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       Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin leaves Gatineau's police station after being processed on Aug. 18, 2021.

       Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

       Major-General Dany Fortin’s bid to be reinstated as the leader of the federal government’s vaccine rollout – while still facing a charge of sexual assault – has been quashed by the Federal Court.

       Justice Ann Marie McDonald’s decision says Maj.-Gen. Fortin should have first challenged his dismissal from the vaccine distribution campaign using the internal grievance process for the Canadian Armed Forces, a position the government’s lawyers have argued.

       “As Maj.-Gen. Fortin has not yet availed himself of the CAF grievance process on these issues, the Court will not consider the merits of his application as it has been brought prematurely,” Justice McDonald said in her written decision.

       Maj.-Gen. Fortin challenged his dismissal in court after the Department of National Defence announced in a terse statement on May 14 that he left his position “pending the results of a military investigation.” Military police referred his case to the Quebec prosecutor’s office, and in August he was charged with one count of sexual assault, which he said he would “vigorously” defend himself against.

       In a sworn affidavit, provided to The Globe and Mail, Maj.-Gen. Fortin said he was informed by a military police investigator on April 19 that he was being investigated for one instance of sexual misconduct. He said the investigator shared the name of the complainant and said the misconduct “was alleged to have occurred more than 30 years ago.”

       Justice McDonald’s decision follows a two-day hearing in September in which his lawyers and the government’s disputed who had made the final decision to remove the senior military officer from his high-profile post and the reason for the decision.

       Maj.-Gen. Fortin’s legal team argued before Justice McDonald that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of his government secretly decided to have him turfed from his temporary position at the Public Health Agency of Canada for political reasons.

       In the sworn affidavit, Maj.-Gen. Fortin said PHAC president Iain Stewart told him on May 13 that Health Minister Patty Hajdu and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan “wanted to remove me” from the job. That evening, Maj.-Gen. Fortin said, acting chief of the defence staff General Wayne Eyre told him “the ‘political calculus’ had changed and that the [Privy Council Office] had said I would have to be removed.”

       His legal team argued the government’s actions constituted inappropriate political interference in the military’s internal affairs and violated Maj.-Gen. Fortin’s rights to due process, presumption of innocence and privacy; consequently, he should be reinstated as head of the vaccine rollout campaign or to a similar post.

       Those concerns, though, weren’t enough to justify skipping the military’s internal grievance process, Justice McDonald decided.

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       “It is clear that the issues raised in the application are service related matters and the allegations of political interference are not ‘exceptional circumstances’ that would allow Maj.-Gen. Fortin to bypass the grievance process and seek a preliminary remedy in this Court,” she wrote.

       Government lawyers had asked Justice McDonald to throw out the lawsuit. They maintained Gen. Eyre made the decision in the interests of the vaccine rollout and a police investigation into Maj.-Gen. Fortin’s conduct – and that if he wasn’t happy with the move, he should have taken it up with the military.

       In a statement, Maj.-Gen. Fortin’s lawyers said they are disappointed with the outcome and are still determining next steps.

       “It is unfortunate that the court did not address the merits of Maj.-Gen. Fortin’s case and instead determined that the grievance was an adequate alternative remedy,” Natalia Rodriguez told The Globe Tuesday.

       “Our position continues to be that the military grievance process cannot quash a decision made outside of the military chain of command and that it lacks authority over the ministers who made the decision to remove Maj.-Gen. Fortin from his secondment.”

       The government did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Globe.

       With a report from The Canadian Press

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