The applicant, an advocacy group for strippers, brought a preliminary motion for an order permitting the anonymization of affidavits to be sworn by strippers in support of an application for judicial review challenging COVID-19 regulations.
The applicant argued that publicly identifying the affiants would put their economic and family safety at risk due to the stigma associated with their occupation.
Applying the Dagenais/Mentuck test, the court found that the applicant established a serious risk to the administration of justice and that there was no reasonable alternative to the order.
The court granted the motion, allowing the use of non-identifying initials in publicly available documents, provided that the respondent and the court have access to the affiants' full names in a sealed record.
