In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Pastor Kenney Hildebrand was one of the most controversial men in Canada. He was the head of the Ontario Conference of Canadian Pastors, and one of Canada s most controversial ministers, when he shut down churches and bars across the province to enforce a law that he believed was necessary to maintain public safety.
00:00:16.380He, I guess, either, you know, we talk about this a lot at the time what was happened.
00:00:20.880And he either believed, I think seriously, that he had to do this because it was such an emergency that we had to shut down these churches.
00:00:33.000We had to arrest these pastors because they were such a threat to public safety and possibly to government authority.
00:00:40.220Or on the other side, the politician got the better of him and he saw it as good politics.
00:00:46.820That maybe arresting these pastors would win him support with centrist voters who are maybe a bit more deferential to the authority of the state to impose these kinds of measures.
00:00:59.500I don't think Kenny ever saw it as a church as a hobby.
00:01:06.360But either he probably believed in his heart that it was so important that we had to jail these pastors.
00:01:11.000We had to shut down these churches to preserve public health and public order.
00:01:14.640Or it was just good politics, he thought.
00:01:17.980To be exquisitely precise, I think it was Alberta Health who actually moved in on...
00:01:22.020On the orders of the Alberta government, though.
00:01:23.700They were doing this under the authority of decisions made by the cabinet.
00:01:28.240And that's what the Ingram decision came down to, is the decisions were ordered by the cabinet and not by Henshaw.
00:01:34.280The thing is, you couldn't go to church, but you could go to a restaurant.
00:01:38.080By the way, around in B.C., by the way, they closed the restaurants down.
00:01:45.600But I mean, when you look for consistency and logic in all of this mess, it's so hard to find it.
00:01:52.820How could that be a consistent policy that's fine, this is not?
00:01:56.520And I thought that, you know, I mean, I was a strong supporter of Kenny when he was on his way in and up.
00:02:01.360And I'd always heard of him as being a strong supporter outside of the faith aspect of civil liberties.
00:02:05.840I mean, you don't get much more faithless than I.
00:02:07.280And I strongly understand the incredible importance, though, of the preservation of the right to practice and gather to take part in your religion.
00:02:17.360It's an absolute right that must be protected, violated only at the most extreme of last resorts.
00:02:23.840And so I was just as horrified watching them fence in a church and keeping people away from their social gathering and their faith as anybody should be.
00:03:24.580They really succumbed to alcoholism because, I mean, whereas they'd have one or two at the bar, now that they had no outlet, stayed in their homes and just drank themselves out.
00:03:33.500Like, it's important to people to have their social gathering, the people with them, whether it's through faith or through all these other outlets.
00:03:41.860His bar that he owned in Prittis was effectively the local church.
00:03:46.480Well, to some people in a sense, I'm just meaning it's people underestimate the damage done when you shut people away from their social outlets.
00:03:53.820We won't get into it, but also of note, Pastor Hildebrandt in Ontario.
00:04:00.020Now, they didn't have the Ingram decision there that just nullified everything because it's Ontario, so different.
00:04:07.700But he, the government dropped all charges but one, and he ended up pleading guilty to one, ended up paying a big fine.
00:04:16.960But he got most things let off on it, and he was a very strong refusenik there as well.
00:04:21.340But, unfortunately, there's going to be less justice done in Ontario than in Alberta because here our government was dumb enough to not follow its own rules and who actually signs off on the orders.
00:04:32.180So, we've talked about this previously with, like, you know, the new heritage minister.
00:04:39.700Pebble Rodriguez was, no, no, no, no, no, on public safety.
00:04:43.060Where I kind of like, when you have a bad government, I kind of prefer them to be incompetent than smart because you can get a, they're less effective in oppressing you when they're incompetent.
00:04:54.400And Alberta's government was incompetent enough that they didn't do the paperwork right, which nullified all their own mandates post facto.
00:05:02.060So, unfortunately, Ontario seems to have actually crossed the T's and dotted the I's a little more, and so less justice to be done for the refuseniks there.