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Canada’s border agency says low risk of COVID spreading via paper used to justify ArriveCAN

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The controversial app, which was initially slated to cost taxpayers $80,000 but ended up costing over $50 million, is currently under investigation over allegations of corruption related to government contracts.

Despite Canadian federal authorities at the time admitting the risk of getting a COVID infection from paper forms was low, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said it was that fear that spurred the creation of the federal government’s $59.5 million scandal-ridden ArriveCAN travel app. 

The admission was made by the CBSA’s vice-president Jonathan Moor on April 3, during a testimony at a House of Commons public accounts committee meeting. 

“We were told we could catch COVID from touching documents,” said Moor. “Our number one priority initially working with that was to get the electronic form up and running.” 

Despite Moor’s claims, Canada’s Public Health Agency’s deputy chief public health officer, Dr. Howard Njoo, had told reporters at the start of the COVID crisis that there was no evidence the coronavirus could be transmitted via paper. 

“For postal workers, I am not quite sure what the risk would be,” said Njoo on March 23, 2020. “The risk is not really out there. There should be no chance of interaction.”  

The agency noted at the time that proper hand-washing was enough for federal workers who handled a lot of paperwork.  

Despite the agency itself admitting there was no risk of virus transmission via paper forms, Moor on March 26, during testimony at the House of Commons government operations committee, again claimed getting infections from paper was a reason ArriveCAN was needed. 

“A lot of the individual Border Services officers really were very reluctant to touch paper because the Public Health Agency had said you can catch Covid from touching paper, so the necessity to get a paperless process in place was really important,” said Moor.  

Moor, during testimony, also defended his agency’s work on the travel app, but admitted, “We know we made mistakes.” 

“In some self-respecting countries there are internal controls,” she added.  

She then asked Moor if he thought he did a “good job,” to which he replied, “I do believe I did my job well during the pandemic.” 

“This is a time where people were crossing the border to return back to Canada when we were told we could catch COVID from touching documents,” he said.  

Besides the risk of getting infected from paper as being a reason for needing to create ArrriveCAN, the CBSA had also suggested other reasons why it was needed. In a report from 2023, it claimed that the app had saved travelers “five minutes” of time at border crossings, however, this claim was disputed by the Customs and Immigration Union. 

The CBSA has also claimed that ArriveCAN “saved lives,” which is a claim it has recognized as being uncertain.  

“The Agency cannot quantify the exact number of lives indirectly saved through ArriveCan,” it told MPs on December 7, 2023.  

Canadians were told ArriveCAN was supposed to have cost only $80,000, but the number quickly ballooned to $54 million, with the latest number showing it cost some $59.5 million. 

As for the app itself, it was riddled with tech glitches along with privacy concerns from users. 

ArriveCAN was introduced in April 2020 by the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and made mandatory in November 2020. The app was used by the federal government to track the COVID jab status of those entering the country and enforce quarantines when deemed necessary. 

When the app was mandated, all travelers entering Canada had to use it to submit their travel and contact information as well as any COVID vaccination details before crossing the border or boarding a flight. 

In February, LifeSiteNews reported that Conservative Party of Canada MPs accused the CBSA of lying to Parliament over sweetheart contracting approvals concerning ArriveCAN.  

Troubled Travel apps’ creation is currently under investigation 

Canadian Auditor General Karen Hogan announced an investigation of ArriveCAN in November 2022 after the House of Commons voted 173-149 for a full audit of the controversial app. 

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) is investigating how various companies such as Dalian, Coaradix, and GC Strategies received millions in taxpayer dollars to develop the contentious quarantine-tracking program.

LifeSiteNews reported that an investigation into ArriveCAN by Alexander Jeglic, the government’s procurement ombudsman, revealed that three-quarters of the contractors who were paid to work on ArriveCAN did not do anything in building the scandal-plagued app.  

The CBSA was tasked with building the ArriveCAN app, and thus far, the investigation’s report singles out GC Strategies, saying the two-man company did not prove that its list of subcontractors was qualified to work on the app. 

The procurement ombudsman’s report also found “numerous examples” in which GC Strategies “had simply copied and pasted” required work experience that was listed by the government for its contractors. 

The report also noted that it was unusual the government used criteria for the app’s tender that were “overly restrictive and favoured” GC Strategies, which won the contract bid despite the fact no other bids were submitted.

Last year, LifeSiteNews reported on two tech entrepreneurs testifying before the committee that during the development of the ArriveCAN travel app they saw firsthand how federal managers engaged in “extortion,” “corruption,” and “ghost contracting,” all at the expense of taxpayers. 

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Elon Musk-backed doctor critical of COVID response vows appeal after court sides with medical board

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

One of Gill’s “controversial” posts read, “If you have not yet figured out that we don’t need a vaccine, you are not paying attention. ”  

A Canadian physician who challenged her medical regulator after it placed “cautions” against her for speaking out against draconian COVID mandates on social media has lost a court battle, but with the help of her Elon Musk-backed legal team she has vowed to appeal the ruling. 

The case concerns Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill, an Ontario pediatrician who has been embroiled in a legal battle with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) for her anti-COVID views posted on X (formerly Twitter) in 2020. As reported by LifeSiteNews, her case received the support of billionaire Tesla and X owner Elon Musk, who pledged in March to back her financially.  

One of Gill’s “controversial” posts read, “If you have not yet figured out that we don’t need a vaccine, you are not paying attention. #FactsNotFear.”  

The Divisional Court decision against Gill dated May 7, 2024, concluded, “When the College chose to draw the line at those tweets which it found contained misinformation, it did so in a way which reasonably balanced Dr. Gill’s free speech rights with her professional responsibilities.” 

“In other words, its response was proportionate,” noted the ruling. 

Gill’s lawyer, Lisa Bildy with Libertas Law, stated in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews that the “Court declined to quash the ‘cautions’ orders, finding that the ‘screening committee’ of the CPSO was sufficiently alert to the Charter infringement of Dr. Gill’s speech, such that its decisions were within the range of reasonable outcomes.” 

“Dr. Gill had argued, in two factums,” noted Bildy, which can be found here and here , and filed in the companion court applications, that “her statements were not ‘verifiably false.’” 

Bildy expressed that Gill had provided the College with “ample evidence in 2020 to support her position against lockdowns,” but was sanctioned “because they went against the College’s guidance that doctors should not express opinions contradicting government or its public health edicts.” 

Gill’s court challenge against the CPSO began last month, with Bildy writing at the time that the College’s “decisions were neither reasonable nor justified and they failed to engage with the central issues for which Dr. Gill was being cautioned.” 

“The decision starts with the premise that doctors have to comply,” said Bildy, warning that censoring doctors would have a “chilling effect” on free speech.    

Bildy noted that in its ruling, the court “disagreed” with Gill’s challenge, “stating that this invited a reweighing of the evidence.” 

The court also ordered that Gill pay the CPSO $6,000 in legal costs.  

Gill is a specialist practicing in the Greater Toronto area, and has extensive experience and training in “pediatrics, and allergy and clinical immunology, including scientific research in microbiology, virology and vaccinology.” 

Last September, disciplinary proceedings against her were withdrawn by the CPSO. However, last year, Gill was ordered to pay $1 million in legal costs after her libel suit was struck down. 

The CPSO began disciplinary investigations against Gill in August 2020.  

Gill to appeal recent court ruling with support from Musk’s X  

The court’s ruling asserted that the CPSO panel members consisted of “three physicians with highly relevant expertise that they were able to bring to bear when assessing the scientific and medical information before them, expertise that this court does not have.” 

Bildy noted that in fact, the CPSO panel consisted of “three surgeons and a general member of the public who had deferred to the ‘expertise’ of government’s public health arm.” 

The court ruling also dismissed Gill’s arguments that publishing the “cautions on her public register and disseminating a notice about the cautions to hospitals and regulators across the continent was punitive and had a chilling effect on one side of a debate.” 

“The Court opted to align with other Divisional Court decisions in stating that the cautions were not a finding of professional misconduct but were merely a remedial measure. This is despite the fact that cautions have, only in recent years, become a public rebuke rather than a private ‘correction’ of a professional by their peers. This significant change has not yet been grappled with by the Ontario Court of Appeal,” noted Bildy.  

Bildy said that Gill intends to “seek leave to appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal with the support of X Corp., since her posts were made on the X platform which supports free expression and dialogue, even on contentious issues and particularly on matters of scientific and medical importance.”  

Gill noted on X Tuesday that her “notice of motion for leave to appeal will be filed” next week “to begin process.” 

She also thanked Musk and X for supporting her legal cause.  

Gill had said that she had “suddenly” found herself going “against the narrative,” and was then “seen as a black sheep and as someone who should be shunned.” 

Many Canadian doctors who spoke out against COVID mandates and the experimental mRNA injections have been censured by their medical boards. 

Earlier this month, Elon Musk’s X announced that it will fund the legal battle for another Canadian doctor critical of COVID lockdowns, Dr. Matthew Strauss, an Ontario critical care physician and professor, against his former employer Queen’s University after it forced him to resign. 

In an interview with LifeSiteNews at its annual general meeting in July 2023 near Toronto, canceled doctors Mary O’Connor, Mark Trozzi, Chris Shoemaker, and Byram Bridle were asked to state their messages to the medical community regarding how they have had to fight censure because they have opinions contrary to the COVID mainstream narrative. 

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COVID-19

Healthcare workers obtain partial win against Bonnie Henry in BC Supreme Court

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News release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms 

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is pleased to announce that the British Columbia Supreme Court has remitted back to the provincial health officer the issue of whether remote working and administrative health care workers must take the Covid vaccine as a condition of being able to work in a health care system that the BC government claims is grossly understaffed.

While the Justice Centre is disappointed that the court upheld the Covid vaccine mandate on BC healthcare workers, this decision is viewed as a substantial win for those remote-working and administrative healthcare workers who lost their jobs due to an unfair Covid vaccine mandate and other Health Orders put in place by BC provincial health officer Bonnie Henry, starting in November 2021. The court’s decision was released on Friday, May 10, 2024, by Justice Simon Coval in Vancouver.

The Justice Centre provided for lawyers to represent the healthcare workers, who filed their Petition to the Court on March 16, 2022. Oral arguments were presented November 20 to December 1, 2023, and December 18 to December 21, 2023. The petitioners argued that the orders violated their Charter rights, section 2(a) freedom of conscience and religion, section 7 right to life, liberty and security of the person, and section 15 equality rights.

The case is formally known as Tatlock, Koop, et al. v. BC and Dr. Bonnie Henry. More background is available at this link.

Charlene Le Beau, co-counsel for the petitioners, says, “This case was a Judicial Review, which means the court had to determine whether Dr. Bonnie Henry acted reasonably in making the Covid vaccine a condition of employment. We are disappointed with the court finding that Dr. Henry acted reasonably, but pleased with the court also finding that the application of the Orders to remote-working and administrative workers went too far. As a result, the court remitted the issue back to Dr. Henry so that, in light of the reasons for judgment, she can consider whether to accept requests for exemption to the vaccine for those groups of workers. This is a positive result for BC nurses, doctors and other health care workers.”

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