Juno News - Pastors facing charges for holding church services

00:00:00.000 We are in the midst of an era in which it is illegal in many parts of the country to go to

00:00:10.040 church. Most recently, Ontario has joined this list with an order put in place at 12 a.m. on

00:00:16.800 Boxing Day, December 26, restricting church capacity to just 10 people, irrespective of

00:00:22.840 the size of the church. It could be a mammoth Costco-sized megachurch. Nope, 10 people. It

00:00:28.400 could be a tiny little church that could only fit 10 people, and well, that one's also capped at 10

00:00:32.760 people for bizarre reasons, which kind of proved that this restriction is a lot more about theatrics

00:00:37.860 than it is about bona fide health guidance. Let's talk about this though, because churches are already

00:00:43.420 facing charges for daring to gather together as they always have for years in a country that

00:00:49.140 guarantees freedom of religion. A pastor in Windsor, Ontario of the Harvest Bible Church, Pastor Aaron

00:00:55.300 Rock, was charged for having a service on December 20th. Now, Windsor had a lockdown order in place

00:01:01.160 before the province-wide one, and he was charged, and the church was actually ordered closed on

00:01:06.700 Christmas Eve. Police made sure that no one could even get into the church parking lot to have a

00:01:11.960 service on Christmas Eve to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. And then the Church of God in Elmer,

00:01:18.160 Ontario, a church we've covered in the past, was charged for having a drive-in service on the first

00:01:24.460 Sunday after Christmas, on December 27th. Apparently, police said people were gathering

00:01:29.340 outside of their vehicles, which turned this drive-in service that would actually have otherwise been

00:01:34.620 law-abiding, because the law specifically says that drive-ins are permitted to be, in the eyes of the

00:01:40.300 police, an illicit drive-in church service. But what's interesting here, if you look at the press

00:01:45.040 release from the police in Elmer, Ontario, who laid the charge, there was actually a pro-mask

00:01:50.800 protest, a protest against the church taking place, just a stone's throw away, which police did not

00:01:57.140 charge anyone over. Here's what the press release said. At the same time, officers located numerous

00:02:02.460 vehicles parked along the roadway that were peacefully demonstrating and protesting in support

00:02:07.600 of the wearing of masks. Due to safety concerns and roadway congestion, police moved along 15 to 20

00:02:14.260 vehicles. So if you're having church, that's not allowed. But if you're protesting against the church,

00:02:20.800 that's completely fine. In fact, it reminds us of the old Black Lives Matter protests from earlier 0.91

00:02:26.340 in 2020, in which we saw that virus transmission actually depends on the moral worthiness of the

00:02:32.140 cause being protested. That was a really good scientific achievement there, understanding that

00:02:37.080 what you're protesting actually changes epidemiology. Funny how that works out. So here we are in a

00:02:42.380 situation where people of faith have once again been forced to partake in their services virtually

00:02:48.020 or in the parking lot, which let me tell you, in Canada in January is not going to be all that fun,

00:02:54.080 especially if you're in parts of the country that have idling bylaws, which I believe still exist

00:02:59.340 a fair bit with frequency. So what do we do here? A lot of people are now really split into two camps.

00:03:05.700 And I've heard this in emails when I've covered these things previously. From people on one hand that

00:03:10.300 say, you know what, no more lockdowns, this is awful. And people on the other hand, who really identify as

00:03:16.080 those traditional law and order conservatives, people who would say, oh, well, if the law says

00:03:20.740 you can't do it, you can't do it. I'm not encouraging anyone to break a law. I'm going to let people make

00:03:26.140 decisions for themselves about what they want to do. I will say that I support the challenges of these

00:03:31.840 laws that are taking place. I believe that the courts very much need to hear this. And I noted that

00:03:37.120 just before Christmas, there was an injunction hearing that was ultimately turned down. It was denied

00:03:42.480 by a church in Toronto that was trying to get an injunction to be allowed to have its Christmas

00:03:48.040 services. And the judge ruled. The judge ruled that yes, there would be irreparable harm because you

00:03:54.980 can only have one Christmas service. And once Christmas passes, you can't remedy that again. But the judge

00:04:01.080 also found that the risk would be too high from a public health perspective. So therefore, she did not

00:04:06.560 grant it, although the case can continue to go and they may well emerge victorious in the end. We just don't

00:04:12.100 know yet. But right now we have churches that have been told and all institutions of faith that they

00:04:17.920 have to, for four weeks, go back to not having a gathering, to not gathering in person, to not

00:04:23.820 worship in person. And we know that from history, four weeks can very easily turn into six, eight,

00:04:29.520 12 weeks. We are already right now in what month 10 of two weeks to flatten the curve. So if people are

00:04:36.440 just trying to get over the hurdle of, well, it's just, you know, a limited period of time, that shouldn't

00:04:40.880 be the rationale that causes them to go along with this. But people of faith who are speaking out against

00:04:46.500 this are being maligned in the media. They're called anti-maskers. They're called COVID hoaxers, COVID

00:04:51.720 truthers, and all of these names. When in actuality, they want to embrace the science. They want to embrace

00:04:58.340 the science. Take a look at what Pastor Aaron Rock said of the Harvest Bible Church in Windsor. He said,

00:05:03.460 I'm not a virus denier. I'm not an anti-masker. I'm not a foolish man. I'm doing this for the sake of the

00:05:09.920 community. And what people of faith understand is that churches are essential. And churches serve

00:05:15.800 an essential need in a similar way to grocery stores, although it's a need that manifests itself

00:05:21.460 in a different way. It's not a tangible need. But for those who go there, it is very much essential.

00:05:28.000 And this is why the approach in Alberta, which I know a lot of people who are very much anti-lockdown

00:05:32.540 don't appreciate, but the approach in Alberta is vastly superior to the approach in Manitoba or

00:05:37.880 Ontario. Because what the Alberta government did was understand that, you know what, if a grocery

00:05:42.800 store can open with limited capacity, if a retail outlet can open with limited capacity, so too can

00:05:48.520 a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a Buddhist temple, a Gajwara, whatever the case may be.

00:05:54.460 Where is that nuance? And where is that understanding? And where is that evidence in Ontario? It just

00:05:59.920 doesn't exist right now. When you can have a jam-packed grocery store with people bumping into each

00:06:05.640 other. You can have a fully stocked flight, a commercial flight on Air Canada or WestJet with

00:06:10.580 every seat filled, but you can't have people sitting in a pew, socially distanced at limited capacity.

00:06:16.660 Clearly what's happening is places of worship are being targeted. And interestingly enough,

00:06:22.100 a lot of people have been sharing a section of the criminal code that actually makes it a criminal

00:06:27.460 offense to arrest a clergyman. Isn't this kind of interesting here that you cannot arrest a clergyman

00:06:33.620 under a civil process or under the pretense of executing a civil process? And also it is an

00:06:39.340 offense to obstruct or disturb religious worship or religious meetings in any form. So what we have

00:06:46.380 here is actually a legal protection for worship in the constitution and in the criminal code. Yet

00:06:52.920 still churches are being scapegoated and unfairly targeted as being the purveyors of COVID-19 spread,

00:06:59.700 when in actuality it's household gatherings, private events, things that aren't really

00:07:04.960 enforceable or enforced that are causing the problems. So I'll continue to stand up for religious

00:07:11.320 freedom and I hope that all people, even those who aren't religious, do as well. Because when the

00:07:15.900 government is going after places of worship, it isn't just about going after people of faith,

00:07:21.340 it's actually about denying the science that they claim is guiding every step of their response to

00:07:26.960 the pandemic. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.

Juno News - December 28, 2020

Pastors facing charges for holding church services

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