Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Presentation of Evidence Ends in Federal Data Scientist's Disciplinary Hearing:
Can a Public Servant's Duty of Loyalty Be More Important Than Public Health and Safety?

OTTAWA, October 29, 2026 — The presentation of evidence in a public hearing before the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board (FPSLREB) ended on October 23, 2026. The case concerns a senior federal data scientist who was disciplined after publicly raising concerns about the Canadian government's COVID-19 vaccination policies and the official data used to support them.

Dr. Dmitry Gorodnichy, a senior data scientist at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), is challenging a five-day suspension imposed in October 2022 after he spoke first at work and then publicly about COVID-19 vaccine safety, effectiveness, and government data.

The hearing took place in February and October 2026. Both sides must now submit their final arguments in writing before the Board makes its decision.

How It All Started: A Choice Between Taking the Second Shot and Losing His Job

Dr. Dmitry Gorodnichy was not initially opposed to COVID-19 vaccination. Encouraged by the government's messaging, he received his first vaccine dose early in the vaccination campaign.

However, after observing vaccine side effects among family members and colleagues, and being unable to report them, he became concerned about the risks of taking another dose. He also began questioning the need for these vaccines and the transparency of information about their side effects and effectiveness.

As a senior data scientist trained in evaluating the performance of commercial systems using data—which had been his main responsibility at CBSA since joining the agency in 2007—he decided to examine the available government data himself before making his decision.

By October 2021, his initial analysis had raised sufficient concerns for him to apply for a religious exemption, following his beliefs in Dharma—the righteous way of living—and Karma—the consequences of our actions.

As more post-marketing vaccine safety data became available starting in October 2021, he continued his analysis. With support from the data science community, which he led at the time, he also began developing interactive tools to examine vaccine-related data published by the government. These included Statistics Canada data on deaths by age and cause, and Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) data on COVID-19 deaths by vaccination status and age.

By January 2022, his further analysis had reinforced his initial concerns and convinced him that taking the second shot would harm both his physical and spiritual bodies.

When he was informed that month that his religious exemption request had been denied, he faced a difficult choice: take the second vaccine dose against his concerns and beliefs, or lose his job and income for an unknown period of time. He was the main source of income for his family with four children.

From a Personal Decision to Public-Health Concerns

What began as an attempt to report suspected vaccine side effects experienced by a family member, and a search for evidence to make an informed personal decision about his own health, soon became a much larger concern about the COVID-19 information the Government of Canada was—and was not—providing to Canadians.

He began raising his questions with CBSA management and seeking opportunities to discuss the data with colleagues and other scientists. 

He observed firsthand, and had his concerns confirmed by colleagues from Canadian universities, the use of obfuscating “cumulative” reporting techniques in official data on COVID-19 cases and deaths by vaccination status. He argued that these techniques hid concerning trends of ever-increasing COVID-19 death rates among vaccinated people. His concerns about the reporting methods were later supported by the government's response to an Order Paper Question (OPQ).

Unable to find a public link to the online vaccine side-effect reporting form, he worked with colleagues at Health Canada to build a portal and training materials to help other colleagues report vaccine side effects. At the time, he did not know that Health Canada had removed the link to its online vaccine side-effect reporting form immediately before COVID-19 vaccination began. He discovered this later by examining the history of Health Canada's website and the government's response to an Order Paper Question (OPQ).

He also raised concerns about an observed increase in deaths among young Canadians starting with the introduction of vaccination mandates. These concerns were shared with his Employer in early winter 2022 and documented in the Employer's investigation report in spring 2022. It was only several months later, in September 2022, that official Statistics Canada reports highlighted the same concerning increase in deaths among young Canadians.

Earlier Warning Signs: Fear of Reprisals at Federal Health Agencies

Gorodnichy emphasized that he had become aware of serious concerns about workplace ethics at Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through his earlier work developing an interactive web application for examining Public Service Employee Survey (PSES) results, he had discovered that the very organizations and units responsible for Canadians' health, vaccine products, and public-health policies ranked among the lowest across the federal public service on questions concerning fear of reprisals and workplace ethics.

These findings contributed to his concerns about whether government decisions were being made with integrity if employees within these organizations did not feel safe freely raising questions about vaccines and government policies.

Continuing Development of Public-Health Data Tools While on Leave Without Pay

When placed on leave without pay (LWOP), Gorodnichy needed to find another source of income to support his family. He decided to repurpose his IVIM.ca website, originally created in 2007 to support Nouse (Nose as Mouse), an intelligent vision-interface technology he had developed while working at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to help people with disabilities use computers.

He began using IVIM.ca to develop and share interactive applications allowing Canadians to examine official government COVID-19 data directly from the source, which he branded as the Independently Verified Information Machine (IVIM).

He also invited other data scientists, including scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom, to his weekly seminars and shared his observations publicly.

He continued this work until he was reinstated in June 2022, following the suspension of the federal vaccination mandates.

While he was on leave without pay, his employer accused him of violating his duty of loyalty to the government. In October 2022, after his return to work, CBSA imposed a five-day disciplinary suspension.

A Case About the Duty of Loyalty and the Right to Raise Public-Health Concerns

The main question is whether a public servant's duty of loyalty to the government can justify punishment when that employee publicly raises concerns about government policies that they believe may put people's health and safety at risk.

In Fraser v. Public Service Staff Relations Board (1985), the Supreme Court of Canada recognized that public servants may speak out against government policies in certain situations, including when the government is acting illegally or when its policies put people's lives, health, or safety at risk.

These principles, also examined in Haydon, are important to this case.

“As a data scientist, I believe that when official data show serious problems, our responsibility is to investigate them and raise concerns—not to remain silent because the findings may be inconvenient,” said Gorodnichy.

What Happens Next?

The Board ended the presentation of evidence on October 23, 2026, and set the following deadlines:

• November 27, 2026: CBSA must submit its final written arguments.

• December 11, 2026: Gorodnichy must submit his response.

• December 22, 2026: CBSA may submit a final reply.

The Board has not yet made a decision.

The case number is FPSLREB 566-02-48305 — Dmitry Gorodnichy v. Canada Border Services Agency.

Why This Case Matters to All Canadians

This case is about much more than the Grievor's five-day suspension. As Gorodnichy stated in his opening statement:

“The outcome of this hearing would signal what kind of public service and what kind of Canada we are moving toward:

A country where the evidence is driven by political narratives or a country where political narratives are driven by the evidence.

A country where professionals who speak up against political pressures affecting public safety are persecuted, or a country where these professionals are protected by law—as the foundation of a fearless, professional Public Service that Canadians can trust.”

A Personal Connection to the Chernobyl Disaster

In his opening statement, Gorodnichy drew a parallel between his experience and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which he experienced as a Grade 8 student in Kyiv, Ukraine. His father, a physicist, defied official government assurances that everything was safe, using his own Geiger counter to measure dangerously high radiation levels in school playgrounds. He urged as many people as possible to leave Kyiv immediately, helping save many children, including Gorodnichy himself, from radiation exposure. His mother, who remained in Kyiv to help clean the city of radiation, was diagnosed with myeloma 15 years later and died at age 61 from the consequences of radiation exposure.

Just as his father used a Geiger counter to challenge government assurances about radiation in 1986, Gorodnichy used his own data-analysis tools in 2022 to examine official government information about COVID-19 vaccination and communicate risks affecting his children's generation. He dedicated the hearing to his mother and father, and also to Sean Hartman and other young Canadians who tragically died as a result of COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

As Gorodnichy emphasized during the final days of his hearing:

“As a data scientist, my job is to identify red flags and uncover correlations. The evidence I presented calls for a full-scale investigation into government actions during 2020–2022. I am not a police investigator. It is now the responsibility of law enforcement to investigate these findings, establish causality, determine whether any laws were broken, and hold those responsible accountable.”

Further Information

The case is still before the Board. The documents accepted as exhibits are now part of the official hearing record. Their acceptance does not mean that the Board has agreed with every conclusion drawn from them.

The Grievor acknowledges the assistance of many of his public servant colleagues, including those who agreed to testify but were not called, and those who could not testify because of fear of reprisals. He asks everyone following the hearing to remain courteous in their comments on social networks so that the legal process can proceed without disruption and the matter can be heard fully and fairly.

For the online version of this press release with hyperlinks, hearing evidence, exhibits, notes, and updates, visit IVIM.ca/hearing. 

Media contact:

Dr. Dmitry Gorodnichy (Ph.D. in Mathematics; Ph.D. in Computing Science)
Senior Data Scientist, Chief Data Office
Canada Border Services Agency (at the time of the hearing)
dg@ivim.ca 

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Disclaimer: The views and statements in this press release are those of the Grievor, who acts and speaks in his personal capacity and does not represent CBSA, the Government of Canada, or any other organization.