Non-profit legal group racks up victories against COVID restrictions
Restrictions far worse than virus, critic says
Farmers Forum staff
OTTAWA — The pandemic is over, and many Canadians and their policymakers are eager to forget about the falloutthat lingers for many who faced fines, arrests, and prosecutions for running afoul of the dystopian lockdown rules. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), a Canadian organization that defends the rights of citizens in court, paid for by donations, is still busy with a slew of ongoing cases and challenges related to the pandemic policies.
The JCCF has been at the forefront of fighting against the authorities’ overreach. They have also challenged the constitutionality of measures like mandatory masks, vaccine passports, quarantine hotels, and the ArriveCAN app.
Emblematic of their efforts is the young Ottawa man who recently prevailed in court, more than three years after he was ticketed $700 while shooting hoops, alone and outdoors, at a city basketball facility. The Ontario Court of Justice dismissed the charge May 12 against William Vogelsang, quashing the ticket he was issued after being accosted by two bylaw officers on April 15, 2020. The court agreed with the JCCF that the officers acted improperly toward the then-17-year-old Vogelsang and that the public health orders were unconstitutional.
The JCCF has scored a number of similar legal victories recently. Examples include:
Charges wer dropped against Pastor Henry Hildebrandt, Pastor Aaron Rock, former MP Derek Sloan, former MPP Randy Hillier, and others who participated in peaceful protests across Ontario, in a number of court decisions since last September.
Charges were dropped against Ontario resident Rachid Chadli, who faced a $3,755 fine for refusing to enter a government quarantine hotel, which he couldn’t afford, when he returned to Canada in 2021. The charge was withdrawn on April 13 after his lawyer expressed concern to the Crown about the delay.
Charges were stayed against a Canadian trucker — identified as ‘Dan P.’ — for refusing to disclose his vaccination status with the then-new ArriveCan app upon his return to Canada in January 2022. The requirement to do so was brand new at the time (and has since been dropped). He attempted to get back across the border before the new disclosure rule came into effect but his alternative arrangements, involving a relief driver, fell through. He faced a $9,405 fine, which was quashed on March 3 of this year.
Charges were dropped June 6 against married couple, Richard and Valerie Bostock, who participated in an anti-lockdown protest in Goderich in May 2021. Each was issued an $880 fine, now nullified.
The federal government admitted in court that there was no scientific evidence to justify the 14-day quarantine requirement for travellers.
A win in Alberta court, where that province’s past COVID lockdowns were found to be invalid because they were effectively issued by the provincial cabinet, not the province’s medical officer of health. The ruling, handed down at the beginning of August, is expected to lead to the dropping of charges in some other high-profile cases, according to the JCCF. The court also found that the public health orders were a violation of Albertans’ Charter rights — a key point — but were nevertheless justifiable.
Meanwhile, the JCCF has more unresolved legal fights than it can count at the moment. This includes a constitutional challenge of Ontario’s 2021 stay-at-home order, launched a year ago on behalf of former MPP Randy Hillier. That one was set to be argued in court on July 27-28.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is also funding the defence of Tamara Lich, an Alberta grandmother who helped organize the astoundingly successful freedom convoy that saw trucks in the downtown core of Ottawa in protest for three weeks. Lich, who had been jailed for more than one month on a mischief charge, while Canadian courts have let violent offenders out of jail on bail, is optimistic about her case.
When asked by Farmers Forum, at a Justice Centre Toronto dinner if she thought the crown attorneys will likely run out the clock rather than face her lawyers in court, she declined to say.
Lich will be represented by lawyers Lawrence Greenspon and Eric Granger.at her upcoming September trial.
The JCCF has also taken aim at the Nova Scotia government’s ban on interprovincial travel during the pandemic and is seeking a judicial review of that policy.
But the organization suffered a defeat July 19 when the federal court shut down a constitutional challenge of the ArriveCAN app by ruling the matter was “moot” because using the app hasn’t been mandatory since last September. The JCCF argued that a constitutional ruling was needed because many Canadians still have pending court cases for refusing to use the app, and those prosecutions will clog up the lower courts.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is a a public interest, non-partisan, registered charity, committed to defending the rights and freedoms of all Canadians through litigation and education.
In a recent press release, the JCCF’s president and founder, John Carpay, reiterated a commitment to defending the rights and freedoms of Canadians against the government’s tyranny and oppression.
Carpay’s sentiment certainly fits with renowned Ontario psychologist and author Jordan Peterson’s verdict on what the pandemic represented. “What we had was an outbreak of two years of totalitarian governance, and that was the bloody pandemic,” Peterson, latest recipient of the JCCF’s George Jonas Freedom Award, declared in a May 8 podcast. “It was a lot worse than the virus by any stretch of the imagination.”
