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COVID-19

Nova Scotia judge sues chief judge, provincial court over Covid vaccine status and judicial independence

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News release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is providing for the legal representation of Judge Rickcola Brinton of the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia in a lawsuit against The Honorable Pamela S. Williams, former Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia, among others. Brinton was threatened by Williams with suspension and referral to the provincial Judicial Council after she chose not to disclose her Covid vaccination status in late 2021. She filed her claim in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia on September 29, 2023, seeking damages for the intentional violation of her judicial independence and medical privacy.

On September 29, 2021, Brinton received an email (sent to all judges of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court) from Judge Williams, then Chief Judge, asking if they would agree to share their vaccination status with each other. Chief Judge Williams also asked whether the Court should share that information with the Nova Scotia Bar.

On October 1, 2021, Brinton replied, “I realize I may be in the minority…as I have concerns with medical privacy,” she wrote. “I also know that the vaccination mandates and passports may be disproportionately impacting racialized communities. And as an essential service, will we be creating a two-tiered society for those who already feel as though we are not all free to serve them?” She thus declined to disclose her vaccination status.

In an effort to persuade her, Chief Judge Williams met with Brinton on October 7, 2021. Brinton explained that her decision not to disclose her vaccination status was a matter of conscience and the result of prayerful contemplation. She offered to get tested for Covid as often as needed, but Chief Judge Williams rejected Brinton’s proposal.

At the end of October, Brinton went on short-term disability leave. She submitted the required Proof of Illness form completed by her doctor.

On November 1, 2021, Chief Judge Williams sent out an email to all judges stating that “only fully vaccinated judges will be assigned to sit in our courtrooms.” Four days later, on November 25, 2021, she issued a public statement announcing that “[a]ll Provincial Court judges presiding in courtrooms, both now and in the future, are fully vaccinated.”

A few months later, on February 22, 2022, Chief Judge Williams wrote to Brinton stating that she would not approve the continuation of the short-term leave unless Brinton provided evidence of her disability. She also wrote that if Brinton continued to refuse to disclose her vaccination status, she would be “considered non-vaccinated and unable to preside over in-person trial and sentencings in the Court Room,” and that she would have “no recourse other than to suspend [Brinton] and refer the matter to the Judicial Council.”

Then, on March 27, 2022, without warning or Brinton’s consent, Chief Judge Williams wrote to Brinton’s doctor requesting that he supply her with details of Brinton’s medical issues. The doctor called Brinton to ask if she consented to this disclosure of medical information. She did not consent. The Chief Judge’s office followed up by calling the doctor’s office to once again ask for disclosure consent. Again, Brinton declined. Meanwhile, Brinton had provided necessary information to her disability benefits provider and had been approved for long-term disability.

Brinton has not received any communication from Chief Judge Williams since April 2022. Williams’ term as Chief Judge ended in August 2023. She continues to sit on the bench.

Judicial independence is a crucial and ancient constitutional principle, predating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Brinton raised concerns about interference with medical privacy and the impact of disclosing her Covid vaccination status on the independence and impartiality of both herself and the Court, particularly with respect to cases where courts have been asked to rule on issues regarding Covid vaccines; for example, whether an employee who is terminated for not taking the Covid vaccine is eligible for EI benefits, or whether it was legal for post-secondary institutions to force students out of their programof study for not taking the vaccine. As a result of raising such concerns, Brinton was threatened with suspension and disciplinary action.

Brinton’s lawsuit names the Honourable Pamela S. Williams, the Office of the Chief Judge of the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia, the Provincial Court of Nova Scotia, and the Attorney General of Nova Scotia representing His Majesty the King in Right of the Province of Nova Scotia, as defendants.

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COVID-19

Trump DOJ seeks to quash Pfizer whistleblower’s lawsuit over COVID shots

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

The Justice Department attorney did not mention the Trump FDA’s recent admission linking the COVID shots to at least 10 child deaths so far.

The Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to dismiss a whistleblower case against Pfizer over its COVID-19 shots, even as the Trump Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is beginning to admit their culpability in children’ s deaths.

As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, in 2021 the BMJ published a report on insider information from a former regional director of the medical research company Ventavia, which Pfizer hired in 2020 to conduct research for the company’s mRNA-based COVID-19 shot.

The regional director, Brook Jackson, sent BMJ “dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails,” which “revealed a host of poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia that could impact data integrity and patient safety […] We also discovered that, despite receiving a direct complaint about these problems over a year ago, the FDA did not inspect Ventavia’s trial sites.”

According to the report, Ventavia “falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial.” Overwhelmed by numerous problems with the trial data, Jackson filed an official complaint with the FDA.

Jackson was fired the same day, and Ventavia later claimed that Jackson did not work on the Pfizer COVID-19 shot trial; but Jackson produced documents proving she had been invited to the Pfizer trial team and given access codes to software relating to the trial. Jackson filed a lawsuit against Pfizer for violating the federal False Claims Act and other regulations in January 2021, which was sealed until February 2022. That case has been ongoing ever since.

Last August, U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale dismissed most of Jackson’s claims with prejudice, meaning they could not be refiled. Jackson challenged the decision, but the Trump DOJ has argued in court to uphold it, Just the News reports, with DOJ attorney Nicole Smith arguing that the case concerns preserving the government’s unfettered power to dismiss whistleblower cases.

The rationale echoes a recurring trend in DOJ strategy that Politico described in May as “preserving executive power and preventing courts from second-guessing agency decisions,” even in cases that involve “backing policies favored by Democrats.”

Jackson’s attorney Warner Mendenhall responded that the administration “really sort of made our case for us” in effectively admitting that DOJ is taking the Fair Claims Act’s “good cause” standard for state intervention to mean “mere desire to dismiss,” which infringes on his client’s “First Amendment right to access the courts, to vindicate what she learned.”

Mendenhall added that in a refiled case, Jackson “may be able to bring a very different case along the same lines, but with the additional information” to prove fraud, whereas rejection would send the message that “if fraud involves government complicity, don’t bother reporting it.”

“The truth is we do not know if we saved lives on balance,” admitted FDA Chief Medical Officer Vinay Prasad in a recent leaked email. “It is horrifying to consider that the U.S. vaccine regulation, including our actions, may have harmed more children than we saved. This requires humility and introspection.”

The COVID shots have been highly controversial ever since the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative prepared and released them in a fraction of the time any previous vaccine had ever been developed and tested. As LifeSiteNews has extensively covered, a large body of evidence has steadily accumulated over the past five years indicating that the COVID jabs failed to prevent transmission and, more importantly, carried severe risks of their own.

Ever since, many have intently watched and hotly debated what President Donald Trump would do about the situation upon his return to office. Though he never backed mandates like former President Joe Biden did, for years Trump refused to disavow the shots to the chagrin of his base, seeing Operation Warp Speed as one of his crowning achievements. At the same time, during his latest run he embraced the “Make America Healthy Again” movement and its suspicion of the medical establishment more broadly.

So far, Trump’s second administration has rolled back several recommendations for the shots but not yet pulled them from the market, despite hiring several vocal critics of the COVID establishment and putting the Department of Health & Human Services under the leadership of America’s most prominent anti-vaccine advocate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Most recently, the administration has settled on leaving the current jabs optional but not supporting work to develop successors.

In a July interview, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary asked for patience from those unsatisfied by the administration’s handling of the shots, insisting more time was needed for comprehensive trials to get more definitive data.

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COVID-19

Canadian Health Department funds study to determine effects of COVID lockdowns on children

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The commissioned study will assess the impact on kids’ mental well-being of COVID lockdowns and ‘remote’ school classes that banned outdoor play and in-person learning.

Canada’s Department of Health has commissioned research to study the impact of outdoor play on kids’ mental well-being in light of COVID lockdowns and “remote” school classes that, for a time, banned outdoor play and in-person learning throughout most of the nation. 

In a notice to consultants titled “Systematic Literature Reviews And Meta Analyses Supporting Two Projects On Children’s Health And Covid-19,” the Department of Health admitted that “Exposure to green space has been consistently associated with protective effects on children’s physical and mental health.”

A final report, which is due in 2026, will provide “Health Canada with a comprehensive assessment of current evidence, identify key knowledge gaps and inform surveillance and policy planning for future pandemics and other public health emergencies.”

Bruce Squires, president of McMaster Children’s Hospital of Hamilton, Ontario, noted in 2022 that “Canada’s children and youth have borne the brunt” of COVID lockdowns.

From about March 2020 to mid-2022, most of Canada was under various COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns, including mask mandates, at the local, provincial, and federal levels. Schools were shut down, parks were closed, and most kids’ sports were cancelled. 

Mandatory facemask polices were common in Canada and all over the world for years during the COVID crisis despite over 170 studies showing they were not effective in stopping the spread of COVID and were, in fact, harmful, especially to children.

In October 2021, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector, saying the un-jabbed would no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, a new report released by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) raised alarm bells over the “harms caused” by COVID-19 lockdowns and injections imposed by various levels of government as well as a rise in unexplained deaths and bloated COVID-19 death statistics.

Indeed, a recent study showed that COVID masking policies left children less able to differentiate people’s emotions behind facial expressions.

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