From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

MLA Tara Armstrong proposed a public holiday to ‘recognize the achievements of the Freedom Convoy, one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in Canadian history.’

A British Columbia Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from the OneBC Party introduced a bill that proposes to create a holiday that recognizes the Freedom Convoy’s benefit on Canadian society held in 2022 to protest all COVID mandates.

Bill M 228 was introduced by OneBC Party MLA Tara Armstrong earlier this week and proposes to create a “Freedom Convoy Recognition Day.”

“This Bill designates March 11 as Freedom Convoy Recognition Day and establishes it as a public holiday and a statutory holiday under the Employment Standards Act,” reads the text of the bill.

Armstrong is one of two MLAs from B.C. Conservative Party, which broke away last year to form OneBC after Conservative Leader John Rustad ousted them over social media comments. Of note is that Rustad was ousted as leader of the Conservative Party and official opposition on Wednesday and then resigned on Thursday.

According to Armstrong, the bill’s goal is to “recognize the achievements of the Freedom Convoy, one of the largest peaceful demonstrations in Canadian history.”

“It inspired movements across the globe to stand against lockdowns and government overreach,” she said.

“Mask mandates were lifted, faith communities could meet again, families were able to visit residents in long-term care.”

While it is unlikely the bill will become law, it may now, due to Rustad’s removal, go further along than just the first reading.

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government invoked the Emergencies Act to clear out protesters, an action a federal judge has since said was “not justified.” During the clear-out, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and many who donated to the cause had their bank accounts frozen.

On October 7, 2025, after a long trial, Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey sentenced Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber to 18 months’ house arrest. They had been declared guilty of mischief for their roles as leaders of the 2022 protest against COVID mandates, and as social media influencers.

Lich and Barber have filed appeals of their own against their house arrest sentences, arguing that the trial judge did not correctly apply the law on their mischief charges.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government is still going after Freedom Convoy leader Chris Barber, hoping to seize his rig “Big Red”, the truck he uses to support his family.

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

The University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine caused ‘life-altering damage’ to Catholics and other religious groups by denying them exemptions to its COVID shot mandate, and now the school must pay a hefty settlement.

The University of Colorado’s Anschutz School of Medicine must pay more than $10.3 million to 18 plaintiffs it attempted to force into taking COVID-19 shots despite religious objections, in a settlement announced by the religious liberty law firm the Thomas More Society.

As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, in April 2021, the University of Colorado (UC) announced its requirement that all staff and students receive COVID jabs, leaving specific policy details to individual campuses. On September 1, 2021, it enforced an updated policy stating that “religious exemption may be submitted based on a person’s religious belief whose teachings are opposed to all immunizations,” but required not only a written explanation why one’s “sincerely held religious belief, practice of observance prevents them” from taking the jabs, but also whether they “had an influenza or other vaccine in the past.”

On September 24, the policy was revised to stating that “religious accommodation may be granted based on an employee’s religious beliefs,” but “will not be granted if the accommodation would unduly burden the health and safety of other Individuals, patients, or the campus community.”

In practice, the school denied religious exemptions to Catholic, Buddhist, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical, Protestant, and other applicants, most represented by Thomas More in a lawsuit contending that administrators “rejected any application for a religious exemption unless an applicant could convince the Administration that her religion ‘teaches (them) and all other adherents that immunizations are forbidden under all circumstances.’”

The UC system dropped the mandate in May 2023, but the harm had been done to those denied exemptions while it was in effect, including unpaid leave, eventual firing, being forced into remote work, and pay cuts.

In May 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked the school for denying the accommodations. Writing for the majority, Judge Allison Eid found that a “government employer may not punish some employees, but not others, for the same activity, due only to differences in the employee’s religious beliefs.”

Now, Thomas More announces that year-long settlement negotiations have finally secured the aforementioned hefty settlement for their clients, covering damages, tuition costs, and attorney’s fees. It also ensured the UC will agree to allow and consider religious accommodation requests on an equal basis to medical exemption requests and abstain from probing the validity of applicants’ religious beliefs in the future.

“No amount of compensation or course-correction can make up for the life-altering damage Chancellor Elliman and Anschutz inflicted on the plaintiffs and so many others throughout this case, who felt forced to succumb to a manifestly irrational mandate,” declared senior Thomas More attorney Michael McHale. “At great, and sometimes career-ending, costs, our heroic clients fought for the First Amendment freedoms of all Americans who were put to the unconscionable choice of their livelihoods or their faith during what Justice Gorsuch has rightly declared one of ‘the greatest intrusion[s] on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.’ We are confident our clients’ long-overdue victory indeed confirms, despite the tyrannical efforts of many, that our shared constitutional right to religious liberty endures.”

On top of the numerous serious adverse medical events that have been linked to the COVID shots and their demonstrated ineffectiveness at reducing symptoms or transmission of the virus, many religious and pro-life Americans also object to the shots on moral grounds, due to the ethics of how they were developed.

According to a detailed overview by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson all used fetal cells derived from aborted babies during their COVID shots’ testing phase; and Johnson & Johnson also used the cells during the design and development and production phases. The American Association for the Advancement of Science’s journal Science and even the left-wing “fact-checking” outlet Snopes have also admitted the shots’ abortion connection, which gives many a moral aversion to associating with them.

Catholic World Report notes that similarly large sums have been won in other high-profile lawsuits against COVID shot mandates, including $10.3 million to more than 500 NorthShore University HealthSystem employees in 2022 and $12.7 million to a Catholic Michigander fired by Blue Cross Blue Shield in 2024.