Quebec COVID-19 curfew legal challenge reaches Court of Appeal

Lawyers funded by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms have filed an application to appeal a decision upholding Quebec’s 2021 COVID-19 curfew. The appeal is being filed on behalf of Stéphanie Pépin, who received a ticket for participating in a peaceful demonstration against the curfew in January 2021.

The legal challenge questions whether the Quebec government possessed the statutory authority under the Public Health Act to impose a curfew that restricted Charter rights for disciplinary purposes. While lower courts upheld the curfew, the appellants argue that the government's emergency powers do not grant a “blank cheque” to restrict freedoms for objectives that are disciplinary rather than strictly related to public health.