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COVID-19

Ontario judge rules in favor of woman who refused COVID nasal swab test

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7 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

‘I do decide that the nasal swab test, which the screening officer in this case required or demanded Ms. Fernando submit to, was an unlawful requirement or demand,’ wrote Ontario Court Justice Paul Monahan in his June 26 ruling.

An Ontario court has ruled in favor of a woman who was charged and convicted for refusing to submit to a COVID nasal swab test upon returning home to Canada in 2022.

In a June 26 ruling, Ontario Court Justice Paul Monahan decided in favor of Canadian woman Meththa Fernando, who was charged in 2022 for refusing a COVID nasal swab test when returning to Canada from abroad and subsequently found guilty. Monahan concluded that in Fernando’s case, requiring her to submit to such an invasive test was unlawful and ordered her conviction be overturned.

“I do decide that the nasal swab test, which the screening officer in this case required or demanded Ms. Fernando submit to, was an unlawful requirement or demand,” wrote Monahan in his ruling.   

“Ms. Fernando’s refusal to comply with the requirement or demand was lawful on her part,” he continued. “Because the requirement or demand made of her by the screening officer was not lawful, Ms. Fernando should not have been found guilty by the Justice of the Peace.”  

Fernando began her legal journey in 2022 when she refused a nasal swab at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ontario. Upon her return home to nearby Mississauga, a screening officer from the Canadian Public Health Agency randomly selected her to undergo the nasal test.  

However, Fernando, who told the officer she was already vaccinated against COVID, refused the test. She was charged and later convicted of failing to comply with an order under Section 58 of the Quarantine Act and fined a total of $6,255. 

Canada’s Quarantine Act was used by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to enact severe draconian COVID travel rules on all returning travelers to the country. 

Fernando chose to take her case to an appeal court following conviction, arguing that the Quarantine Act did not “authorize a screening officer to use a screening test which involved the entry into the traveller’s body of an instrument or other foreign body.”   

As LifeSiteNews previously reported there have been several instances of injuries after receiving the swabs, including leaking brain fluid due to the test puncturing the brain tissue.   

“The prosecution raised the point that perhaps the insertion into the nasal cavity did not involve the entry into the body,” Monahan stated. “I disagree. The insertion of a nasal swab into the nasal cavity is most definitely an insertion into the body.”  

“I am reversing the Justice of the Peace’s decision and entering a finding of not guilty,” he concluded. “Those are my reasons.”  

Besides potential brain tissue damage, COVID-19 nasal tests have been flagged for seriously questionable accuracy rates. One study authored by British and American scientists last year found that PCR nasal swab testing has only around 63% sensitivity. 

Severalotherstudies, as well as federalguidelines, have identified major accuracy issues with PCR tests and other means of testing for coronavirus. The most common PCR testing protocol for COVID-19 also has come under fire in December, when a coalition of scientists called for the retraction of the original article detailing the method, due to a lack of a properly peer-reviewed report. 

Pro-freedom lawyer Daniel Freiheit celebrated the decision, telling LifeSiteNews, “This ruling is a stark reminder that many laws may have been broken during COVID. I think this was caused by a collective fear of the unknown and a kind of mass panic.” 

“In times like that, it’s utmost to rely on first principles: basic freedoms that I had always been taught would act as checks and balances: freedom to speak, freedom to associate, freedom to deny novel medical treatment, right to retain counsel,” he continued.   

He explained that the ruling will give Canadians a sense of vindication since many knew the tests were invasive and unjust but complied out of fear.  

“Many people knew it was wrong and unlawful at the time but had no choice except to comply,” he said.  

“It was either that or face detainment at the border, harassment, fines, threats of more fines, threats of quarantine, etc,” Freiheit explained. “Submitting to this unlawful treatment was the easiest way out, especially for people coming into the country with medical conditions, tired children or frustrated travel partners.”  

This ruling is not the first time actions taken by the Trudeau government during COVID were found to be unlawful.

In January, the Trudeau government’s use of the Emergencies Act to end the Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates was ruled to have violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley.  

According to the January ruling, the EA is meant to be reserved as a last resort if all other means fail. In Mosley’s judgement, this threshold was not met and thus, the Trudeau government violated the rights of Canadians.    

Shortly after the ruling, Trudeau announced that the government was appealing to the Federal Court of Appeal, a court where he has appointed 10 of the 15 judges. 

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COVID-19

Trump’s new NIH head fires top Fauci allies and COVID shot promoters, including Fauci’s wife

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X. “Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.

On day one of his new job as head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya removed four powerful agency heads, including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, and others associated with the questionable handling of the COVID-19 shots.

Grady, who had served as chief of the agency’s Department of Bioethics, and other longtime Fauci allies in top posts at the NIH involved in the development and distribution of the untested COVID shots produced by Big Pharma were offered jobs in Alaska and other remote locales far away from the NIH’s sprawling Bethesda, Maryland, complex just outside Washington, D.C.

The purge came amid massive layoffs in health-related agencies under the umbrella of Health and Human Services (HHS), now headed by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned vaccine safety and American medicine’s focus on treating disease rather than preventing it.

A total of about 20,000 personnel – mostly bureaucrats – or about 25 percent of the HHS workforce have been or will be handed pink slips amid Kennedy’s realignment of the agency.

MAHA critics were quick to call Tuesday’s axing of Fauci confederates as “one of the darkest days in modern scientific history” fueled by Kennedy’s desire to exact revenge on Fauci’s former trusted associates who represent the antithesis of the MAHA movement.

However, the revamping of the federal government’s side of the health industry is no more harsh than the treatment meted out by those formerly in control who, at best, suppressed, and worst, punished those who questioned their iron grip on health-industry regulations and standards.

For years, Kennedy’s critics have dismissed his quest to revamp healthcare and his questioning of the efficacy of the COVID-19 mRNA jabs as anti-science, labeling him as an “anti-vaxxer” in order to suppress his messaging.

Dr. Francis Collins – whom Bhattacharya replaced as head of NIH – in an October 2020 email to Fauci condemned Bhattacharya as a “fringe epidemiologist” because he had co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized harmful COVID lockdown policies.

“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X.

“Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.

“We spend 4X more than Italy on healthcare — and live 7 years less. Dead last in cancer rates. This isn’t science — it’s a system profiting off sick kids,” explained Calley Means, RFK Jr. HHS advisor during an interview with Laura Ingraham following the NIH firings.

“Firing the people who oversaw this? That’s step one,” declared Means.

Other NIH officials who were offered reassignments were Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Fauci as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Clifford Lane, a close Fauci ally who served as deputy director for clinical research at NIAID, and Dr. Emily Erbelding, NIAID’s microbiology and infectious diseases director.

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Freedom Convoy

Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich, Chris Barber found guilty of mischief

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, 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.”

Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber have been found guilty of mischief for their roles as leaders of the 2022 protest and as social media influencers, a Canadian federal judge has ruled.

“The Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Lich and Barber have committed mischief,” said Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, the federal judge overseeing the pair’s mischief trial, during the verdict hearing Thursday. 

The Democracy Fund, who has been helping the defense in the case, also noted on X, “Mischief is proven beyond a reasonable doubt here. Both Lich and Barber are guilty of mischief.”

 

“When freedom of expression collides with the need to uphold public order is when the line is crossed,” the judge said during court.

Perkins-McVey seemed to agree with the Crown’s case that Lich and Barber’s influence on the Freedom Convoy constituted public mischief but did dismiss the Crown’s Carter Application accusing Lich and Barber of conspiracy outright.

The government’s “Carter Application” asked that the judge consider “Barber’s statements and actions to establish the guilt of Lich, and vice versa.”

A “Carter Application” requires that the government prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that there was a “conspiracy or plan in place and that Lich was a party to it based on direct evidence.”

Lawyer Eva Chipiuk noted that Perkins-McVey “acknowledged that there was disruption on Ottawa and said its citizens and that downtown was jammed, loud and busy.”

Court will reconvene later today for additional information to be revealed.

Lich and Barber both face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews reported extensively on their trial.

The Lich and Barber trial concluded in September of 2024, more than a year after it began. It was only originally scheduled to last 16 days.

Lich and Barber were arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa for their roles in leading the popular Freedom Convoy protest against COVID mandates. During COVID, Canadians were subjected to vaccine mandates, mask mandates, extensive lockdowns and even the closure of churches.

Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, 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.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich recently spelled out how much the Canadian government has spent prosecuting her and Barber for their role in the protests. She said at least $5 million in “taxpayer dollars” has been spent thus far, with her and Barber’s legal costs being above $750,000.

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