AMOS, QC: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that the Superior Court of Québec has dismissed Stéphanie Pépin’s appeal challenging Québec’s Covid curfew. While the Court upheld the curfew as a justified limit on constitutional freedoms during the Covid pandemic, it also affirmed that the curfew infringed Ms. Pépin’s rights to liberty, freedom of expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The judgment was released today, July 29, 2026, more than fifteen months after the appeal was argued on April 16, 2025.
Ms. Pépin received a ticket on January 9, 2021, after police stopped her while she was driving to attend a peaceful protest against Québec’s newly imposed Covid curfew. Lawyers funded by the Justice Centre challenged the constitutionality of the measure.
Québec was the only jurisdiction in Canada to impose a province-wide Covid curfew. Beginning on January 9, 2021, residents were prohibited from leaving their homes between 8:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m., with police authorized to issue fines ranging from $1,000 to $6,000. The curfew remained in effect until May 28, 2021, and was reimposed from December 31, 2021, to January 17, 2022.
Between September 2020 and October 2021, approximately 46,000 pandemic-related tickets were issued in Québec, including about 22,500 for alleged curfew violations, representing an estimated $30 million in fines.
Ms. Pépin’s constitutional challenge was first heard over four days in September 2023. During the trial, constitutional lawyer Olivier Séguin cross-examined Dr. Horacio Arruda, Québec’s National Director of Public Health during the pandemic, and Dr. Richard Massé, his strategic medical advisor and one of the architects of the Public Health Act. They acknowledged that the curfew was intended not only to reduce the spread of Covid but also to reinforce compliance with other public health measures and send a clear message to Quebecers.
In January 2024, the trial judge ruled that the curfew infringed Ms. Pépin’s rights to liberty, freedom of expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly, but concluded that those infringements were justified under section 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Superior Court has now upheld that conclusion on appeal. The Court also acknowledged that peaceful political demonstrations held during curfew hours were prohibited because they did not fall within any of the permitted exceptions.
“While we are disappointed by today’s decision, the Court again recognized that Québec’s Covid curfew infringed fundamental Charter freedoms,” said constitutional lawyer Olivier Séguin. “The central question was whether those infringements were justified during a public health emergency, and whether public health legislation authorized broad collective restrictions such as a curfew.”
He continued, “Governments exercising extraordinary emergency powers should remain subject to meaningful constitutional limits, and Canadians deserve clear guidance on where those limits lie.”
The decision is being reviewed by constitutional lawyers to determine whether any further legal steps are appropriate.
The Justice Centre is Canada’s leading civil liberties organization fighting for Charter rights and freedoms in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion. Founded in 2010, the Justice Centre funds lawyers across Canada, relies entirely on voluntary donations to carry out its mission, and issues official tax receipts to donors.
