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COVID-19

$290 million lawsuit against Freedom Convoy participants designed to silence expression

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4 minute read

From the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

This lawsuit also seeks damages from citizens who donated to the peaceful protest.

Lawyers on behalf of Chris Barber, Tamara Lich, and other Freedom Convoy participants argue that the $290 million class action against them is designed to silence their expression–expression the public had an interest in hearing [Image by Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images]

OTTAWA, ON: The Justice Centre announces that lawyers representing Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and other defendants against a class-action lawsuit brought by Zexi Li and other Ottawa residents will be in court this Thursday, December 14, 2023. Tamara Lich and the other defendants have filed an application to dismiss Zexi Li’s $290 million class action as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP)–a lawsuit designed to silence the expression of peaceful protesters.

In February 2022, Ottawa residents Zexi Li and Geoffrey Delaney, Happy Goat Coffee Company, and a local union commenced a $290 million class-action lawsuit against Chris Barber, Tamara Lich, and other Freedom Convoy participants, seeking damages against peaceful protesters for allegedly causing a nuisance. This lawsuit also seeks damages from citizens who donated to the peaceful protest.

Anti-SLAPP legislation serves to protect defendants against “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (SLAPP)–lawsuits designed to silence a defendant’s freedom of expression through threats of damages or costs. Anti-SLAPP motions are designed to end such lawsuits and are available to a defendant in any proceeding against them. Once an anti-SLAPP motion has been filed, the defendant must demonstrate that the proceeding against them arises from their expression that “relates to a matter of public interest.” If the defendant can demonstrate that their expression does relate to a matter of public interest, the plaintiff must then demonstrate that their lawsuit has “substantial merit” and that the defendant has no valid defence. A judge must then weigh the importance of the expression at stake against the importance of the plaintiff’s allegations of harm.

Lawyers in the Justice Centre network argue that the proceedings against Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and others do, in fact, arise from their expression. Donating to and participating in the Freedom Convoy amounted to an expression of support for the protest, and of disagreement with the Government of Canada’s response to Covid–matters of public interest. Further, lawyers argue that Zexi Li’s class-action lawsuit contains factual and legal weaknesses; it is not obvious that the proceeding against the defendants has “substantial merit.” Finally, lawyers argue that the defendants do have valid defences and that the value of the expression at issue outweighs the allegations of nuisance against them.

On Thursday, December 14, 2023, the parties will proceed to oral argument at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, arguing that the plaintiffs’ entire class-action lawsuit is, in fact, a SLAPP action disguised as a nuisance claim and that the lawsuit is merely intended to punish the defendants for participating in the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest. If successful, all or part of the class-action lawsuit will be dismissed.

Lawyer James Manson stated, “Zexi Li’s lawsuit engages the very purpose that ‘anti-SLAPP’ legislation was designed to address: an attempt to silence peaceful expression, and the right of defendants to participate in public debate.”

John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre, stated “The fundamental Charter freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly must be vigorously protected and defended, whether they are attacked directly by government or indirectly through a misguided civil action.”

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COVID-19

Former COVID coordinator Deborah Birx now admits jabs could have injured ‘thousands’

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Deborah Birx, coronavirus response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force

From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Deborah Birx, who in 2022 admitted to ‘overplaying’ the controversial COVID jabs, now says she supports a ‘9/11-like commission’ to rebuild trust in public health authorities.

One of the top architects of the establishment response to COVID-19 now admits “thousands” of Americans could have been harmed by the controversial COVID shots, while continuing to insist their net impact was positive after hundreds of thousands of reports of jab injuries.

Dr. Deborah Birx, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator under the Trump administration, appeared Wednesday on NewsNation, where host Chris Cuomo asked her about AstraZeneca’s recent decision to have its COVID jab (which was used in Europe but not in the United States) pulled worldwide. The company insisted the decision was for business reasons, but it shortly followed a wave of lawsuits from families claiming to have been injured by the shot, as well as a court ruling linking it to serious blood clotting.

READ: Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8

Birx insisted that the COVID vaccines were “very effective” at preventing severe COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, but acknowledged some adverse effects and legitimate questions as to forcing jabs on lower-risk groups.

“That happens often with immunizations that if the natural disease can cause it, then it also sometimes can be seen in certain profiles of the vaccine,” she said. “We should be studying that right now.” She doubted the number was in the “millions,” but said, “could it be thousands? Yes.” More than 1,600,000 reports of adverse effects from COVID jabs have been submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which has been found to underreport vaccine injuries.

“I’ve called for over and over… a 9/11-like commission where all of this is laid out,” Birx added. “When we talk about rebuilding trust in science and data and information, it starts with transparency […] Until we’ve listened to each and every one of them and addressed their concerns, and they believe they were heard, people are going to continue to spread conspiracy theories.”

READ: 33-year-old father dies of immune disorder linked to Pfizer COVID vaccine, doctors say

significant body of evidence links serious risks to the COVID shots, which were developed and reviewed in a fraction of the time vaccines usually take under former President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed initiative. Among it, VAERS reports 37,544 deaths, 216,213 hospitalizations, 21,668 heart attacks, and 28,366 myocarditis and pericarditis cases as of April 26, among other ailments. U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) researchers have recognized a “high verification rate of reports of myocarditis to VAERS after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination,” leading to the conclusion that “under-reporting is more likely” than overreporting.

Last month, the CDC was forced to release by court order 780,000 previously undisclosed reports of serious adverse reactions, and a study out of Japan found “statistically significant increases” in cancer deaths after third doses of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, and offered several theories for a causal link.

READ: Canadian father files $35 million lawsuit against Pfizer over son’s jab-related death

In Florida, a grand jury impaneled by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is currently investigating the manufacture and rollout of the COVID vaccines. In February, it released its first interim report on the underlying justification for Operation Warp Speed, which determined that lockdowns did more harm than good, that masks were ineffective at stopping COVID transmission, that COVID was “statistically almost harmless” to children and most adults, and that it is “highly likely” that COVID hospitalization numbers were inflated. The grand jury’s report on the vaccines themselves is highly anticipated.

As for Birx, she was a crucial part of the effort to convince Trump to support widespread lockdowns in 2020, and admitted two years later to using what she called “strategic sleight-of-hand” and “subterfuge” to shift the White House’s more limited original COVID guidance to more draconian measures. Birx also admitted in 2022 that “we overplayed the vaccines” when she “knew these vaccines were not going to protect against” getting infected.

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COVID-19

The New York Times Admits Injuries from COVID-19 Shots

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From Heartland Daily News

By AnneMarie Schieber

“This is a promising start, but what about the dead?”

The COVID-19 shots have caused multiple, serious injuries, an article in The New York Times acknowledged on May 4.

It is the first time the self-described newspaper of record has reported on the severe side effects from the vaccines, since the massive inoculation campaign that went into full swing starting in January 2021. The article profiled several health professionals with advanced degrees who suffered debilitating injuries ranging from neurological disorders, shingles, hearing loss, tinnitus, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and racing hearts, weeks and months after their COVID-19 shots.

‘I’m Told I’m Not Real’

The patients, all familiar with the internal workings of the health care system, described their utter frustration with their complaints not being taken seriously.

“I can’t get the government to help me,” Shaun Barcavage, a 54-year-old nurse practitioner from New York City told the Times. Barcavage now suffers from tinnitus after suffering from stinging in his eyes, mouth, and genitals upon getting his first COVID shot. “I’m told I’m not real. I’m told I’m coincidence.”

Similarly, Gregory Poland, editor-in-chief of the journal Vaccine, found little interest in his condition, according to the Times. Poland has urged his contacts at the Centers for Disease Control to examine the connection between the shots and tinnitus, which has afflicted him.

“I just don’t get any sense of movement,” Poland told the Times. “If they have done studies, those studies should be published.”

Changing Times?

The 3,244-word article—which the Times says was the result of months of investigation—highlights reports of COVID shot injuries reported by patients, conservative media outlets, and courageous doctors almost immediately after the vaccine campaign got underway, but were dismissed by the Times and other mainstream media outlets.

“That it took The New York Times more than three years to report on COVID side effects is just the latest indictment against our corrupt corporate legacy media,” said Jim Lakely, vice president and communications director at The Heartland Institute, which publishes Health Care News. “Back when such reporting would have been just as true, and actually mattered, the likes of The New York Times characterized all talk of negative side effects of a rushed COVID treatment as ‘disinformation’ and unproven ‘conspiracy theories.’”

Traditionally, journalism’s role was to remain neutral and to be skeptical of power, but the pandemic proved that corporate media outlets can no longer be trusted to report the news, and the article is the Times’ attempt to rehabilitate its image, says Lakely.

“The same legacy media that led the charge to de-platform and shame any free-thinking American who dared to question government narratives and mandates during the pandemic does not get points, for now, starting to gently report what has been true since the spring of 2020,” Lakely said.

Never Mind Deaths

“This is a promising start, but what about the dead?” wrote Jeff Childers on May 4 in his Coffee and COVID Substack. Childers has meticulously documented the “sudden deaths” of young, healthy people who received the COVID shots.

“Never mind!” wrote Childers. “Here we find the first serious gap in the article’s coverage. The Times avoided this difficult issue, only briefly referring to possible deaths. But maybe it was too much to expect in this cautious, tentative first step toward officially acknowledging that ‘Houston, we may have a problem.’”

Sudden deaths began getting serious attention late in 2022 after insurance executives started noticing a rise in death claims of young, working-age people.  Pilots, whose health is closely monitored, oddly began dying mid-flight.

     Also missing from the article is any mention of Peter McCullough, M.D., who has become one of the most recognizable names around the globe warning people about the mRNA shots. “No, I was not contacted,” McCullough told Health Care News.

‘Politics At Play’

Childers says the timing of the Times article is suspicious, noting that former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, who championed pandemic mitigation measures, went on national television recently to discuss his COVID shot injuries.

“I’m speculating, a lot, but cynically I sense politics at play,” wrote Childers. “We’re six months out from the election. Who does admitting even partial failure of the vaccine program help, politically, and who does it hurt? The acknowledgment of the reality of widespread, unaddressed vaccine injuries would seem to hurt President Trump the most.”

AnneMarie Schieber ([email protected]is the managing editor of Health Care News.

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