Alberta’s COVID-19 Related Measures Act limits civil claims against specified health-sector organizations and individuals for COVID-19 infection or exposure occurring on or after March 1, 2020. Protection applies when the defendant followed, or made a good-faith effort to follow, applicable public-health guidance and COVID-19 laws, unless the conduct amounted to gross negligence.
The protection covers health service facilities, regional health authorities and regulated health professionals, along with many of their personnel and contractors. It does not eliminate every avenue of redress: claims connected to operations that the law required to close remain outside the protection, as do proceedings under listed employment, labour, occupational-safety and workers’ compensation statutes.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act bars damages actions arising directly or indirectly from a person being infected with or exposed to COVID-19 when a covered actor made a good-faith effort to comply with applicable public-health guidance and COVID-19 laws. The defence does not apply to gross negligence, certain mandatory-closure conduct or administrative processes and proceedings under specified statutes.
Who It Affects
The main covered groups are health service facilities, regional health authorities, regulated health professionals and their owners, operators, directors, officers, employees, contractors and subcontractors. The Lieutenant Governor in Council can expand or narrow the Act’s coverage by regulation, including on a retroactive basis.
Why It Matters
The Act shifts COVID-19 litigation away from ordinary negligence disputes about rapidly changing guidance and toward questions of good faith and gross negligence. Its retroactive operation reaches conduct dating back to March 1, 2020, while its exclusions preserve selected employment, labour, safety and compensation regimes.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act creates a statutory liability shield for a defined group of health-sector actors. It covers public hospitals, surgical facilities, auxiliary hospitals, mental-health facilities, nursing homes, pharmacies, protective safe houses, supportive-living accommodations and residential addiction-treatment locations.
It also reaches regional health authorities and regulated members under the Health Professions Act, together with specified people working for or contracting with them. Regulations can add other facilities, people or classes of people.
The central test has two parts. First, the covered actor must have acted, or made an honest effort to act, in line with the public-health guidance and federal, provincial or municipal COVID-19 laws that applied at the time.
The statute defines public-health guidance broadly, covering advice, recommendations, directives, instructions and guidance from governments, health authorities, public-health officials, municipalities and relevant regulatory bodies. Second, the conduct cannot amount to gross negligence.
The Act applies even when applicable guidance or laws conflict, and it says that differing levels of detail do not by themselves create a conflict.The protection operates as a bar on actions for damages where infection or exposure resulted directly or indirectly from the covered actor’s act or omission. It also extends, with necessary modifications, to a person who would otherwise face vicarious liability when the underlying actor receives protection.
The provision applies whether the relevant cause of action arose before, on or after the section’s effective date, and the Act itself takes effect from March 1, 2020.The shield has defined limits. It does not cover conduct related to an aspect of a facility or operation that a law required to close, if the conduct occurred while that closure requirement applied.
Nor does it displace administrative processes or proceedings under other Acts, including employment standards, labour relations, occupational health and safety, police and public-service labour statutes, and most matters under the Workers’ Compensation Act. The Act also preserves existing statutory and common-law defences and immunities, including the protection in section 66.1 of the Public Health Act.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The Act reaches conduct occurring on or after March 1, 2020, including causes of action that arose before the liability provision came into force.
“Good-faith effort” means an honest effort whether or not the effort was reasonable, giving the statutory test a lower threshold than a requirement of objectively reasonable compliance.
The liability bar operates despite conflicts or inconsistencies among applicable COVID-19 guidance and laws; differences in specificity alone do not count as a conflict.
The Lieutenant Governor in Council may prescribe additional covered groups, exclude specified groups from protection and impose terms and conditions, with regulations capable of retroactive effect back to March 1, 2020.
The Act does not extinguish remedies under the Employment Standards Code, Labour Relations Code, Occupational Health and Safety Act, listed public-sector labour statutes or most of the Workers’ Compensation Act.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Definitions, scope and Crown coverage
Section 1 builds the Act’s framework. It defines the covered health facilities and regional health authorities, adopts Public Health Act meanings unless the Act provides otherwise, and treats public-health guidance broadly enough to include communications from multiple levels of government and regulatory bodies. It also preserves existing defences and immunities rather than replacing them.
Section 2 identifies the initial protected groups and expressly includes associated directors, officers, employees, contractors and subcontractors. Section 3 binds the Crown, preventing the government from falling outside the Act merely because it is a public entity.
Good-faith COVID-19 liability protection
Section 4 bars damages actions based on direct or indirect COVID-19 infection or exposure when a covered actor made a good-faith effort to follow applicable COVID-19 guidance and laws, provided the conduct was not grossly negligent. The provision addresses both the substantive standard and the practical uncertainty of overlapping or inconsistent instructions by making such conflicts immaterial to the protection.
The section also handles timing and vicarious liability. It applies to causes of action arising before, on or after its commencement and can protect a party whose liability depends on another person’s conduct when that underlying conduct qualifies for protection.
No compensation for lost claims
Section 5 prevents a person from seeking compensation or another remedy solely because the Act extinguishes or terminates a right. This closes off a separate claim based on the legislation’s retroactive removal of a damages action.
Exception for legally required closures
Section 6 removes the section 4 shield for an act or omission occurring while a law required the relevant operation to close, in whole or in part, when the conduct concerns the aspect that had to close. The exception is tied to both the timing of the closure requirement and the specific operation affected; it is not a blanket exclusion for every event occurring during a closure period.
Preserved employment, safety and compensation processes
Section 7 keeps section 4 from blocking administrative processes and proceedings under other legislation. It specifically identifies employment standards, workers’ compensation, labour relations, occupational health and safety, police collective bargaining and public-service employee-relations statutes.
The section also confirms that the Act does not disturb Workers’ Compensation Act immunities, including those in sections 21 and 22. This preserves distinct statutory systems rather than forcing every COVID-19-related dispute into the new civil-liability framework.
Regulatory power to modify coverage
Section 8 gives the Lieutenant Governor in Council broad authority to prescribe additional facilities, people or classes of people, identify groups to which section 4 will not apply and impose conditions on the protection. The regulation-making power also covers other measures needed to carry out the Act.
Regulations may operate retroactively to a date no earlier than March 1, 2020. That creates flexibility to adjust the shield as the government identifies additional categories or exceptions, but it also means the scope of past liability can change through subordinate legislation.
Retroactive effective date
Section 9 gives the Act effect from March 1, 2020. The date anchors the legislation to the start of the covered period and works with section 4’s express treatment of pre-commencement causes of action.
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Who Benefits
- Hospitals, continuing-care operators and other listed health facilities benefit from a defence against qualifying COVID-19 damages claims tied to their pandemic operations.
- Regional health authorities receive protection for their own conduct and for qualifying acts or omissions by personnel, agents, contractors and subcontractors.
- Regulated health professionals and their employers gain more certainty when responding to changing public-health instructions, particularly where guidance was inconsistent or incomplete.
- Directors, officers, employees and contractors of covered organizations may avoid personal or vicarious exposure when their conduct meets the Act’s good-faith standard.
- The provincial government and public health system benefit from a narrower range of retrospective civil claims and reduced uncertainty over pandemic-era operational decisions.
Who Bears the Cost
- Patients, residents, families and others alleging COVID-19 exposure may lose a damages action even where they can show an infection linked to a covered actor, unless the statutory exceptions apply.
- Health facilities and professionals still face potential claims involving gross negligence, mandatory-closure operations or conduct outside the Act, requiring fact-specific litigation over the boundaries of the shield.
- Employers, unions and regulators remain subject to proceedings under preserved employment, labour and occupational-safety regimes, so the Act does not provide a universal litigation defence.
- Contractors and subcontractors must assess both their own status under section 2 and whether a principal’s conduct supports vicarious protection, creating additional scope and documentation questions.
- Courts and administrative decision-makers may have to distinguish barred civil damages claims from preserved statutory proceedings and determine what counted as applicable guidance amid conflicting instructions.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The Act seeks to protect health-sector actors that made honest efforts under unprecedented and sometimes inconsistent public-health instructions, but that protection can remove compensation claims from people who were infected or exposed. A broad, retroactive shield reduces uncertainty for essential services while making accountability depend on difficult distinctions among ordinary error, bad faith, gross negligence and conduct tied to legally required closures.
The most important interpretive question is how much work the words “good-faith effort” do. The Act defines that phrase as an honest effort, whether or not reasonable, while separately excluding gross negligence.
That combination appears designed to protect imperfect pandemic decision-making, but it leaves fact-finders to distinguish ordinary mistakes, unreasonable conduct and the much higher threshold of gross negligence. The unusually broad definition of public-health guidance also raises questions about which informal or changing communications were sufficiently applicable to a particular actor.
The retroactive reach creates a second tension. The Act can affect causes of action that arose before its liability provision took effect and denies compensation for rights extinguished by the statute.
At the same time, the mandatory-closure exception and preserved statutory regimes leave some disputes alive. The result is not a complete immunity, but a more complicated map of which forum, cause of action and operational conduct remain available for challenge.
Finally, the regulation-making power can alter the shield’s practical boundaries after the relevant conduct occurred. The ability to add covered groups, impose conditions or exclude groups may help address gaps in the statute, but retroactive regulations can make liability analysis dependent on rules adopted later.
Organizations will need to retain contemporaneous records of guidance, closure orders, internal decisions and compliance efforts rather than assume the statute resolves every pandemic-related claim.
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