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COVID-19

Court puts Freedom Convoy leaders’ trial on hold after resuming for just one day in the new year

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Because the trial has lasted far longer than expected, new dates for the proceedings are being determined.

The trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed but only for one day. Because the trial has taken months longer than expected, the court now must determine future dates.

The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, noted in a Day 34 trial update that the sole court date on the books for 2024, which was last Thursday, saw Crown and defense submissions “regarding the admissibility of the February 2022 injunction hearing transcripts.”

The injunction hearing transcripts concern a horn-honking injunction placed on Freedom Convoy protesters in February 2022 after local citizens launched a complaint about the noise.

According to the TDF, the defense counsel is asking to have the transcripts admitted to the court record. The Crown is contesting this.

Barber’s lawyer, Diane Magas, presented to the court excerpts from both injunction hearings and emphasized the importance of “understanding the context behind the injunction judge’s comments” by “explaining his acceptance or rejection of specific terms.”

Magas asserted how the transcripts discuss the consequences of “breaching the injunction, highlighting the judge’s clarification that a breach would result in civil contempt, not criminal charges.”

“Additionally, she noted the injunction judge’s statement permitting individuals in Ottawa to continue protesting post-injunction,” the TDF said.

Lich’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, spoke to the submissions that were made by then-Freedom Convoy leader lawyer Keith Wilson during the injunction hearing in 2022, “underscoring that it strictly pertained to honking and noise,” as noted by the TDF.

“Greenspon highlighted the injunction judge’s remark that there was ‘no evidence of any breach,’ emphasizing the credibility of a superior court judge who heard experienced counsel’s submissions,” the TDF said.

“They emphasized the injunction judge’s statement that the sole issue before him was honking horns, providing context to Greenspon’s ‘no evidence of breach’ quote,” the TDF stated.

The Crown had suggested that the injunction judge “referred only to a lack of evidence regarding honking horns, not a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing.”

Counsel is soon set to meet to determine the next days for when Day 35 will be scheduled.

Trial that began in September was supposed to last only 16 days

The trial, which began September 5, 2023, was expected to last only a few weeks.

In 2022, lawyers for both sides agreed that 16 days would be a reasonable amount of time for a fair trial. The Crown, however, took a long time going through its witness list.

Just before Christmas, the Freedom Convoy leaders’ lawyers said a $290 million class-action lawsuit filed by disgruntled Ottawa residents against the leaders is designed to “silence” the leaders’ right to free “expression.” The Freedom Convoy leaders’ lawyers have applied to have the case dismissed.

The trial until last Thursday was on hiatus since December 7.

On the last day of the trial for 2023, TDF observed that the court will resume in 2024 with a “voir dire,” or trial within a trial, to be “held over how comments made by the judge presiding over the Ottawa injunction order of February 2022 should be treated.”

“In the days following, there should be a decision on the defense motion to dismiss the Carter application,” TDF said.

Thus far, per TDF, the Crown has asserted “that the absence of violence or peaceful nature of the protest didn’t make it lawful, emphasizing that the onus was on the Crown to prove the protest’s unlawfulness.”

The Crown has been holding steadfast to the notion in trying to prove that Lich and Barber had somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words as part of a co-conspiracy. This claim has been rejected by the defense as weak.

The reality is that Lich and Barber collaborated with police on many occasions so that the protests were within the law.

Lich and Barber are facing multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.

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, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14.

During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse, and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.

LifeSiteNews has been covering the trial extensively.

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2025 Federal Election

Conservatives promise to ban firing of Canadian federal workers based on COVID jab status

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Conservative platform also vows that the party will oppose mandatory digital ID systems and a central bank digital currency if elected.

Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party’s 2025 election platform includes a promise to “ban” the firing of any federal worker based “solely” on whether or not they chose to get the COVID shots.

On page 23 of the “Canada First – For A Change” plan, which was released on Tuesday, the promise to protect un-jabbed federal workers is mentioned under “Protect Personal Autonomy, Privacy, and Data Security.”

It promises that a Conservative government will “Ban the dismissal of federal workers based solely on COVID vaccine status.”

The Conservative Party also promises to “Oppose any move toward mandatory digital ID systems” as well as “Prohibit the Bank of Canada from developing or implementing a central bank digital currency.”

In October 2021, the Liberal government of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector. The government also announced that the unjabbed would no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally.

This policy resulted in thousands losing their jobs or being placed on leave for non-compliance. It also trapped “unvaccinated” Canadians in the country.

COVID jab mandates, which also came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects, such as death, including in children.

Many recent rulings have gone in favor of those who chose not to get the shots and were fired as a result, such as an arbitrator ruling that one of the nation’s leading hospitals in Ontario must compensate 82 healthcare workers terminated after refusing to get the jabs.

Beyond health concerns, many Canadians, especially Catholics, opposed the injections on moral grounds because of their link to fetal cell lines derived from the tissue of aborted babies.

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COVID-19

RFK Jr. Launches Long-Awaited Offensive Against COVID-19 mRNA Shots

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Nicolas Hulscher, MPH's avatar Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

As millions of Americans anxiously await action from the new HHS leadership against the COVID-19 mRNA injectionsinjected into over 9 million children this year—Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has finally gone publicly on the offensive:

Let’s go over each key point made by RFK Jr.:

The recommendation for children was always dubious. It was dubious because kids had almost no risk for COVID-19. Certain kids that had very profound morbidities may have a slight risk. Most kids don’t.

In the largest review to date on myocarditis following SARS-CoV-2 infection vs. COVID-19 vaccination, Mead et al found that vaccine-induced myocarditis is not only significantly more common but also more severe—particularly in children and young males. Our findings make clear that the risks of the shots overwhelmingly outweigh any theoretical benefit:

The OpenSAFELY study included more than 1 million adolescents and children and found that myocarditis was documented ONLY in COVID-19 vaccinated groups and NOT after COVID-19 infection. There were NO COVID-19-related deaths in any group. A&E attendance and unplanned hospitalization were higher after first vaccination compared to unvaccinated groups:

So why are we giving this to tens of millions of kids when the vaccine itself does have profound risk? We’ve seen huge associations of myocarditis and pericarditis with strokes, with other injuries, with neurological injuries.

The two largest COVID-19 vaccine safety studies ever conducted, involving 99 million (Faksova et al) and 85 million people (Raheleh et al), confirm RFK Jr.’s concerns, documenting significantly increased risks of serious adverse events following vaccination, including:

  1. Myocarditis (+510% after second dose)
  2. Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (+278% after first dose)
  3. Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis (+223% after first dose)
  4. Guillain-Barré Syndrome (+149% after first dose)
  5. Heart Attack (+286% after second dose)
  6. Stroke (+240% after first dose)
  7. Coronary Artery Disease (+244% after second dose)
  8. Cardiac Arrhythmia (+199% after first dose)

And this was clear even in the clinical data that came out of Pfizer. There were actually more deaths. There were about 23% more deaths in the vaccine group than the placebo group. We need to ask questions and we need to consult with parents.

Actually, according to the Pfizer’s clinical trial data, there were 43% more deaths in the vaccine group compared to the placebo group when post-unblinding deaths are included:

We need to give people informed consent, and we shouldn’t be making recommendations that are not good for the population.

Public acknowledgment of the grave harms of COVID-19 vaccines signals that real action is right around the corner. However, we must hope that action is taken for ALL age groups, as no one is spared from their life-reducing effects:

Alessandria et al (n=290,727, age > 10 years): People vaccinated with 2 doses lost 37% of life expectancy compared to the unvaccinated population during follow-up.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

www.mcculloughfnd.org

Please consider following both the McCullough Foundation and my personal account on X (formerly Twitter) for further content.

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