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COVID-19

Peckford: Hallelujah! Supreme Court of Canada to hear Newfoundland and Labrador charter case

Published

6 months ago

14 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Brian Peckford

This will allow the SCC to address novel questions about the scope of mobility rights in Canada and the extent to which the government can limit Canadians’ rights to move freely around the country.

In what can only be considered a surprise move the SCC has agreed to hear an appeal of a decision of the Supreme Court of Newfoundland. Surprise because the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal refused to hear the appeal of this exact case.

For the Appeal Court it was the all too familiar excuse of the whole thing being too moot for the Court.

But now the SCC has agreed to hear the case. The parties, Kimberly Taylor and The Canadian Civil Liberties Association appealed to the court.

Here is a copy of the Civil Liberties Press Release dated April 26, 2024:

“Arbitrary travel restrictions infringe on the mobility rights of Canadians. CCLA’s challenge of Newfoundland government’s Bill 38 will continue before the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), so that Canadians have clear, predictable, and stable answers to fundamental questions affecting their basic mobility rights.”

Back in May 2020, CCLA challenged the constitutionality of the Newfoundland government’s Bill 38 before the province’s Supreme Court. This Bill provided for a travel ban between provinces and other restrictive measures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. CCLA asked the Court to declare Bill 38 in violation of s.6 (mobility rights), as well as other Charter rights. CCLA also argued that the law could not be saved by s.1, which says that limits on rights must be reasonable and demonstrably justified. In September of 2020, the province’s Supreme Court found that the travel ban did violate the s.6 Charter right to mobility, but that such infringement could be justified under s.1. CCLA pursued this case before the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal. In August of 2023, the Court of Appeal refused to settle the merits of the appeal under the motive that it was moot, since the ban had been lifted. This was done despite all the parties urging the Court of Appeal to decide the appeal on the merits.

CCLA is pleased to learn that the SCC just granted its application seeking leave to appeal in this case. This will allow the SCC to address novel questions about the scope of mobility rights in Canada and the extent to which the government can limit Canadians’ rights to move freely around the country. CCLA is grateful for the excellent pro bono work of Paul Pape, Shantona Chaudhury and Mitchell McGowan from Pape Chaudry LLP in this file.”

Like the Association I am pleased that the highest court is going to hear the case. One can only assume that it will not just issue a silly moot decision given that they could have let the Court of Appeal decision of Newfoundland stand and not hear the case.

I hope the highest court considers the following given it is high time for the Constitution of This Country to be fairly applied and interpreted as written.

Courts have not the power to rewrite this sacred document. They are not omnipotent. That is for the people through its elected representatives as expressed in Section 38 of the Constitution Act 1982 in which the Charter is located—the Amending Formula.

The intent of Section 1 Of the Charter was that it could only be applied in a war, insurrection, the state being threatened circumstance. As one of the First Ministers involved and whose signature is on the original Patriation Agreement I submit this point of view was what was operative at the time of the construction of this section. All remaining First Ministers whose names are on that document are no longer with us. Sadly, no court has called me to provide my view.

This intent is clear In Section 4 (2) of the Charter:

 “In time of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection, a House of Commons may be continued by Parliament and a legislative assembly may be continued by the legislature beyond five years if such continuation is not opposed by the votes of more than one-third of the members of the House of Commons or the legislative assembly, as the case may be.”

So, decisions that have been made concerning the Charter should only be made in this context. Numerous court deliberations here and in many western jurisdictions have considered intent in determining the legitimacy of legislation. This is not novel or new.

Hence, a glaring, fundamental mistake has occurred in interpreting our Charter. The blatant omission of considering the opening words of the Charter in any interpretation of legislation by the Courts is an abuse of the Charter, our Constitution. Where is the power provided the courts to engage is such omission? Those words are:

“Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:”

The one reference of which I am aware in the Courts literature to any consideration of the opening words relating to God was by an Alberta Judge in a lower court foolishly indicated that the creators of the words did not identify God as being a Christian God. All the creators, the First Ministers, were Christians —that’s all. What an insult to our history and traditions and the authors?

And this has been allowed to stand?

And what about the rule of law? Little if anything has been done in considering and interpreting this point.

As for Section 1 itself of the Charter. If one can get past the previous points, which is impossible, but let’s speculate: the court in question in Newfoundland, like the courts across the land, have disfigured, misinterpreted the wording of this section —-

Rights and freedoms in Canada

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

What is of crucial importance is ‘demonstrably justify ‘and a free and democratic society ‘—-is it not? Many try and evade confronting these concepts by emphasizing ‘reasonable ‘. But ‘reasonable ‘is qualified, if you will, with ‘as can be demonstrably justified ‘and ‘in a free and democratic society.’ This was deliberate by the creators and authors of this section.

So, as we all know such reasonable demonstration would be a cost benefit analysis, a tool used frequently by Government in considering new policies or programs —and this case especially when sacred rights enshrined in the constitution were to be taken way!!! Yet, there was none!  And what about the Provincial Emergency Management organizations that were already established in all the provinces with immediate expertise. Were they consulted? Not one!

No such attempt was made, and the Governments did not conduct even a cursory cost benefit review and the courts eagerly accepted the one-sided Government narrative.  Yet experts like Lt. Colonel David Redman, who had been involved in Emergency Management and had written extensively on it were never consulted!

And ‘free and democratic society? Was there any meaningful engagement of the Parliament of Canada or the Legislative Assemblies —-not really, ——only to delegate power to unelected bureaucrats and relieve the politicians of direct responsibility. Where were the Parliamentary Committees? The sober consideration of all points of view in an open public session? Of independent science? Does not free and democratic society entail such deliberations?

And to those courts / governments who talk about little time—in this Newfoundland case it was 6 months before The Supreme Court of the Province ruled and 15 months for the Court of Appeal to issue a non-decision! So much for serving the people!

As for the concept of ‘mootness ‘that has been most dramatically used by the Federal Court and the Federal Court of Appeal and The Court of Appeal in Newfoundland? This is a construct of the court not the Constitution.

It denies a citizen the right to know whether a government action to which a citizen was subjected violates the Charter.  Should a court idea of mootness, refusing to rule on whether a government action of only months before overruling the people’s right to know if their rights and freedoms were violated? Is this not the role of the Court? To protect the rights and freedoms of the citizens from Government overreach? That was and is the whole point of the Charter.

Whether the Government action is presently operative or not should be irrelevant, especially when millions of citizens were involved and especially when it involved rights and freedoms protected under the Charter, our Constitution. There may be a role for mootness if a frivolous matter is established but by any measure what we are discussing is anything but a frivolous matter, even though The Newfoundland Court of Appeal in calling the whole thing ‘moot ‘had the gall to find the Government’s action of denying rights ‘fleeting.’ Courts have abdicated their solemn responsibilities to the people in the exaggerated use of such Court constructed procedures.

So the highest court can go back to ‘first principles’, and examine intent and the opening words of the Charter and place them in full context in any interpretation of the Charter. If this were done then Section 1 of the Charter would not even be in play. Constructing a hypothetical i.e. considering Section 1 of the Charter during the so called ‘covid emergency’, well, even if we do, the Government and Court reasoning would have failed as demonstrated above.

There is an opportunity through this case as well as the one in which I am involved for our highest court to get it right——to return to the full constitution and re-establish the ‘supremacy of God and the rule of law, ‘the legitimate role of Parliament, to the plain meaning of demonstrably justify, and the importance of intent in interpreting our Charter.

Is the Supreme Court of Canada up to the challenge?

Will our Constitution, our democracy be restored?

The Honourable A. Brian Peckford P.C. is the last living First Minister who helped craft the Canadian Charter of Rights

Watch –  Leaders on the Frontier: Brian Peckford on Saving Canada’s Democracy | Frontier Centre For Public Policy (fcpp.org)  January 20, 2022

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COVID-19

Nurse testimonials reveal ‘perfect storm’ of hospital COVID protocols leading to patient death

Published on October 14, 2024

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Hospitals were given money bonuses to enact dangerous protocols on COVID patients, according to whistleblower nurses who were themselves punished for speaking out.

Nurse testimonials reveal that hospitals not only used a deadly cocktail of protocols facilitating the death of patients during the COVID outbreak but punished whistleblowers, an author and researcher recently explained.

COVID policymakers “created one of the biggest terror campaigns in the history of mankind,” Ken McCarthy told Polly Tommey of Children’s Health Defense last month while sharing the most shocking findings of his tell-all interviews with nurses who worked the COVID pandemic.

McCarthy told how when he began to speak with nurses about their experiences, he realized that COVID-era hospital abuses he knew were taking place in New York City were in fact taking place nationwide due to “top down driven” protocols from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

These protocols, McCarthy said, were being “filtered through” chief financial officers (CFOs) of hospitals, because they were being “heavily” financially incentivized. And they were, according to all that he had learned from the nurses, dangerous and even deadly to those were designated COVID patients.

McCarthy went down the line naming several incentivized hospital COVID protocols that inflicted harm on these patients, beginning with the denial of anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen, as well as inhalable steroids.

“That’s the normal way you treat respiratory distress. You knock the inflammation down and you give people steroids. If you had a positive COVID diagnosis, they wouldn’t give you those basic treatments. This is like a fireman showing up at the fire and saying, let it burn a little bit more before we do anything,” McCarthy shared.

The next harmful practice hospitals used on “COVID” patients was to strap BiPAP masks on patients, a form of non-invasive ventilation that when administered improperly, caused many patients to have panic attacks.

“When you treat somebody with that, you have to warn them … It’s like if you were driving at 80 miles an hour and then one of your passengers stuck their head out the window. The wind is going down that fast. They didn’t prepare the patients, they didn’t comfort the patients. They would just slap this thing on and leave them alone,” explained McCarthy, adding that this “understandably” triggered panic attacks, at which point they were offered tranquilizers.

These tranquilizers relaxed their muscles, including their diaphragm, thereby weakening their breathing.

The drug was also dropped from a clinical trial for Ebola in 2018 after it was found that it had the highest death rate of the four drugs being tested, Dr. Bryan Ardis shared in a 2021 interview. In addition, according to attorney Thomas Renz, 25.9% of those prescribed Remdesivir for COVID-19 are recorded as having died in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) database. The death rate for COVID patients prescribed Remdesivir dwarfs the fatality rate of COVID patients prescribed Ivermectin, which is recorded by the CMS database as being 7.2%.

The deadly clincher to these protocols was the invasive intubation, that is, the use of ventilators, which were also financially incentivized.

McCarthy told Tommey that such intubation is for “when you’ve exhausted every other possibility” for a patient, because it is “a dangerous procedure.”

“The nickname for it among the hospital people is the garden hose. It’s large. Then you have to give somebody a feeding tube … You can cause abrasions, you can cause bleeding, infections.”

McCarthy learned that, moreover, intubated patients are typically given anywhere from five to 15 different drugs, including analgesics like fentanyl needed for the severe pain of invasive intubation, paralytic agents, and drugs “to just knock you out.”

He explained that normally a respiratory therapy is supposed to watch over four or five intubated patients, whereas during COVID, there was typically only one such therapist “for an entire ward of people.”

“Recipe for disaster. And indeed there was disaster,” McCarthy said.

“Now, here’s the really sinister thing. If you kept (a patient) on for 90 hours or longer, you got an extra bonus,” he continued.

“Every respiratory therapist will tell you as soon as you intubate somebody, within 24 hours you’re testing to see, hey, has this person recovered enough that we can take them off the intubation? Because every day you’re on intubation, you are closer to death. That’s just a fact.”

“So by what stretch of insanity did they incentivize hospitals to keep people on for 90 hours?” said McCarthy, adding, “I’d love to know who was in that room planning out these protocols.”

The author stressed that hospitals nowadays act as corporations, and not charitable institutions like they used to be — that is, they are “bottom line people.” So when they are given money bonuses for enacting certain protocols, they simply direct their entire staff to carry them out.

McCarthy said that in order to hide these deadly protocols, hospitals punished whistleblowers, according to nurse testimony.

A group that “was literally affiliated with the United Nations,” Team Halo, who McCarthy noted was devoted to counteracting “anti-vaxxers,” “metamorphized” during the COVID outbreak into a group that went after whistleblower nurses.

“They gave out nurses’ addresses and telephone numbers. They encouraged unhinged people to show up at their door and threaten them,” said McCarthy, telling how one whistleblower nurse who lives “in the boondocks of Nevada” had people “showing up at her door” after she was doxxed.

“They also had people filing complaints against the nurses with the nursing boards. Many of them had their nursing licenses challenged,” McCarthy added.

“And these were the thugs that went out and terrorized these nurses. So not only did the nurses get abused on the job — they were all fired. Anybody that spoke up and wouldn’t stop speaking up was fired. They were also tracked down afterwards and punished. They went through hell,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy’s book about his findings, “What the Nurses Saw,” is currently being sold on Amazon and has garnered an average of full five-star reviews.

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Alberta

Lawyers ask Alberta court to allow businesses to seek damages from gov’t for COVID shutdown

Published on October 9, 2024

By

 From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

If the case is allowed to proceed, any business operator in Alberta from 2020 to 2022 who was negatively impacted by COVID orders would be eligible to join the lawsuit. Any payout from the lawsuit would come from the taxpayers, which ironically includes the business owners themselves.

Alberta business owners who faced massive losses or permanent closures due to COVID mandates might soon be able to proceed with a class-action lawsuit against the provincial government after lawyers representing the businesses were in court for a certification hearing.

The court heard from the business group’s lawyers regarding the lawsuit proposal, which comes from Alberta-based Rath & Company. Lead counsel Jeffrey Rath said the Alberta government has been placed on notice for its actions against businesses during the COVID lockdown era.

The Rath lawsuit proposal names Rebecca Ingram, a gym owner, and Chris Scott, a restaurant owner, as “representative plaintiffs who suffered significant financial harm due to (former Alberta Chief Medical Officer) Dr. (Deena) Hinshaw’s Public Health Orders.”

Well-known freedom-oriented constitutional lawyer Eva Chipiuk was with Rath in court for the certification hearing. In an X post on October 3, she shared that it was an “interesting two days in court arguing on behalf of businesses impacted by Alberta’s public health orders.”

“In the heart of democratic societies lies a fundamental principle: Justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done. When justice systems operate in the open, public trust is maintained. People need to witness fairness, impartiality, and due process in action,” she wrote.

“When governments operate in the light of public scrutiny, they uphold not just the law but the trust of their citizens, ensuring that governance is not just a mechanism of power but a beacon of justice and equality.”

Chipiuk shared that a decision on whether or not the lawsuit will be allowed to proceed will be coming in a few months. She noted it will be “interesting how the judge decides in this case.”

“And will be very interesting how the government responds. They had an opportunity to get ahead of this issue but chose not to. We shall see if they took the right path or if they will be catching up and making up later,” she said.

Alberta Justice Colin Feasby noted at the end of the court certification hearing that both sides made good arguments, but the earliest a decision would be ready is December 1.

Chipiuk and Rath told the judge that the government’s public health orders exceeded their legal authority and, as a result, all businesses affected by the COVID orders should be compensated.

The government’s legal team claimed that the COVID orders were put in place on a good faith initiative and that it was Alberta Health Services, not the government, that oversaw enforcement of the rules.

If the case is allowed to proceed, any business operator in Alberta from 2020 to 2022 who was negatively impacted by COVID orders would be eligible to join the lawsuit. Any payout from the lawsuit would come from the taxpayers, which ironically includes the business owners themselves.

The Alberta Court of King’s Bench’s Ingram v. Alberta decision put into doubt all cases involving those facing non-criminal COVID-related charges in the province, which in effect has allowed the class action to get this far.

As a result of the court ruling, Alberta Crown Prosecutions Service (ACPS) said Albertans facing COVID-related charges will not be convicted but instead have their charges stayed.

Thus far, Dr. Michal Princ, pizzeria owner Jesse Johnson, Scott, and Alberta pastors James Coates, Tim Stephens, and Artur Pawlowski, who were jailed for keeping churches open under then-Premier Jason Kenney, have had COVID charges against them dropped due to the court ruling.

Under Kenney, thousands of businesses, notably restaurants and small shops, were negatively impacted by severe COVID restrictions, mostly in 2020-21, that forced them to close for a time. Many never reopened. At the same time, as in the rest of Canada, big box stores were allowed to operate unimpeded.

Class action is about ‘accountability, transparency, and justice,’ lawyer says

Before the hearing, Chipiuk said it is crucial for the public to “understand the significant impact of the unlawful public health orders on Albertans. The financial, psychological, and tragic consequences cannot be ignored.”

“At the end of the day, Premier Smith must recognize the gravity and optics of this situation. Fighting against those harmed by the Province’s unlawful orders, while the Province heavily favored the public sector over the private sector, does not foster an environment that encourages entrepreneurs or promotes business and investment in Alberta,” she wrote on X.

“This case calls for accountability, transparency, and justice. The Province must acknowledge the devastation caused by its illegal actions and stop evading responsibility. This case also presents an opportunity for Premier Smith to demonstrate to Albertans that government overreach will not go unnoticed, and those harmed by it will be compensated — principles that align with the proposed amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights.”

Danielle Smith took over the United Conservative Party (UCP) on October 11, 2022, after winning the leadership. Kenney was ousted due to low approval ratings and for reneging on promises not to lock Alberta down as well as enacting a vaccine passport.

Smith, however, has been mum on the class action as well as other lawsuits against the government that are in the works. She has promised that changes will be coming to the Alberta Bill of Rights that she said will offer Albertans more protections against government overreach.

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