Randy Hillier wins appeal in Charter challenge to Covid lockdowns

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is pleased that the Ontario Court of Appeal has accepted former Ontario MPP Randy Hillier’s appeal and overturned a lower court ruling that had dismissed his Charter challenge to Ontario’s lockdown regulations. These regulations were in effect during the 2021 Covid lockdowns.

The decision was released by the Ontario Court of Appeal on Monday, April 7, 2025.

In the spring of 2021, Mr. Hillier attended peaceful protests in Kemptville and Cornwall, Ontario. He spoke about the importance of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the harms caused by the province’s lockdown regulations. The government’s health orders made it illegal for even two people to assemble together outdoors: a blatant and unjustified restriction of the Charter section 2(c) freedom of peaceful assembly. Other provinces allowed five or ten or more people to gather together outdoors.

Mr. Hillier has outstanding charges in Kemptville, Cornwall, Peterborough, Belleville, and Smith Falls. Prosecutors in those jurisdictions are waiting to see the results of this Charter challenge. Mr. Hillier has faced similar charges in many other jurisdictions across Ontario, but these have been stayed or withdrawn at the request of the respective prosecutors.

Mr. Hillier defended himself against the tickets that were issued to him for violating lockdown restrictions by arguing that these lockdown regulations were unjustified violations of Charter section 2(c), which protects freedom of peaceful assembly.

Four expert reports were filed to support Mr. Hillier’s case, including the report of Dr. Kevin Bardosh, which extensively reviewed the many ways in which lockdowns harmed Canadians. They showed alarming mental health deterioration during the pandemic among Canadians, including psychological distress, insomnia, depression, fatigue, suicidal ideation, self-harm, anxiety disorders and deteriorating life satisfaction, caused in no small part by prolonged lockdowns. Many peer-reviewed studies show that mental health continued to decline in 2021 compared to 2020. The expert report also provides abundant data about other lockdown harms, including drug overdoses, a rise in obesity, unemployment, and the destruction of small businesses, which were prevented from competing with big-box stores.

Justice Joseph Callaghan dismissed that challenge in a ruling issued November 22, 2023. Notably, Justice Callaghan did not reference any evidence of lockdown harms that Dr. Bardosh had provided to the court. Without reasons, the court declared that Dr. Bardosh is “not a public health expert” and then ignored the abundant evidence of lockdown harms.

Lawyers for Mr. Hillier filed a Notice of Appeal with the Ontario Court of Appeal on December 22, 2023.

Mr. Hillier’s Appeal argued that, among other things, Justice Callaghan erred in applying the Oakes test. As the Notice of Appeal states, Justice Callaghan “fail[ed] to recognize that a complete ban on Charter protected activity is subject to a more onerous test for demonstrable justification at the minimal impairment and proportionality branches of Oakes.”

The Oakes test was developed by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1986 case R. v. Oakes, as a way to evaluate if an infringement of a Charter right can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. That test has three parts. The first requires that the means be rationally connected to the objective. The second is that it should cause minimal impairment to the right. The third is proportionality, in the sense that the objective of impairing the right must be sufficiently important.

Mr. Hillier’s Appeal focused on the second part of the Oakes test: whether the regulations were minimally impairing of Mr. Hillier’s 2(c) freedom where they effectively banned all peaceful protest.

Justice Centre President John Carpay stated, “It is refreshing to see a court do its job of protecting our Charter freedoms, by holding government to a high standard. There was no science behind Ontario’s total ban on all outdoor protests.”

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Quebec ends free distribution of COVID shots

Published on September 20, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Quebec becomes the second Canadian province to stop offering COVID jabs for free.

Quebec has become the second province in Canada to stop giving people the mRNA-based COVID jabs for free.

Starting in the fall, people in the province will have to pay upward of $180 to get a COVID shot, confirmed the province’s Health Department in an email sent on Thursday.

The reasons for the change, according to the province, are that most people have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus, as confirmed by the province’s Health Department in an email sent out on the matter. The department admitted that healthy adults’ own immunity to the virus does not need priority for the jabs.

While most will have to pay for the jabs, it will remain more or less free for people over 65, health care workers, and people with continued health issues.

The province of Quebec saw some of the most stringent COVID mandates in Canada, including at one point, curfews.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the province of Alberta became the first in Canada to announce that COVID jabs would no longer be free.

Last June, leftist politicians in Alberta were outraged after the United Conservative Party (UCP) government under Premier Danielle Smith announced that anyone who wants COVID shots will soon have to pay for them themselves.

The change in COVID jab policy is no surprise given Smith’s opposition to mandatory shots.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, early this year, Smith’s UCP government said it would consider halting COVID vaccines for healthy children.

The mRNA shots have also been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children, and all have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies.

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

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Freedom Convoy leader Tamara Lich puts her ‘trust’ in Jesus while awaiting sentencing

Published on September 19, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

With a sentence hearing coming up on October 7 and the possibility of facing seven years in jail, Tamara Lich responded to a supporter by saying, ‘I trust His plan for me.’

Freedom Convoy co-leader Tamara Lich, who faces a potential seven-year jail sentence for her role in the 2022 protests, says she has put her “trust” in Jesus regarding the outcome of her trial sentencing verdict.

On Wednesday, a Lich supporter offered kind words, telling her, as well as colleague Chris Barber, that they and their “families are lifted to The Lord in prayer and support from ALL Canadians who see this political persecution for what it is.”

“Never forget that. Your stand for freedom and insight for our NATION is ABSOLUTELY Amazing. You are HEROES. Thank you,” X user “bob” wrote in reply.

In response, Lich wrote, “Thank you for your support and kind words.”

“I trust His plan for me,” she added.

X user ‘‘bob” had replied to Lich’s post on September 14 about an update to her and Barber’s looming sentencing verdict.

Lich was arrested on February 17, 2022, in Ottawa. Barber was arrested the same day.

The sentencing trial for Lich and Barber took place in July in a hearing. Earlier this year, they were found guilty of mischief in their roles in the 2022 convoy.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Lich revealed that the Canadian federal government is looking to put her in jail for no less than seven years and Barber for eight years.

Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported Lich called out Canada’s Department of Public Safety for “lies” after it boasted via an internal audit that it acted with a high “moral” standard in dealing with the 2022 protest against COVID mandates.

Both Lich and Barber were the main faces of the 2022 Freedom Convoy, which descended upon Ottawa demanding an end to all COVID mandates.

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022.

During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, one protester, an elderly lady, was trampled by a police horse, and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.

Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23.