Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

COVID-19

Federal Court Judge Pulls Canada Back from the Brink

Published

3 months ago

10 minute read

From the Brownstone Institute

BY Bruce PardyBRUCE PARDY

Trucks blocked border crossings in Coutts, Alberta and at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario. Local and provincial law enforcement dealt with those protests and cleared the borders.

The Canadian government’s use of the Emergencies Act was unlawful. The Trucker Convoy did not constitute a national emergency. So said a judge of the Federal Court. The decision may help to pull Canada back from the brink of authoritarian rule.

The Federal Court decision contains four conclusions. Two prerequisites for invoking the Emergencies Act, said Justice Richard Mosley, were not met. Moreover, the two regulations issued under it were unconstitutional. Predictably, the government has promised to appeal. For the government to prevail, an appeal panel would have to overturn all four. But there is a wrinkle, which I will get to momentarily.

Between 1963 and 1970, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a separatist organization in Quebec, committed bombings, robberies, and killed several people. In October 1970, they kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross, and then kidnapped and killed Pierre Laporte, a minister in the Quebec government. In response, Pierre Trudeau’s government invoked the War Measures Act, the only time it had been used in peacetime. In the years that followed, the invocation of the Act became regarded as a dangerous overreach of government powers and breach of civil liberties.

The Emergencies Act, enacted in 1988 to replace the War Measures Act, had higher thresholds. It was supposed to be more difficult for governments to trigger. Before Covid and the trucker convoy, it had never been used.

The Freedom Convoy arrived at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on January 29, 2022 to protest Covid vaccine mandates. The truckers parked unlawfully in downtown Ottawa. They violated parking bylaws and probably the Highway Traffic Act. Authorities could have issued tickets and towed the trucks away. But they didn’t.

In the meantime, protests in other parts of the country emerged. Trucks blocked border crossings in Coutts, Alberta and at the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario. Local and provincial law enforcement dealt with those protests and cleared the borders. By February 15, when Justin Trudeau’s government declared a public order emergency and invoked the Emergencies Act, only the Ottawa protests had not been resolved.

The government issued two regulations under the Act. One prohibited public assemblies “that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.” The other outlawed donations and authorized banks to freeze donors’ bank accounts. On February 18 and 19, police brandishing riot batons descended on the crowd. They arrested close to 200 people, broke truck windows, and unleashed the occasional burst of pepper spray. By the evening of the 19th, they had cleared the trucker encampment away. Banks froze the accounts and credit cards of hundreds of supporters. On February 23, the government revoked the regulations and use of the Act.

Governments cannot use the Emergencies Act unless its prerequisites are met. A public order emergency must be a “national emergency” and a “threat to the security of Canada,” both of which are defined in the Act. A national emergency exists only if the situation “cannot be effectively dealt with under any other law of Canada.” “Threats to the security of Canada” can be one of several things. The government relied upon the clause that requires activities “directed toward or in support of the threat or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective.”

The trucker protests were neither a national emergency, Mosley concluded, nor a threat to the security of Canada.

There was no national emergency:

Due to its nature and to the broad powers it grants the Federal Executive, the Emergencies Act is a tool of last resort. [Cabinet] cannot invoke the Emergencies Act because it is convenient, or because it may work better than other tools at their disposal or available to the provinces.…in this instance, the evidence is clear that the majority of the provinces were able to deal with the situation using other federal law, such as the Criminal Code, and their own legislation…For these reasons, I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires.

A threat to the security of Canada did not exist:

Ottawa was unique in the sense that it is clear that [Ottawa Police Services] had been unable to enforce the rule of law in the downtown core, at least in part, due to the volume of protesters and vehicles. The harassment of residents, workers and business owners in downtown Ottawa and the general infringement of the right to peaceful enjoyment of public spaces there, while highly objectionable, did not amount to serious violence or threats of serious violence…[Cabinet] did not have reasonable grounds to believe that a threat to national security existed within the meaning of the Act and the decision was ultra vires.

Nor were the regulations constitutional. The prohibition on public assemblies infringed freedom of expression under section 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Empowering financing institutions to provide personal financial information to the government and to freeze bank accounts and credit cards was an unconstitutional search and seizure under section 8. Neither was justified, Mosley concluded, under section 1 of the Charter, the “reasonable limits” clause.

To prevail on appeal, the government would have to reverse all four conclusions. Justice Mosley did not make obvious errors of law. But there are a couple of odd bits. In particular, Mosley admits to doubts about how he would have proceeded had he been at the cabinet table himself:

I had and continue to have considerable sympathy for those in government who were confronted with this situation. Had I been at their tables at that time, I may have agreed that it was necessary to invoke the Act. And I acknowledge that in conducting judicial review of that decision, I am revisiting that time with the benefit of hindsight and a more extensive record of the facts and law…

Which brings us to the wrinkle. In April 2022, Richard Wagner, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, gave an interview to Le Devoir. Speaking in French, he characterized the protest on Wellington Street in Ottawa, where Parliament and the Supreme Court are located, as “the beginning of anarchy where some people have decided to take other citizens hostage.” Wagner said that “forced blows against the state, justice and democratic institutions like the one delivered by protesters…should be denounced with force by all figures of power in the country.” He did not mention the Emergencies Act by name. But his comments could be interpreted as endorsing its use.

The government’s appeal will go first to the Federal Court of Appeal but then to the Supreme Court of Canada. Its chief justice appears to have already formed an opinion about the dispute. Having made his public comments, the chief justice should announce that he will recuse himself from the case to avoid a reasonable perception of bias. That too would help bring Canada back from the brink.

Author

  • Bruce Pardy
    Bruce Pardy

    Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.

Related Topics:

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

More from this author
Automotive / 12 hours ago

Electric vehicle mandates mean misery all around

COVID-19 / 14 hours ago

Kenyan doctor: WHO pandemic treaty aims to ‘maim and kill’ and ‘establish a one-world government’

espionage / 24 hours ago

EXCLUSIVE: House Committee To Investigate Spike In Chinese Illegal Immigration Following DCNF Report

COVID-19

Kenyan doctor: WHO pandemic treaty aims to ‘maim and kill’ and ‘establish a one-world government’

Published on May 11, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Dr. Wahome Ngare pointed out that there is a history of population reduction efforts in Africa despite the fact that the country is not overpopulated, saying, ‘The problem is greedy global corporate owners who are interested in appropriating our natural resources.’

A Kenyan doctor declared last week that the globalist World Health Organization (WHO)’s proposed “Pandemic Accord” treaty aims to pave the way for a new lethal man-made virus and vaccine, as well as establish a global government by undermining national sovereignty.

Dr. Wahome Ngare explained before the Second African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family Values & Sovereignty that the real purpose of the pending treaty, which would achieve unprecedented medical control of the WHO over all of its member nations, is depopulation.

He pointed out that there is a substantial history of population reduction efforts in Africa despite the fact that it is demonstrably not overpopulated. To drive this home, he explained that the land mass of Africa can fit that of the U.S., China, India, and Japan but contains only about a fourth of the population of all of those countries combined.

“The problem with Africa is not its growing population, (which) is actually an asset. The problem is greedy global corporate owners who are interested in appropriating our natural resources,” Dr. Ngare said.

The doctor maintains that there are ongoing efforts to reduce the population on the continent through war, famine, disease, and even genetically modified organisms (GMOs), explaining, “The biggest problem with GMO is that the seed is patented — it is owned by someone. And once you use it long enough and your natural seed has disappeared, they can withdraw their seed and kill you through hunger.” In fact, Bill Gates-backed initiatives in Africa have pushed GMO crops for years, under the pretext that it will “end starvation in Africa.”

Dr. Ngare went on to make the case that the COVID-19 outbreak was deliberately used to depopulate the world, including Africa, and that this was only a prelude to what is planned to follow this next WHO Pandemic Accord.

During COVID-19, he noted, people were told that a “frightening” number would die from the virus, and that the disease was untreatable, and that “natural immunity cannot protect us and save us.”

“We were told not to shake hands, we were told not to social distance, we were told to stay at home … If you were given this psychological torture for six months and then you were told there was a vaccine, what would you do? You would run for the vaccine!” Dr. Ngare said.

Vaccination then “became mandatory through coercion,” because evidence of vaccination was needed in order to access goods and services, said Dr. Ngare, suggesting that this showed that “The end game of the whole covid fiasco was to vaccinate everybody … That is what COVID was about.”

For one, only the manufacturers knew what exactly was in the vaccines, and only the laboratories involved in creating them were permitted to test and examine these vaccines.

The supposed basis of their usefulness was also based on an erroneous foundation, Dr. Ngare declared, because the spike protein created by the vaccine was modeled after the very same protein that caused disease in COVID-19.

The shot was also pushed along with the assertion that natural immunity is not protective — and yet, the very vaccine was based on the body’s ability to “mount an immune response to the pathogen!”

Worse, data from the jab trials released by a court order in the U.S. revealed a disturbing amount of death and injury caused at least by the Pfizer shot. According to Dr. Ngare, 61 people died from strokes and five people died from liver damage during the trials, while 80% of pregnant mothers lost their babies during the first three months of pregnancy after being injected with the COVID shots. Moreover, harm was inflicted on both men and women’s reproductive systems by the shots, which harmed sperm count and motility, ovaries, menstrual cycles and placentas.

“This was known during the time of registration of the vaccines, but was not known by doctors,” Dr. Ngare said.

He went on to tell how in Africa there has long been a precedent of imposing unnecessary vaccines, as well as even pushing vaccines that harmed fertility, particularly through the tetanus shot.

According to Dr. Ngare, during the campaign to eradicate tetanus in Africa, females from age 14 to 49 were vaccinated every six months for tetanus, with shots that were in fact contraceptives, unbeknown to the women. This shot was intentionally designed and developed by the U.N, W.H.O., and World Bank to reduce fertility, he added.

The doctor asserted that a paper has been published demonstrating the contraceptive nature of these tetanus vaccines, which has been read over 300,000 times.

Dr. Ngare suggested that these efforts to depopulate Africa and the world through vaccines are precedents for an upcoming depopulation campaign to be initiated through the Pandemic Accord treaty.

The amendments to the international health regulations (IHR) that are part and parcel of the treaty will determine how the WHO would manage pandemics, or diseases that cross country borders, according to Dr. Ngare.

“The WHO is seeking to increase its powers so that the Director General can unilaterally declare that there is a pandemic, whether real or imagined,” Dr. Ngare said. “The minute he pronounces that, the new regulations would allow him to take charge of pandemic management in every country that is a signatory to WHO.”

“It is director Tedros who will say when you will lock down, whether you can ever go to work, which vaccines you’ll be given,” he explained.

“If the WHO causes so much damage with its current power, can you imagine what it would do if you actually gave it more power?” he continued.

“My conclusion is (that) the WHO is no longer a health-promoting body. It has become an imperialism arm of global corporate interests,” he said, adding that the proposed pandemic treaty and IHRs “aim to give the WHO the legal mandate to facilitate the creation of new pandemic … using new man-made viruses, and (the) use of vaccinations as a counter-measure, both designed to reduce the world population through reducing fertility, maiming and killing.”

“It will also give the WHO the mandate to use the pandemics to establish a one-world government by totally obliterating the sovereignty of member states and countries and eroding the citizens’ individual liberties,” he warned.

He urged African nations to avoid this immense harm by first writing “formally to the WHO” to reject the amendments and IHRs, and then to “consider exiting the WHO by 2024, which is when the pandemic treaty is supposed to come into force.”

The doctor also called on African countries to “collectively call for an end to gain-of-function research,” which described as both absurd and extremely dangerous.

“African countries should take a step and say, it is criminal for anybody to train viruses and bacteria to attack human beings as a way of creating a vaccine just in case that virus escapes,” he said. “That is witchcraft. It is not medicine.”

He also advised African countries to “collectively treat all vaccination programs as a national security risk,” stating, “If you cannot determine what is in the vaccine that is being given to your people, you may be opening a door to destroy the African population.”

Finally, Dr. Ngare urged African nations to “reject any linking of individual health records, including vaccination records, to the digital ID that is now being forced” on them.

“Honorable members, do not allow the government to access private health information as a means to determine who will get health services or not. It is medically unethical and it is against basic human rights,” he said.

Continue Reading

Censorship Industrial Complex

Quebec court greenlights class action suit against YouTube’s COVID-related content censorship

Published on May 11, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Didi Rankovic

The lawsuit, led by video blogger Éloïse Boies, argues YouTube violated freedom of expression under the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms by censoring COVID-related content.

A class action lawsuit against YouTube’s censorship of COVID-era speech on the platform has been allowed to proceed in Canada.

The primary plaintiff in the case which has now been greenlit by the Quebec Superior Court is YouTuber Éloïse Boies, while the filing accuses the Google video platform of censoring information about vaccines, the pandemic, and the virus itself.

A copy of the order can be found HERE.

READ: Elon Musk skewers Trudeau gov’t Online Harms bill as ‘insane’ for targeting speech retroactively

Boies, who runs the “Élo Wants to Know” channel, states in the lawsuit that three of her videos got removed by YouTube (one of the censored videos was about… censorship) for allegedly violating the website’s policies around medical disinformation and contradicting World Health Organization and local health authorities’ COVID narratives of the time.

However, the content creator claims that the decisions represented unlawful and intentional suppression of free expression. In February, Boies revealed that in addition to having videos deleted, the censorship also branded her an “antivaxxer” and a “conspiracy theorist,” causing her to lose contracts.

The filing cites the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms as the document YouTube violated, while the class-action status of the lawsuit stems from it including any individual or legal entity in Quebec whose videos dealing with COVID got censored, or who were prevented from watching such videos, starting in mid-March 2020 and onward.

Google, on the other hand, argues that it is under no obligation to respect the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and can therefore not be held accountable for decisions to censor content it doesn’t approve of – or as the giant phrased it, provide space for videos “regardless of their content.”

But when Superior Court Judge Lukasz Granosik announced his decision, he noted that freedom of expression “does not only mean freedom of speech, but also freedom of publication and freedom of creation.”

Google was ordered to stop censoring content because it contradicts health authorities, WHO, or governments, pay $1,000 in compensation, and $1,000 in punitive damages to each of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, as well as “additional compensation provided for by law since the filing of the request for authorization to take collective action, as per the court’s decision.”

As for those who were prevented from accessing content, the decision on damages will be the subject of a future hearing.

Reprinted with permission from Reclaim The Net.

Continue Reading

Trending

X