College drops charges against Alberta doctor who granted Covid vaccine exemptions

News release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

The Justice Centre is pleased to announce that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) has dropped charges of professional misconduct against Dr. Michal Princ. The charges arose from Dr. Princ granting Covid vaccine exemptions to his patients. As a result, a five-day disciplinary hearing scheduled to commence on March 8, 2024, has been cancelled.Dr. Princ is a family medicine physician with 49 years of experience. He received his medical degree in 1975 while living in his native Czechoslovakia, then under communist rule. He left his homeland and began his medical practice in Canada in 1989.On April 5, 2023, Dr. Princ was accused of failing to follow vaccine exemption requirements that were imposed on medical doctors by the CPSA, Alberta Health Services and Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health.On January 10, 2024, the CPSA withdrew its charges against Dr. Princ because the relevant health order (Chief Medical Officer of Health Order 43-2021) in relation to which he was charged was likely invalid, based on the 2023 Alberta Court of King’s Bench ruling in Ingram v. Alberta, by which the Court invalidated health orders. The Justice Centre provided lawyers for the Ingram action, which was one of the first constitutional challenges to lockdown measures commenced in Canada.Health Order 43-2021 was issued by Alberta’s (then) Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, on September 18, 2021. In the Ingram v. Alberta trial, Dr. Hinshaw testified that the health Orders that violated Charter rights and freedoms were effectively issued by the provincial cabinet, not by her. Court of King’s Bench Justice Barbara Romaine found this to be contrary to the Public Health Act and ruled that health orders must come from the Chief Medical Officer of Health in order to be valid.After the court released its ruling in Ingram, the Justice Centre submitted a legislative proposal to the Alberta government to amend the Public Health Act so that it would align with the constitutional principle of democratic accountability. Alberta’s Minister of Justice tabled a Bill in November 2023 that would, consistent with Justice Centre recommendations, put public health decision-making authority in the hands of elected officials rather than leaving unaccountable health officials with near-absolute power.The Legislative Assembly has since changed the Public Health Act to require that all public health orders be issued by cabinet, and not by the Chief Medical Officer of Health, in an attempt to ensure democratic oversight and accountability as required by Canada’s Constitution.The requirements imposed on doctors by the CPSA, AHS and the Chief Medical Officer of Health, while sometimes described as mere “guidance,” were strict and inflexible. For example, it was not clear that any condition would entitle a patient to an exemption, and this uncertainty was reflected in the “guidance” provided to medical doctors. According to the CPSA’s Exemption Requests: Patient FAQ, under Alberta’s vaccine mandate, “There are virtually no medical conditions that universally warrant a complete exemption.” (emphasis added) Meanwhile, according to the CPSA’s Guidance for physicians: Requests for COVID-19 vaccination exemptions, “There are no medical conditions that would universally warrant a complete exemption from initial COVID-19 vaccine.” (emphasis added)One of the primary resources provided was Alberta Health Services’ COVID-19 Scientific Advisory Group Rapid Brief. The closest that guidance comes to permitting any exemption is in the case of a severe allergic reaction to a Covid injection. “However…even among those deemed as being ‘highly allergic,’ only 0.7% had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine administered under medical supervision.” Generally, in the very rare situations in which doctors had any latitude, only deferrals could be entertained, not permanent exemptions. Even patients who suffered myocarditis or pericarditis from a Covid injection were only entitled to a deferral “until more evidence is available.”“This mandatory ‘Guidance for physicians’ that was imposed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta resulted in an unknown number of Albertans getting pressured, coerced or manipulated into receiving an injection that they did not consent to voluntarily,” stated John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre.Many Albertans were injected with the Covid vaccine because refusing this medical treatment would have resulted in loss of employment. Many college and university students were injected because a failure to receive the vaccine would have resulted in suspension or expulsion from university. Many teenagers and young adults, a demographic not threatened by Covid, went ahead with the injection only because they wanted to continue participating in sports and recreation. Many Albertans and other Canadians were fired for refusing to get injected with a substance for which no long-term safety data exists. They were then unable to collect Employment Insurance.“The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta violated the ethical principle of informed and voluntary consent for medical treatment, by threatening medical doctors with the loss of their license if they exercised their independent clinical judgment about the safety and efficacy of new vaccines for which no long-term safety data existed,” continued President John Carpay.According to the Patient FAQ, doctors would “only offer an exemption based on the latest medical evidence from authorities like Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services, the National Advisory Council on Immunization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” The Brief, however, was not an actual scientific analysis, but rather a “grey literature” survey of what others were doing and recommending.Glenn Blackett, co-counsel for Dr. Princ, observed, “One thing we found most alarming about all of this guidance was the degree to which the basic medical ethical principle of informed consent was simply ignored. How did health professionals in Alberta recommending or administering vaccines obtain informed consent where patients were subject to the coercive pressure of vaccine mandates? The CPSA told doctors how to participate in and, effectively, help enforce the vaccine mandate program, which consisted of rejecting all or ‘virtually’ all exemption requests. But it seems the CPSA entirely failed to grapple with the resulting ethical dilemmas.”AHS’s Rapid Brief says, “This review of current guidelines considers medical exemptions and does not address human rights, religious or other possible non-medical reasons for seeking vaccine exemptions.” The CPSA’s own general standards of practice include the doctrine of informed consent. The CPSA standards include the commonsense observation that, for informed consent to exist, a patient must be free of “undue influence, duress or coercion.”

The “vaccine mandates” in Alberta and across Canada effectively turned millions of Canadians into second-class citizens who were prevented from participating in sports, enjoying restaurants, leaving and re-entering Canada, visiting their elderly parents in nursing homes, continuing their university education, and keeping their jobs. “These kinds of draconian restrictions on personal freedoms surely constituted ‘undue influence, duress or coercion,’ negating informed consent. Yet in the ‘Rapid Brief’ document of Alberta Health Services, informed consent is only mentioned once, when recommending vaccination to women ‘who are pregnant, breastfeeding, or planning to become pregnant,’ or to people with a history of allergies. Perhaps even more troubling is the CPSA’s COVID-19 Vaccine: Questions and answers for the public and healthcare practitioners, which encourages doctors advising vaccine-hesitant patients to employ ‘motivational interviewing’ techniques-when I read that, a shiver ran up my spine,” continues Blackett.Lawyer Andre Memauri, co-counsel for Dr. Princ, stated, “our client was ethically motivated by the sacrosanct and longstanding principle of ‘do no harm.’ We are pleased the CPSA has withdrawn charges, although we wish the charges had been withdrawn to protect professional independence, not based on the Ingram ruling. The relationship of trust between each physician and his or her patients must be brought back to the forefront of medical practice.”

Related Topics:#AlbertaCollegeOfPhysiciansAndSurgeons #CovidVaccineExemptions #DrMichalPrinc #JusticeCentreForConstitutionalFreedoms

Up Next

ArriveCAN ticket case dismissed, but Charter rights remain in limbo

Don't Miss

Three Books to End the Silence

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Why we keep getting Remembrance Day wrong

armed forces / 2 hours ago

What A Second World War Aircraft Taught Me About Remembrance Day

Crime / 5 hours ago

CBSA Bust Uncovers Mexican Cartel Network in Montreal High-Rise, Moving Hundreds Across Canada-U.S. Border

COVID-19

Spy Agencies Cozied Up To Wuhan Virologist Before Lying About Pandemic

Published on November 11, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Emily Kopp

A close collaborator of virologists who studied coronaviruses in Wuhan frequently advised America’s top spy agency in the lead-up to the pandemic, and that same agency suppressed intelligence on the parallels between COVID-19 and their research.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI) hub for foreign biological threats dismissed the intelligence pointing to a lab accident in Wuhan as “misinformation” in January 2021, two former government sources who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive internal meetings told the Daily Caller News Foundation. New documents show that intelligence risked implicating ODNI’s own bioengineering advisor — University of North Carolina professor Ralph Baric.

Baric, who engineered novel coronaviruses with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), advised ODNI four times a year on biological threats, according to documents released Oct. 30 by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

Dear Readers:

As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers. \

Please consider making a small donation of any amount here.

Thank you!

Baric did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

The professor’s ties to American intelligence may run even deeper, the documents reveal, as ODNI facilitated a meeting between the CIA and Baric about a project on coronaviruses in September 2015.

The email exchange with the subject line “Request for Your Expertise” shows an unnamed government official with a CIA-affiliated email address pitching a “possible project” to Baric relating to “[c]oronavirus evolution and possible natural human adaptation.”

The new documents shed a bit of light on a question members of Congress have posed for years: Whether our own intelligence agencies knew more about the likelihood of a lab origin of COVID than they told the public.

“Director Ratcliffe has been on the forefront of this issue since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and has been committed to transparency and accountability on this issue,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement. “In January – as one of the Director’s first actions at Langley – CIA made public its assessment that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin. CIA will continue to evaluate any available credible new intelligence reporting as appropriate.”

Paul is seeking more documents from ODNI on potential ties between U.S. intelligence and the research in Wuhan as part of an ongoing investigation by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and has promised public hearings in the coming months.

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard disbanded the ODNI biological threats office earlier this year following questions from the DCNF about its suppression of COVID origins intelligence in August. Gabbard and a dedicated working group have also been quietly investigating the origins of COVID.

Protecting Their Own

Baric gave a presentation to the ODNI in January 2020 showing that he advised American intelligence that COVID may have emerged from a lab, the documents also indicate. Baric shared that the WIV had sequenced thousands of SARS-like coronaviruses, including strains capable of epidemics, the slides show.

Baric noted that the Wuhan lab does this work under low biosafety levels despite the ability of some of these viruses to infect and grow in human lung cells.

What Baric omitted: He had submitted a grant application in 2018 with intentions to conduct research to make coronaviruses with the same rare features seen in COVID while concealing the Wuhan lab’s low biosafety level, jotting in the margins of a draft of the grant application that Americans would “freak out” if they knew about the shoddy standards.

One year after Baric’s presentation, ODNI had hardened against the lab leak hypothesis.

When State Department officials pushed to declassify certain intelligence related to a plausible lab leak in January 2021, the ODNI expressed concerns that it would “call out actions that we ourselves are doing.”

Former ODNI National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Center (NCBC) Director Kathryn Brinsfield, a medical doctor, also dismissed a January 2021 presentation by government officials about a plausible lab origin of COVID as “misinformation,” two sources told the DCNF. Her top aide Zach Bernstein, who possesses a master’s degree in security studies but no scientific credentials, also dismissed the presentation, according to three sources.

Gabbard disbanded NCBC in August following questions from the DCNF about its role in suppressing COVID origins intelligence.

But in the years preceding Gabbard’s takeover of the intelligence community’s central office, the ODNI’s public reports omitted any analysis of COVID’s viral genome. One intelligence agency filed a formal complaint about this glaring omission, the DCNF reported.

Scientists often received fierce pushback from former National Intelligence Council official Adrienne Keen, who helped steward former President Joe Biden’s 90-day review into COVID’s origins, an official told the DCNF. Paul’s request for records from ODNI includes a request for some of Keen’s communications.

Brinsfield and Keen did not respond to requests for comment.

Unanswered Questions

Despite the new disclosures, the precise nature of the CIA’s interest in Baric’s coronavirus work remains unknown. The documents do not include any further details about the work that the CIA and Baric may or may not have undertaken.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) funded the discovery of novel coronaviruses and shipped the samples to Wuhan through a 2009-2020 program called PREDICT, the DCNF reported in July. USAID sometimes acted as a CIA front before Trump dismantled it earlier this year — but no evidence exists that the CIA directed PREDICT.

An unnamed FBI special agent was in communication with Baric about responding to public requests for his research and emails with the Wuhan lab through the North Carolina Freedom of Information Act, according to a 2024 congressional letter, but details about the contact between the FBI and Baric also remain uncertain.

The CIA was slow to acknowledge that a lab was the pandemic’s most likely source, an assessment that the CIA made public more than five years after the pandemic emerged and well after the FBI and the Department of Energy.

In early 2020, when Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottinger tasked CIA analysts to dig into the matter, they came up empty, according to a New York Times report. Instead, anonymous sources smeared Pottinger as having a “conspiratorial view” of the Chinese Communist Party.

Trump’s current CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who served as the DNI from May 2020 to January 2021, revealed in a 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had pushed for the declassification of COVID origins intelligence as the DNI but that he “faced constant opposition, particularly from Langley.”

COVID-19

Crown still working to put Lich and Barber in jail

Published on November 6, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Crown’s appeal claims the judge made a mistake in her verdict on the intimidation charges, and also in how she treated aggravating and mitigating factors regarding sentencing.

Government lawyers for the Crown have filed an appeal the acquittals of Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber on intimidation charges.

The Crown also wants their recent 18-month conditional sentence on mischief charges replaced with harsher penalties, which could include possible jail time.

According to the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), it is “asking the Ontario Court of Appeal to enter a conviction on the intimidation charge or order a new trial on that count,” for Barber’s charges.

Specifically, the Crown’s appeal claims that the judge made a mistake in her verdict on the intimidation charges, and also in how she treated aggravating and mitigating factors regarding sentencing.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, both Lich and Barber have filed appeals of their own against their house arrest sentences, arguing that the trial judge did not correctly apply the law on their mischief charges.

Barber’s lawyer, Diane Magas, said that her client “relied in good faith on police and court direction during the protest. The principles of fairness and justice require that citizens not be punished for following the advice of authorities. We look forward to presenting our arguments before the Court.”

On October 7, Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey sentenced Lich and Chris Barber to 18 months’ house arrest after being convicted earlier in the year of “mischief.”

Lich was given 18 months less time already spent in custody, amounting to 15 1/2 months.

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

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian government was hoping to put Lich in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years.

LifeSiteNews recently reported that Lich detailed her restrictive house arrest conditions, revealing she is “not” able to leave her house or even pick up her grandchildren from school without permission from the state.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich, reflecting on her recent house arrest verdict, said she has no “remorse” and will not “apologize” for leading a movement that demanded an end to all COVID mandates.