Page - 224 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE224 civile en matière de dommages-intérêts est différente. Le présent cha- pitre traite de la pertinence de ces actions à la lumière de l’immunité judiciaire dont jouissent les gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux («  la Couronne  »). La première section de ce chapitre aborde l’état du droit et les derniers développements en matière de responsabilité de la Couronne au Canada. Puis, la signification et les conséquences des plus récentes décisions de la Cour suprême du Canada concernant la responsabilité de l’État dans le contexte de la pandémie de COVID- 19, y compris pour les agissements de ses ministères, fonctionnaires, agents, sociétés et entrepreneurs indépendants, sont examinées dans la deuxième section. The COVID-19 pandemic has already led to legal proceedings being initiated against long-term care homes. It is reasonable to assume that lawsuits against public and governmental institu- tions will follow, led for example by aggrieved families or essential workers. Doctors, nurses, and long-term care home workers who were infected with COVID-19 because of a lack of personal protec- tive equipment (PPE), patients who were infected due to the back and forth from long-term care homes to hospitals, and individuals who caught COVID-19 in the community due to lack of testing or lack of precautionary measures are some of the examples of possi- ble lawsuits against public and governmental entities. This chapter addresses the likely success of these actions in light of the immu- nity from lawsuits that the federal and provincial governments (“the Crown”) enjoy. While the federal and provincial governments are accountable before the courts for violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights  and  Freedoms, the Crown’s liability in tort for damages because it was negligent is a different matter. As I will demonstrate in this chapter, establishing the contours of the “Crown” in the context of its civil liability for a tort is important for understanding the likelihood of success of lawsuits brought against it, as well as the applicability of Crown immunity from suit. In the first section, I discuss the state of the law and recent devel- opments in relation to the Crown’s liability in Canada. In the second section, I discuss the meaning and consequences of the Supreme Court of Canada’s most recent decisions for the Crown’s liability in the con- text of the COVID-19 pandemic. My conclusion is that prospective