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COVID-19

Saskatchewan protestors ask Supreme Court to hear their challenge to gathering restrictions

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5 minute read

News release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that Jasmin Grandel and Darrell Mills intend to take their constitutional challenge to Saskatchewan’s Covid gathering restrictions to the Supreme Court of Canada. On May 15, 2024, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal dismissed their case. Today, our lawyers applied for leave to appeal their case to Canada’s highest court in a potentially precedent-setting case about the freedom of peaceful assembly.

On December 19, 2020, Ms. Grandel and Mr. Mills participated in a peaceful protest against the Government of Saskatchewan’s Covid lockdown measures at the Vimy Memorial in Saskatoon’s Kiwanis Park. Police ticketed them for attending a protest exceeding Saskatchewan’s 10-person outdoor gathering limit.

Jasmin Grandel, a young mother, attended peaceful protests to express her concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding government restrictions. She was especially concerned about the requirement that her son wear a mask in kindergarten.

Darrell Mills, certified in Mask Fit Testing and trained in supplied air breathing systems, also attended peaceful demonstrations to voice his concerns about improper mask usage and the significant burdens mask mandates placed on persons with physical or psychological conditions.

On April 7, 2021, our lawyers filed a constitutional challenge to these gathering restrictions at the Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on behalf of Ms. Grandel and Mr. Mills. They argued that the gathering restrictions violated their freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association – protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That challenge was heard by the Court on June 29, 2022.

Unfortunately, while it was conceded that the gathering restrictions did limit their freedom of expression, the Court ruled that the limitation was justified. Further, the Court found that, because the limitation on freedom of expression was justified, the limitations on the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association were also justified without the need for independent analysis of those rights.

Ms. Grandel and Mr. Mills were not deterred, appealing that decision on August 14, 2023. In yet another setback, however, their appeal was dismissed on May 15, 2024, by the Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan in a unanimous decision upholding the lower Court’s findings.

They are now asking the Supreme Court of Canada to hear their case. On August 14, 2024, our lawyers filed a Notice of Application for Leave to Appeal to the Supreme Court. If granted, they will argue that Saskatchewan’s Covid gathering restrictions were primarily an unjustifiable limitation of the freedom of peaceful assembly, which was not centrally considered. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to develop a more robust legal framework for addressing limitations to that freedom.

Our lawyers argue that, in many cases where the government has violated multiple Charter freedoms, particularly the freedoms of expression, assembly and association, courts tend to focus on limitations to freedom of expression only. In other words, courts tend to find an independent analysis of violations of other rights unnecessary. If a court finds that the government justifiably limited freedom of expression, they tend to find that the government justifiably limited the freedom of peaceful assembly if it were to have been infringed.

Canadian courts ought to develop a test for addressing violations to the freedom of peaceful assembly. Today, two Saskatchewan citizens have asked the Supreme Court to develop such a test and to apply it to gathering restrictions that impacted more than a million residents. If this case is heard by the Supreme Court, it could have a profound impact on the fundamental freedoms of Canadians.

Lawyer Andre Memauri says, “Our request for leave to appeal in this matter seeks to address concerns with how Charter violations are addressed within the section 1 analysis, when numerous Charter violations are engaged. Additionally, there exists a void in jurisprudence with respect to a test in how to address the guarantee of peaceful assembly directly, and we are hoping the Supreme Court of Canada provides guidance on this increasingly important matter to Canadians.”

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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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