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COVID-19

Disciplined Police Officer Asks Court To Reverse Violation Of His Privacy And Freedom Of Expression

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News release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that Constable Michael Brisco has asked the Ontario Divisional Court in Toronto to review a charge of discreditable conduct for donating $50 to the peaceful Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa in 2022.

Constable Brisco was on unpaid leave due to the Windsor Police Service’s (WPS) vaccine mandate when, on February 8, 2022, he exercised his freedoms of expression and association by donating $50 to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest via GiveSendGo. He did so privately and without mentioning his capacity as police officer.

Before the donation had reached Freedom Convoy recipients, a court order froze the GiveSendGo account. Shortly after the freeze, GiveSendGo’s website was hacked. Donor information was leaked to the public. On February 16, the Ontario Provincial Police obtained the leaked information and, despite knowing that the information had been illegally hacked, relayed that information to various police services around the province. Nothing in the leaked information identified Constable Brisco as a police officer. However, his name surfaced when the stolen database was cross-referenced with a police members database. He was called in for an interview with a WPS investigator and was required to answer the investigator’s questions about the donation pursuant to the Police Services Act.

The WPS charged Constable Brisco with discreditable conduct and eventually summoned him to a Discipline Hearing. The case against him was motivated by the assumption that he had contributed to an illegal protest. In support of the claim that the protest had been illegal, however, the WPS presented nothing more than the contents of newspaper reports, citing the opinions of the Prime Minister, the Premier of Ontario, and the (then) Ottawa Police Chief.

The prosecution made submissions about the Ambassador Bridge protest, trying to tie it to the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa. Trucks had parked on the bridge between Windsor and Detroit in a separate protest against Covid restrictions. The implication was that Constable Brisco’s donation supported the bridge blockade in Windsor. But there was no financial or even organizational connection between the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa and the Ambassador Bridge protest. Furthermore, Constable Brisco stated his donation was intended for the protest in Ottawa, not for the protest in Windsor. Nevertheless, on March 24, 2023, after a six-day hearing before a Hearing Officer, Brisco was found guilty of discreditable conduct. On May 18, 2023, he was fined the equivalent of two-weeks’ pay.

That decision was appealed on June 14, 2023, but it was upheld by the Ontario Civilian Police Commission in February 2024. In response to this decision, lawyers provided by the Justice Centre have assisted Constable Brisco in applying for a judicial review – a process by which courts make sure that the decisions of administrative bodies (e.g., the Windsor Police Service) are fair, reasonable, and lawful.

With assistance from the Justice Centre, Constable Brisco continues to stand up for his Charter-protected freedom of expression. He made a private political donation and did not identify himself as a police officer. Like other Canadians, police officers enjoy Charter freedoms and can express themselves within reason. Canadians should not be punished for expressing their political views, especially when evidence against them is obtained by unlawful means.

Darren Leung, one of the lawyers for Constable Brisco, stated, “It was unfortunate that private donor information was unlawfully accessed. It is outrageous that the Ontario Provincial Police obtained this information to assist in persecuting police officers who were exercising their right to free expression. The evidence used to convict Constable Brisco amounted to nothing more than opinions from people who did not like the message. We are hopeful that the Divisional Court will see that the entire conviction was unreasonable.”

Constable Brisco, a highly trained and respected police officer of 15 years, is now back on active duty.

COVID-19

Maxime Bernier slams Freedom Convoy leaders’ guilty verdict, calls Canada’s justice system ‘corrupt’

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The leader of the People’s Party of Canada says Tamara Lich and Chris Barber were victims of a ‘political witch hunt.’

The leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) ripped Thursday’s federal court ruling that found Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber guilty of mischief, saying the court siding with the government amounted to a “political witch hunt.”

“It is disheartening to learn that two of the heroes of the Freedom Convoy, @LichTamara and @ChrisBarber1975, have been found guilty of mischief in the longest and one of the costliest trials in Canadian history,” Maxime Bernier wrote Thursday on X.

“This clearly was a political witch hunt.”

Bernier added that in his view the reality is that Canada’s justice system is “corrupt.”

“Trudeau and his ministers who illegally invoked the Emergencies Act and violated basic rights will go unpunished,” he noted.

“Our justice system is corrupt to the bones.”

On Thursday, Justice Heather Perkins-McVey, the federal judge overseeing the mischief trial, delivered her verdict, finding both Lich and Barber guilty of mischief.

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.

Lich and Barber both faced six charges each, those being charges of mischief, obstruction, intimidation, and counseling others to commit mischief and intimidation. After the court reconvened Thursday afternoon, Lich was acquitted of four of her six charges, with the fifth charge, counseling to commit mischief, being stayed by the judge.

As for sentencing, the court will reconvene on April 16 at 1:30 p.m. EST, at which time it will say when a date and time for sentencing will be held.

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

The Lich and Barber trial concluded in September 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.

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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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