Send email or certified mail the request to the:

  • Principal
  • Superintendent of schools
  • School Board
  • School Board Trustees
  • Your Ontario member of Parliament (MPP)

 

2.) Contact Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP):  You can call or email and arrange a meeting with your local MPP to discuss your concerns and ask for support and guidance on how to protect your child’s rights.  https://www.ola.org/en/members/current

 

3.) File a legal case in small claims court to recover any financial damages: https://www.ontario.ca/page/file-small-claims-court-documents-online

 

4.) File a human rights complaint: https://tribunalsontario.ca/hrto/application-and-hearing-process/#panel1

 

5.) Contact Ombudsman to file a complaint: https://www.ombudsman.on.ca/home

 

6.) File a privacy complaint: https://www.ipc.on.ca/en/privacy-individuals/filing-a-privacy-complaint/privacy-complaints-process

RESOURCES:

Health protection and promotion Act:  www.ontario.ca/laws HPPA

Education Act Ontario: www.ontario.ca/laws Education Act

Education Act REGULATION 474/00:  ACCESS TO SCHOOL PREMISES (Trespass)

Education Act Regulation 440/20:  No Suspension of JK – Grade 3 students

Safe Schools Act: Policies are not laws States that School Policies are Not Regulations (Laws)

Immunization of School Pupils Act: www.ontario.ca/laws ISPA

ISPA Regulation 645: www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation 645

Privacy Act: www.ontario.ca/laws PHIPA

Ontario Creating Safe and Accepting Schools: resources-schools-and-school-boards

 

 

 

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