COVID-19
Pastor challenges Dr. Bonnie Henry over illegal discrimination between faith groups
From the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
BC pastor seeks Court order for the BC Attorney General and Provincial Health Officer to disclose records of exemptions provided after some records show that Dr. Bonnie Henry unfairly favoured some faith groups
ABBOTSFORD, BC: The Justice Centre announces that Pastor John Koopman is challenging the prosecution against him after discovering that BC’s Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Bonnie Henry, granted preferential treatment to some faith groups over others. Pastor Koopman was charged with violating Covid gathering restrictions for hosting in-person worship services even while Dr. Henry allowed some Orthodox synagogues to gather for outdoor and even indoor services.
In a hearing running December 4-7, 2023, at the Abbotsford Law Courts, Pastor Koopman will be seeking records of the accommodation requests the Provincial Health Officer received and how she handled them, and records of communications she received from BC politicians about prohibiting in-person worship services.
The hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. in courtroom 402 at Abbotsford Law Courts, 32203 South Fraser Way.
John Koopman is the Pastor of the Free Reformed Church in Chilliwack, British Columbia. In November 2020, Dr. Bonnie Henry prohibited in-person worship services while allowing bars, restaurants, gyms, and salons to remain open for in-person service.
Based on its religious convictions to gather for worship in-person, the Free Reformed Church re-opened its doors in 2020 and 2021 while simultaneously complying with health orders regarding face masks, hand washing, social distancing, etc. In January 2021, the Free Reformed Church, along with two other churches, filed a constitutional challenge to the prohibition on in-person worship services. After filing the challenge, Pastor Koopman and others submitted an accommodation request to gather for in-person worship services, but their request received no response for several weeks. At the same time, Dr. Henry had been responding promptly (within one or two days) to accommodation requests from Orthodox synagogues, granting them permission to meet in-person.
Two business days before the Court was to hear the constitutional challenge, Dr. Henry finally granted the Free Reformed Church and the two other churches limited permission to gather outdoors, while refusing permission to gather indoors, claiming this to be too risky. However, earlier that same week, Dr. Henry had granted all Orthodox synagogues in the province permission to gather indoors.
On March 18, 2021, BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson dismissed the Free Reformed Church’s challenge, in part because Dr. Henry had granted permission to meet outdoors. The BC Court of Appeal upheld Chief Justice Hinkson’s decision, and the Supreme Court of Canada subsequently denied leave to appeal.
Meanwhile, Pastor Koopman and other churches and pastors have been prosecuted by the Crown in the BC Provincial Courts. On November 8, 2022, Pastor Koopman was found guilty of hosting an in-person worship service on December 6, 2020.
On April 14, 2023, Pastor Koopman submitted an Application to the Provincial Court of British Columbia, alleging that the discriminatory actions of the Provincial Health Officer had made the continuation of his prosecution offensive to societal notions of fair play and decency and had brought the administration of justice into disrepute. In response, on May 10, the Crown argued that the abuse of process application should not proceed to an evidentiary hearing, and that Dr. Henry and Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Brian Emerson should not be subpoenaed as witnesses in the case.
From May 15–18, 2023, Judge Andrea Ormiston heard arguments on whether the abuse of process Application could proceed to an evidentiary hearing. On September 6, 2023, Judge Ormiston denied the Crown’s Application to summarily dismiss Pastor Koopman’s abuse of process Application because she found that there was “some evidence that the PHO preferred some faith groups over others.” Judge Ormiston found that, under the circumstances, it was not “manifestly frivolous” to think that the continued prosecution of Pastor Koopman “risks undermining the integrity of the judicial process.” Judge Ormiston did decline to allow Dr. Henry or Dr. Emerson to be subpoenaed in the matter.
The December 4–7 evidentiary hearing at the Provincial Court of British Columbia in Abbotsford will address whether the Attorney General of British Columbia and/or Dr. Bonnie Henry are required to:
- Provide records of the accommodation requests Dr. Henry received and how she handled them;
- Provide records of communications between Dr. Henry and the British Columbia Premier, Health Minister, and/or other elected officials and/or their staff in relation to restricting or prohibiting in-person worship gatherings.
COVID-19
Trump’s new NIH head fires top Fauci allies and COVID shot promoters, including Fauci’s wife
From LifeSiteNews
“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.
From LifeSiteNews
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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