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00:07:39.880danielle right now and uh let you take it away and thanks so much for that derek and thank you
00:07:45.320erin so much for joining us tonight i want to just start by telling you how confused i am by
00:07:51.080your husband's case because there's a member of your church who is the daughter of a listener of
00:07:58.120mine. So she's been keeping me up to date and on all of the developments. And it seems bizarre to
00:08:03.760me that the pastor would be put in prison. Fair enough. Seems doubly bizarre that he was denied
00:08:10.600bail. Fair enough. Seems triply bizarre that he was denied appeal on the bail and that they kicked
00:08:17.180it over to tomorrow. So he's potentially going to be imprisoned in the remand center until May the
00:08:24.340third to fifth when his case is supposed to be heard the reason i'm so perplexed about this is
00:08:30.260because i thought it was against the criminal code to tell a pastor that they were not allowed to uh
00:08:36.900to to give sermons and yet that seems to be one of the bail conditions um i'm also looking at this
00:08:42.660story from a couple of days ago a kyle larson has been released from the reeve man center with a
00:08:49.620warning from edmonton police they issue a public warning after a sexual offender is released again
00:08:56.500they have reasonable grounds to believe kyle larson 29 will commit another sexual offense
00:09:02.020against someone under the age of 16 while in the community this comes from the edmonton police
00:09:06.660service so they clearly think that your husband is a greater danger to the to the community
00:09:13.620than an offender like this this is why this case is so perplexing to me one more thing i read today
00:09:19.060and we'll get your lawyer on to explain some of this as well is that um the remedy even if he is
00:09:25.620found guilty isn't jailed so he may be jailed for months and even if they find him guilty they'll
00:09:32.020release him so there's lots of legal stuff that is going on here i want my personal contention
00:09:39.140is that the government is making a mockery of our criminal justice system i know that that is not
00:09:45.460the uniform view across the board there i know you faced a lot of pushback
00:09:49.780on some of the the crueler mediums i i i wish people had had a chance to hear
00:09:55.540our conversation earlier because you are so kind and i just want to start by
00:09:59.700asking people especially in your comments just be kind
00:10:03.540because aaron coats and pastor james coats mean you no harm
00:10:07.060they're really just fighting for their freedom and and
00:10:10.100fighting for your freedom so let me just uh first get an opening comment from
00:10:14.100you and i think we had hoped that there would be a special guest joining us here this evening that
00:10:17.700your husband was going to be released today tell us uh tell us how you're feeling knowing that it's
00:10:22.660going to be delayed till tomorrow yeah definitely disheartened um my children are are disheartened
00:10:29.700it doesn't uh look very positive from our end so um it's hard not to be dejected and and to feel a
00:10:37.620little bit weary um yeah there there are men opening their churches doing the exact same thing
00:10:44.260that james has done and yet he's he's in jail so um that's a little i i think what's really hard
00:10:52.260about the whole situation is it's confusing children as to what justice is um and you know
00:10:58.660i've heard comments from children now they're afraid of the police because he they're arresting
00:11:03.620a man that is doing good in the community and then letting criminals out of jail. I think there
00:11:09.700was 50 that were released the day that James was put in prison so I think it's confusing them as
00:11:15.700the next generation which is hugely important to inform them as to what justice and law is
00:11:20.740and that's just confusing to them and it's disheartening a little bit. Well I don't want
00:11:24.980to talk about the sawdust in someone else's eye without acknowledging the log in my own eye.
00:11:29.940i hope i got that one right aaron but um you know what i decided when they refused to ease the
00:11:35.700restrictions after we'd gotten below 300 that i was going back to the restrictions uh that they
00:11:40.820had in place in summer i'm going to see my parents i'm going to see my cohort i'm going to go to
00:11:45.300business meetings and so i just want you to know that i'm not following it to the letter of the
00:11:50.020law either so i don't think i'm sitting here in judgment of you but this this that's the odd part
00:11:54.580about it is that if people are being honest with each other with themselves as they're watching
00:11:59.300this i'm pretty sure there's a whole pile of people who aren't following it to the letter
00:12:02.980of the law either and so that that that i think is is one of the issues that we're facing is it
00:12:08.020seems like it's kind of arbitrary it seems like they're making an example out of james do you
00:12:13.780feel that way yeah i do um it's really unfortunate i mean i think our church works really hard
00:12:23.620during the week to abide by all of the restrictions that have been put in place especially when we're
00:12:28.340in public we're social distancing we're hand sanitizing we're wearing a mask when we're out so
00:12:34.020um yeah it seems a little bit flip-flopped um that that people are willing to allow restrictions
00:12:40.980to ease in other parts but um in the church it's different and i think that's important because one
00:12:47.300One of the things that I got from James's really quite excellent sermon on February the 14th was when I had the premier on my show, he talked about a libertarian sermon, and that's not what his sermon was.
00:13:01.860His sermon very clearly recognizes the role of government and that the role of government should be respected and that law and order should be respected.
00:13:15.460And I'm going to play a portion of his speech, but I want you to set it up for us so that we can understand when I play this portion about why he thinks that Caesar has no business in coming into his church and telling him how to do things.
00:13:29.720Tell us the distinction. Why be law abiding when you're out in public, but what changes when you come through the door?
00:13:36.400Yeah, I think it's just the worship that we don't want Caesar dictating how we are to worship God because he is our ultimate authority. He is the one who's laid out in his word how we are to worship him and how we're to function as a church.
00:13:54.260And so the restrictions that have been put on us are clear violations of what God has asked us to do in worshiping him.
00:14:01.260Even with the 15 percent, as a church, when we gather, we're testifying to the fact that we're a blood bought body of people and that we are he's worthy of our worship.
00:14:11.920And so that's really difficult when you start restricting certain people and calling them numbers.
00:14:17.700They have names, they have faces, they have problems.
00:14:21.660And so it's only in regards to worship, we totally uphold the law and so much of moral law and criminal law is actually in God's word.
00:14:34.760And so there's a lot of continuity there in regards to how we would uphold the law and uphold even our RCMP and want to really respect them and the difficulty that they face on a daily basis to have to serve our community.
00:14:48.280they're putting their lives on the line for us. And so we want to do the best to be sure that
00:14:53.120we're backing them and helping them in communities. And so I think that's the only
00:14:59.200distinction is when it comes to the worship of God, it has to be God's law that dictates it and
00:15:05.200not the government. And I know Kenny believes that. I read an article that he wrote in, or
00:15:10.000actually it was a speech I believe that he gave in 2014 in regards to conscience. So I know he knows
00:15:15.780that let's uh see if we can play a portion of that speech now and i don't know if we maybe
00:15:22.980can restart it from that point because i don't hear the volume on it there derek
00:15:30.180no we're not getting the volume on it derek
00:15:37.140technical difficulties please stand by give give me 30 seconds uh maybe just go on with
00:15:43.460there for another you know because i i think the one of the things that that kenny has argued is
00:15:50.020but 90.9 of all the other churches are are following the rules the 15 isn't a barrier
00:15:57.460the social distancing isn't a problem um the restrictions on on singing they can abide by
00:16:04.020them so why can't you so explain first of all we should maybe talk about the environment that you
00:16:09.300have in the church so that we so that we know what kind of restrictions you are are or your
00:16:17.060husband is being alleged to to have broken yeah i mean i think that comment dismisses the fact that
00:16:25.860um not all faith like james would not call himself a a faith leader he would call himself
00:16:31.940an ambassador of jesus christ who whose life is founded on the word of god and so you would have
00:16:37.300to make a that's a general sweeping um comment that all churches and faiths all all worship the
00:16:44.260same or have the same authority um our authority is the word of god and so i believe that comment
00:16:49.460just doesn't leave room for conscience and our conscience is bound to the word of god as our
00:16:54.180rule and authority for life so um that's where i think that comment is is not helpful now our our
00:17:00.580church uh we're a family we we love each other we we help each other in life and the majority of that
00:17:08.180work is really done on a sunday and so how our service works is the word of god is preached we
00:17:14.740sing the word of god we take communion we do baptism um and after the sermon because we believe
00:17:21.940that god is speaking to us through his word and and when that work does a when the word does a
00:17:27.220work in our heart, we are communicating with one another, we're helping each other live during the
00:17:32.420week, we're bearing one another's burdens, there's people grieving, there's people hurting, there's
00:17:36.960people losing their jobs. And so we're just doing life together and making sure that we are, we're
00:17:44.380not just physically healthy, but that we're emotionally and spiritually healthy as well. So
00:17:50.280we really just seek to take care of the whole person. And we do that as a family. I mean,
00:17:55.500scripture calls us brothers and sisters in christ so we're really just seeking to love
00:18:00.700one another and the majority of that work happens on a sunday so why can't you limit the number of
00:18:07.280people in the church to 15 i don't know how big your church is so i'm trying to get a sense of
00:18:12.960how what your fire code capacity would be for right we're uh we're good to go i think okay
00:18:18.080okay so well if we're all set up let's play that first then i'm going to get back to
00:18:23.920to this has unavoidable political implications since the word addresses biblical morality
00:18:31.120but that's about it and so you might be going well james what's changed i mean you seem to
00:18:39.740have changed your position on this whole matter of your involvement in quote-unquote politics
00:18:46.260well for one i've got to evaluate whether or not i've been negligent it's possible that i've been
00:18:56.440negligent that i have not been fulfilling my god-given responsibility i've got to evaluate
00:19:03.260that i've got to consider that but here's the fundamental difference
00:19:10.980for the first time in my ministry the government is reaching into the life of the church
00:19:18.160that's my domain that's the domain of the elders here at grace life church
00:19:24.500that's the lord jesus christ's domain attempting to dictate to us the terms of worship
00:19:32.320is not the government's jurisdiction and i refuse to give the government what isn't theirs caesar
00:19:39.460has no jurisdiction here. So, as you can see, it was a pretty well-received statement that he made.
00:19:49.480That's good there, Derek. We'll go on with our conversation here. So, I think that's important
00:19:53.900because I think what I found really grounding about James' sermon was that he is a law-abiter
00:20:01.820and he does ground his theology in being a law-abiter. He believes in law and order, but
00:20:07.280he wants to have dominion over what happens within the church door. So let's talk about
00:20:12.560how difficult that would be for you to practice your faith the way you normally do with these
00:20:18.620restrictions. So I asked you before, so how many people would normally be in your congregation?
00:20:25.380Well, before this, there was just over 350. So we went about 350, 380. We've significantly
00:20:32.320grown during the pandemic just because you know their churches are closed and people are hurting
00:20:38.640there there's depression and um they're struggling with various issues of of their heart and um and
00:20:46.160they really need human contact and so one of our church was one of those safe havens for people
00:20:52.000and even people who don't know god have come through our doors because they're just losing
00:20:56.080hope there's no hope for them um with the pandemic um so so with the 15 you're also masked you're
00:21:04.320social distanced uh you can't sing which is just a big part of our life singing to god is such a
00:21:10.240joy um and then you're not supposed to speak to one another you have to leave immediately after
00:21:16.320the service and so that just really hinders us in in the work that we can do in one another's
00:21:23.280life and encouraging them to live um holy lives during the week and and and go into your jobs and
00:21:31.920live healthy lives within the community and helping your community
00:21:35.920couldn't you tell us though so if it was 50 people that you'd be allowed i guess give or
00:21:40.320take based on what you've said there why would that be difficult to manage if you were doing
00:21:45.760multiple multiple sermons for instance throughout the course of the day could could because that's
00:21:50.400i think what other churches are doing to accommodate the their church community why not do that yeah
00:21:56.560sure well we have um we have seven elders and we believe that in a in a worship service you're to
00:22:04.320have your elders and your deacons present and once you put your elders and your deacons present
00:22:09.760because they're they're there to do the work to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry
00:22:14.400we're already at 50 and so you're limiting our leaders in regards to the responsibility so um
00:22:20.800you used a word there um it's it's i forget not dictating um how we i look at it and how
00:22:29.360scripture looks at it is james has been given a stewardship by god and so he's not allowed to um
00:22:37.680fiddle with what god has commanded him and i i liken the story to a king who has a kingdom and
00:22:43.920he has this wonderfully beautiful young bride and he's left he's leaving on a trip and he's leaving
00:22:50.640this steward in charge of her to take care of the kingdom and to take care of his wife
00:22:56.000and we can use the covid restrictions in there well the king goes away and then this steward is
00:23:00.720restricting her communication with the people he's not feeding her well he's not washing her he's not
00:23:06.960letting her shower because we call it washing in the word is is one of the things that scripture
00:23:11.280uses. And so when the king comes back to see his beautiful wife, she is just sickly, and she's not
00:23:18.340thriving in life. What's that king going to do to the steward? There's going to be a severe punishment
00:23:24.460for him. And so James takes that very seriously. This is a stewardship that has been entrusted to
00:23:30.340him by God, and he doesn't have permission to limit the gathering or limit how people believe
00:23:38.580as individuals, they are to worship God. So we're individuals, but we're in a corporate body. So
00:23:43.940that's the whole pull, is that we're a body. And this just doesn't seem to be ending. And I
00:23:52.840watched a little bit of a show you did with Colonel Redmond, I believe, where he says,
00:23:58.240we're always going to have pandemics. So if this is the precedent, we just have a responsibility
00:24:03.360before the Lord to care for his people and we can't we can't restrict that I
00:24:10.800want to tell you to go back to March April because there was a it was a
00:24:15.900different world in March April for all of us I mean I don't hold government I
00:24:20.520don't hold any grudge against them for taking some of the restrictions they did
00:24:24.460then when we didn't know much about this virus we weren't sure how it was going
00:24:27.660to spread we didn't know who who was most at risk your you all your church also dealt with things
00:24:33.580differently back in march and april i want people to understand that because i think there's been a
00:24:37.580bit of an evolution in how and how you've been looking at this virus and and how we have to
00:24:43.340live with it so tell us what you did back in march april yeah we followed the restrictions
00:24:48.300to a t back in in march and april and that really hurt our people it hurt them emotionally physically
00:24:55.260spiritually um so as the the emergency um protocol or whatever it was called uh came to an end our
00:25:03.080guys all of our leaders because james is he's the lead teaching pastor but he he's he has a plurality
00:25:10.020of elders they have equal authority in the church um so he he's not like the head guy with there's
00:25:16.920there's multiple guys that are put in place to shepherd the flock um so we followed that and
00:25:22.740not knowing what is this? Are we harming our people? Are we harming our community?
00:25:27.820So as that came to an end, and we were speaking to a doctor, and we were speaking to multiple
00:25:33.180people who are working in hospitals, we're seeing the effect on our people. Our leaders just said,
00:25:40.620you know, let's roll this out wisely. We're going to, you know, when you come to church,
00:25:46.400it's your choice, whether you want to come, if you're afraid of the disease,
00:25:49.800um you can stay back in live stream if you have health issues you can stay back in live stream
00:25:55.180so we've never forced anybody to come to church um and uh and but we also say like if you're sick
00:26:02.100if you're not feeling well if you have any of these symptoms don't come to church live stream
00:26:06.220that but that's just that's just basic love if you have anything like just stay home don't go
00:26:11.800out in public if you're sick that's the way it's always been um and so yeah our guys really wrestled
00:26:18.600with it all the way along. But I think what it was, was they had to wrestle with what's
00:26:22.680their responsibility towards God as the shepherd of the people as they were starting to express
00:26:28.220just difficulty in living life and not being able to worship God altogether. So they had
00:26:33.880to really thoughtfully and prayerfully evaluate everything.
00:26:39.380I see John Carpe has joined us. John, you're going to be, I'll be bringing you in in a
00:26:43.280bit, but we've got a few things we want to talk about with Aaron Coates. And John is,
00:26:46.120of course the with the the executive director of the justice center for constitutional freedom
00:26:50.520we'll have a longer session with him next week because he has a whole pile of cases that he's
00:26:55.720taking forward we want to get an update on all of them so i just wanted to to welcome you and thanks
00:26:59.320for being able to join us today so so erin let's then go back so i because i want to i want to
00:27:04.920understand because i know that you've made a lot of provisions for those who don't feel comfortable
00:27:10.440being in a large congregation you do you did you tell me as well that you had a sort of an area
00:27:15.320cordoned off with plexiglass for those that if they want to set separately they
00:27:19.080can yes yeah we have a balcony so that they can come upstairs they call and
00:27:25.680they reserve that seating where they can be masked and social distance if that's
00:27:31.700what they believe then that that section is there for them to do that tell us
00:27:36.200about the the kids in the or in in the church as well because that's one of the
00:27:40.080things we talked about earlier is that you've got a lot of kids who come to
00:27:43.400who come to serve us we have a lot of children um i i don't know what to say other than people come
00:27:50.680to our church and they're like wow there is so many children here and uh you know i just i love
00:27:57.320the children these little toddlers who come up to you and they tell you their life story of what
00:28:02.520they've done that week and i think that our church is a safe haven for them in that when they're out
00:28:08.280in the community everyone's masked that no one's looking at you there's no smiling happening
00:28:14.120um so this is our church brings a level of normalcy to and humanity i think to a growing
00:28:19.960generation um that really needs to experience laughing and smiling and hugging all of things
00:28:28.200that science has proved to be beneficial to a growing child and even adults um but yeah they're
00:28:35.800I just love them. They're wonderful. And I feel like what we give them on a Sunday is healthy.
00:28:43.720I like the point about a sense of normalcy, because you're right, kids aren't getting that
00:28:47.520very many places. What about the argument that someone would make about the need for you to
00:28:53.220protect the elders in your community, the seniors who might be overweight? Because we know by looking
00:28:59.040at the profile of this disease and when it manifests, those over the age of 70, those with
00:29:04.440multiple conditions those are the ones who are most at risk and I think part of the reason the
00:29:09.380premier clamped down so hard on churches is early on there was a church which turned out to be a
00:29:15.560super spreader event and I think sadly an 81 year old who attended the service ended up dying so I
00:29:21.460understand where the idea comes from that he wants to provide this protection but what do you what
00:29:28.620can you give us as a way of comfort that those individuals are being protected in the environment
00:29:34.880that you're offering? Right. Well, I think they need to be able to choose. You know, we have an
00:29:41.06081 or 82 year old gentleman in our congregation who's fought in the Cold War. And you cannot tell
00:29:47.060him that he's not going to come to church. He's fought for freedom. He's been in the war. And for
00:29:51.440them to tell him that he can't be with the people that he loves is devastating for him. So I think
00:29:58.320that individuals have to weigh the risks, the elderly need to weigh the risks and choose
00:30:07.540whether they're going to live stream. We will do our best to care for them any way that
00:30:12.060we can. I know that members of our congregation, when they're going to visit their grandparents
00:30:16.740or their parents, they will quarantine for two weeks before they go and see their parents
00:30:23.000their grandparents um and then in the community you know we again we're masked and we're social
00:30:28.680distanced we're not leaving the house if we're sick we have our hands sanitized which i if one
00:30:34.280thing covid has just blessed me with it is clean hands because i'm a little bit of a germaphobe
00:30:40.600with my husband um so yeah just making sure that we're caring for them that way let's talk about
00:30:48.200what happened in the in the church because there were two exposures that you found out about and
00:30:54.920you had a system in place to to double check and make sure that it wasn't going to result
00:31:00.280in additional spreading can you tell us that story sure we had um some some cases in the
00:31:05.400summer like you said and we weren't sure if they were in the gathering before or after they had
00:31:11.800contracted it and so our guys pulled back on live stream and just did live stream told everyone to
00:31:17.400to stay home for two weeks to make sure that it hadn't spread within our
00:31:21.300gathering and it didn't but that's what our guys are willing to do and then
00:31:25.800it's easy to do our own internal contact tracing because you know we know
00:31:29.940everyone who's there so yeah we pulled back when that happened because we just
00:31:34.780didn't we didn't know had they talked to somebody and they didn't know they had
00:31:38.120COVID and they were in the gathering so but they had not been and that it
00:31:42.000wasn't it wasn't transferred so that's kind of remarkable because those
00:31:45.000Those exposures then happened or incidents happened in the summer, but we saw this huge
00:31:50.560surge of cases that took place in November and December.
00:31:53.760Were you meeting all the way through and were there any other instances that happened?
00:31:57.960Yeah, we have been meeting all the way through.
00:32:02.360There was what they call I think an outbreak at one of the homeless shelters that our guys
00:32:07.880work at and there was I think two cases but they weren't in the gathering.
00:32:14.940hadn't been in the gathering in two weeks and so we didn't feel the need that to need to quarantine
00:32:19.340um and it never spread so yeah we're just very we're very careful i think um and how we do things
00:32:27.740we we do care about people physically um i don't think our guys have been careless in this i think
00:32:33.180they've done everything just really prayerfully um weighing because it's not just covid now that's
00:32:39.500a concern um there's other things that are a concern in the community and um like suicide i
00:32:46.620was if you just go on the canadian mental health association and you look at the numbers of suicide
00:32:50.940going up or you go on the canadian center for substance abuse you can see things are are going
00:32:57.740up there's a hopelessness in people and closing our doors to people who need help and hope is
00:33:03.500is a devastating thing so you're weighing it's not just covet there's more than covet at risk here
00:33:10.700um and i would just love our government to start acknowledging that fact um to know that one in
00:33:16.300ten people are dealing with suicidal thoughts is a a massive number and that um suicide is the
00:33:23.020second leading cause of death among among youth according to the canadian mental health association
00:33:28.460um that's that's serious these are our children that are that are facing this so yeah i would i
00:33:35.240would just love for them to start looking at stuff like that looking at the whole person
00:33:39.640i'm trying to impress upon our listeners is that there those who are challenging the restrictions
00:33:47.020are often mischaracterized as taking the view of well just let her rip and it doesn't sound to me
00:33:52.200like you're just letting her rip it sounds to me like if there was an exposure you've got a number
00:33:57.280of things in place you've got a two-week um let's do live stream protocol you've got contact tracing
00:34:03.280and you're not going to put people at risk if there's an exposure is am i am i hearing that
00:34:08.560correctly if you what would you do today if you found out that there had been somebody in the
00:34:13.040congregation last week who was tested positive i i i don't i don't know for sure but i don't know
00:34:21.360why we wouldn't uh do the same thing that we've always done in caring for people um yeah we we
00:34:28.560do take it seriously all right and there is a there is a there is a mischaracter characterization
00:34:34.160because all of a sudden you're anti-mask and anti-vaccine and um that's just i think lacking
00:34:41.680an ability to engage with the actual facts and just kind of characterizing us as a certain kind
00:34:46.240of people which which is just unfair um i wear a mask everywhere i go so so let's then talk about
00:34:54.640why your husband was singled out because you've told us a bit so what what denomination are you
00:34:59.280just so people understand because i i grew up catholic so um and maybe in a catholic service
00:35:05.120because it's so distant and you've got the main priests and altar boys there's not there's not
00:35:10.480the same amount of leadership that you have to work around as as is needed in your denomination
00:35:15.760so what is your faith uh well we are bible believing christians is really the only thing
00:35:21.120i can say because if i say we're evangelical or a different kind of uh that just has so many
00:35:27.360different meanings but if you go on our website to gracelife.ca we have our doctrinal statement
00:35:32.400there on what we believe on various things and we really just wanted our what we teach
00:35:36.880uh to define us so we're non-denominational but we we we definitely lean in the the reformed camp
00:35:43.200of of theology okay so you were but you said that earlier that james is only one of many
00:35:50.640of uh of those who do the pastoral service who do the sermons so why has he been singled out this
00:35:56.400way why why isn't everybody why is why aren't all 50 of the church leadership sitting in reman
00:36:02.960uh well not 50 of the leadership if you do if you do our six elders and then our deacons and
00:36:07.680their families together you have about you have about okay i see now uh if not more um we have
00:36:12.960we have families that have a lot of children so uh you know probably because he he is the lead
00:36:19.600pastor and he's the one that takes the pulpit the majority of time we we have an associate pastor
00:36:25.920um that is preaching now um but james does the the majority of the preaching weekend and week
00:36:32.080out is james um and so you kind of have a um what do they call it um first among equals is kind of
00:36:41.680what they call it so they're all but that's important because the church services have
00:36:46.640continued on even though he's been imprisoned for the last three weeks and so this is people
00:36:52.000want consistency in how their government acts and this seems very inconsistent if what he did was a
00:36:58.320crime worthy of being imprisoned for three weeks i guess like are the other pastors at risk then too
00:37:06.240i i just don't even know uh i don't i don't know what they're doing i wish i knew i mean the rcmp
00:37:12.080have been there the last couple weeks uh ahs was there this sunday so i we just don't even
00:37:18.320know what's going on i don't know um why james was singled out i'm guessing it's because he's
00:37:23.920he's at the front and and he is he he is kind of the face of grace life even though um
00:37:30.720he is the first among equals we have elders that are that are all in the same plane um
00:37:37.600so yeah i guess he just was the one willing to to take that so okay we'll get into this
00:37:42.560some of the legal issues a little bit more with john but tell us what happened that day so i
00:37:46.640watched i watched the the sermon and that was the last day you saw him right uh sunday the 14th he
00:37:56.240preached the sermon and um we got a call from the rcmp saying that they they wanted actually sorry
00:38:03.920they asked james to call monday i believe um and so he called them monday and they asked him to turn
00:38:10.480himself in that he was going to be arrested uh for violating the undertaking which he didn't
00:38:16.320sign which apparently it doesn't matter if he signed it or not but um and so the tuesday he
00:38:22.720didn't think he was going to be detained um but he was detained and that was the last time that
00:38:29.200i saw him why did you why did he not think he was going to be detained uh there was some indication
00:38:35.520not not verbally like no you won't go to jail but there was some indication saying like you know
00:38:41.520you can probably drive yourself um your wife doesn't have to drive your minivan for you
00:38:46.560um so there's just an indication i think there that that i i think they thought he would have
00:38:53.440signed the conditions really is what it is um but but for him to sign the conditions is to abrogate
00:39:00.000is to let go of his pastoral duties um and severely restrict them so do you remember what
00:39:08.720do you remember what the conditions are or should i ask john about that in a minute
00:39:12.240yeah oh john can probably bring a little bit more clarity for me but the conditions are that he
00:39:16.800doesn't um keep doing services like he had previously done and he has to adhere to whatever
00:39:22.800restrictions are in place and that if he doesn't agree to do that he's not allowed on grace life
00:39:26.960property wow okay so we're getting a nod from john so when he gets arrested and detained like tell us
00:39:34.400what happened there because it's just so strange to have first of all him being arrested in the
00:39:38.720first place and then you might think okay well maybe there's processing issues they're gonna
00:39:42.960teach him a lesson and they'll hold him overnight but that's not what happened here so what did
00:39:48.320happen the next day yeah well he went before to justice of the the peace that day when he went
00:39:55.360into the rcmp um and then i i quickly spoke to him that night and he said he was staying overnight
00:40:03.920because he had to go before a judge in the morning and so he slept at the rcmp that night um he said
00:40:11.520he was cold um and then i was we we were we had people from our church calling the courthouse
00:40:18.400trying to figure out when's his trial when is he standing before this judge and they kept telling
00:40:22.240us like he's not here he had already left um and then one of our our elders was behind came behind
00:40:29.440the courthouse and actually saw them taking him out in in um ankle and wrist cuffs like treating
00:40:35.680him like a criminal and his comment to me when he called me because i was trying to get to him he
00:40:41.600was trying to see me because they were detaining him um and so he's like honey i'm trying to see
00:40:45.920you so i'm i'm driving to sorry um the rcmp and it's i'm within 15 minutes but his his comment
00:40:55.200to me was honey they shackled me and that really affected him um and so i said okay i'm getting
00:41:01.600there i'm getting to the rcmp i'm driving right now and then when i arrived there they had told
00:41:05.920me he wasn't there that he had already left and so um yeah i just i couldn't i i just didn't see
00:41:14.000him after that so what has happened in the meantime am i understanding that he's in isolation
00:41:18.960but is it because he's an outsider coming into the facility and they have a rule that any new person
00:41:24.400has to be in the 14 day COVID quarantine?
00:41:27.400Or is there something more to it than that?
00:41:29.720I have to believe that it's just COVID quarantine.
00:42:51.020why not it's covid restrictions oh my goodness okay aaron i'm going to just let everybody soak
00:42:58.060on what you've told us because it's bananas there's no other way to describe this and we're
00:43:03.180going to see if we can get into some of the legal matters with john carpe executive director of the
00:43:08.860justice center for constitutional freedom john i don't even know quite what to say here we started
00:43:15.340before you joined us, we talked about this child sex molester who was released a few days ago with
00:43:21.760a warning to the community that he was in danger of reoffending. Aaron mentioned that 50 other
00:43:26.860hardened criminals were also released because of COVID issues, and yet they're cracking down
00:43:32.840on Pastor James Coates. What am I missing here? I mean, none of this makes very much sense.
00:43:41.340the other interesting thing is that the owner of the uh whistle stop uh a cafe or whistle stop
00:43:48.260restaurant in mirror alberta he openly defied the government and said we're not we're not
00:43:54.520complying with these health orders we're going to stay open you can find me i don't care how
00:43:59.660much money you find me we're going to stay open and he is not in jail and so you know the the uh
00:44:07.300And there's no rhyme or reason to it. I think that the government cracks down hard on people that have courage and conviction and principle. And when you stand up and say no, and quite reasonably, and I was really the first time actually being, I haven't spoken with Mrs. Coates before and a lot of new details for me.
00:44:32.720The lawyer on the file is Dream's Kitchen, but he's been so busy that we've kind of carved it up.
00:44:38.280And I'm doing the media stuff and he's doing all the legal stuff.
00:44:43.060But it's just I think when you stand up and say no, you know, we're only going to go so far.
00:44:52.480And the church obviously has complied to a very large extent with all kinds of things.
00:44:57.740But everybody's got their own line in the sand.
00:44:59.920And there's a certain point where you say, yeah, I'll comply with A, B, and C, and that's reasonable.
00:45:05.280But now you're asking for D, E, and F, and that's not reasonable, and I'm not doing it.
00:45:10.380And so I think Pastor Coates is a hero.
00:45:13.200It's people like him that make the difference in creating justice in a country.
00:45:19.940Because unless and until somebody says no to an unjust law or an unjust demand, unless and until that happens, the injustice just at best, it stays at the same level.
00:45:33.220But it usually gets worse. It reminds me, if I can digress a little bit, of the pro-life students at the University of Calgary who were threatened with expulsion from the university, which is a very serious threat.
00:45:44.860If you're a university student, if you get expelled, you're not going to be getting into other universities and you're basically kissing your career goodbye if you want to become a doctor, lawyer, teacher, accountant, pharmacist.
00:45:56.940I mean, the list of professions for which you need a university degree is very long.
00:46:02.260And these students defied the university justly and legally, and they continue to express their pro-life views on campus.
00:46:10.780And the university did, in fact, find the students guilty of non-academic misconduct, punish them with a warning, and that if they continued, the penalties would escalate to expulsion.
00:46:23.160we took the university to court and the court ruled against the university and now we've got
00:46:29.000a good precedent uh it hasn't solved all the problems but at least it's it's a good precedent
00:46:33.900uh for for partly solving the problems would never have happened without the courage of those
00:46:39.180students who said no to an unjust demand and here we have health orders that are not scientific
00:46:45.860they're not constitutional um james james kitchen mentioned during the hearing earlier today
00:46:52.920he said, you know, the government claims that churches and Grace Life in particular, but that
00:46:58.700churches are, you know, this serious threat to public health, and they haven't produced any
00:47:03.800evidence to back that up. It's just an assertion. And probably just that one of the anecdotes that
00:47:10.100I relate a little bit earlier. It's interesting as well, because talk about exceptions. Remember
00:47:15.820when the niece of Ralph Klein also opened her hair salon, and she certainly didn't end up in jail
00:47:22.100either i can only imagine what would happen if they'd tried that so let's talk about some of
00:47:27.540the legalities here because this is the real challenge that we have and we've talked about
00:47:31.700this before is we're all sitting here thinking isn't there a charter of rights and freedoms
00:47:37.220isn't religious freedom and freedom of conscience aren't they the first couple of enumerated freedoms
00:47:42.660in there did do public health acts quash the charter does the charter no longer exist what
00:47:49.380how how how come we don't have any of this being adjudicated through that lens what what why hasn't
00:47:55.620that occurred well for one it takes time to uh to follow the court actions and to to get the rulings
00:48:03.460the justice center has proceeded kind of cautiously on this in the sense that when when the measures
00:48:08.340were first introduced and maybe this is the same for for grace life when back 12 months ago in in
00:48:15.620in March of 2020, we didn't know what we know today.
00:48:42.400we're closing the schools, we're closing the borders.
00:48:45.120And we didn't we did not object to that. And but after two or three months, and especially when when simple questions were not getting answered, like, have you thought about mental health damage?
00:48:57.420Have you thought about suicide? Have you thought about drug overdoses? Have you thought about how many people are going to die because you canceled 20,000 surgeries in Alberta alone, 200,000 canceled across Canada?
00:49:08.780have you thought about the impact of people with cancer that are not getting diagnosed with the
00:49:14.100MRIs and the CT scans and I could go on and on and on and and yet no response to these questions
00:49:21.700from the Alberta government or any other government they're not looking at the harms they're not even
00:49:25.740thinking about it and this ties in with the charter because the charter says in a nutshell
00:49:30.800and there's a complicated four-part test the Oaks test but skip that for now in a nutshell what the
00:49:38.360charter requires is that whenever governments violate any of our rights and freedoms, and that
00:49:43.860could be religion, conscience, expression, peaceful assembly, association, your right to not get locked
00:49:50.900up in a jail, anytime rights and freedoms are violated, the onus is on the government to show
00:49:57.620that these laws and policies are actually going to bring about more good than harm. And two or
00:50:07.020three months into lockdowns it's there's governments have not and they are not showing
00:50:12.120that the lockdowns are bringing about more good than harm and so they're failing under the charter
00:50:18.220and legally in my view they should lose in court but you know anybody who makes a prediction about
00:50:25.480a court ruling is a fool so I'm not going to make any predictions but the great thing about the
00:50:29.560court actions is even if we lose for the very first time Dina Hinshaw is going to be cross-examined0.93
00:50:35.740and she's going to have to answer some questions and and not the softballs that she's been getting0.87
00:50:40.380from mainstream media in in the past 11 months did we lose danielle did we lose danielle
00:50:56.940so that'd be her co-host hey i'm in the show it says i'm in the show am i in the show
00:51:02.860i'm hearing you goodness can you hear me now i think i was backstage asking questions so
00:51:11.100so yeah we'll turn it over to you erin you're awesome at this because you've had a lot of
00:51:15.020experience doing a lot of these interviews you're really so poised and i don't know if i would be
00:51:20.700as poised as you are under the under the circumstances or like how are you getting
00:51:25.900um counsel and support right now is there or do you feel like you've got a good group of people
00:51:29.820around you i i this is a hard conversation to have and i just want to be sensitive to that
00:51:35.180yeah i have the most phenomenal people in the world around me my elders have um really stepped
00:51:41.820up to care for us as a family um our whole church has stepped up to take care of us as a family
00:51:47.260which is so different for us because james and i are so used to to serving them and and it's our
00:51:52.780life of service towards them so now that i'm on the receiving end of that uh it's it's a little
00:51:57.740overwhelming but just to see that the love and the care that they have taken care of us is is so
00:52:03.980wonderful and i'm getting messages from all around the world of people just praying for us and
00:52:09.580encouraging us and so i just really sense that god is using that in my life to um help me through
00:52:15.260these interviews and be able to say what i need to say and in helping james get out see i told
00:52:20.620you before i'm not particularly religious i'm a lapsed catholic maybe i should go to your church
00:52:24.540maybe with with the singing and the fellowship maybe i'll i'll reconsider that but have you been
00:52:29.660getting a lot of support from those is it mostly your church community or have you been getting
00:52:34.060support from those who are who are um libertarian or not aligned or atheist or agnostic or non-believers
00:52:40.380how how is the support coming in to you there is there's tons of support from all around the world
00:52:46.140um i think i looked at a binder on our administrator's desk and and it was about this
00:52:51.980gist of that week of encouraging emails. Yeah, I would say the community, you know, those who
00:52:58.600don't believe in God and don't go to church, I'd say they're divided. There are those who
00:53:02.500understand how, you know, we wouldn't say we're primarily fighting for rights. We would say we're
00:53:07.860primarily fighting for Christ's lordship over his church and James's responsibility and our elders
00:53:13.020responsibility to shepherd Christ's sheep. But we understand that the secondary cause of that is
00:53:20.660fighting for freedom and so i think people see that we are fighting for for freedom um just
00:53:26.180through that and so yeah we've had divided um comments there have been been great support from
00:53:32.900people who who don't believe in god let's then talk about so that's the theological argument
00:53:38.420how do you make the argument for religious freedom in this context in the court john like what is the
00:53:44.180nature of the of the challenge going to be because i i guess there's a few things that i'm confused
00:53:49.220about one is why why this pastor and no one else why this situation and none of the others what
00:53:57.360about section 176 of the criminal code the premier sort of scoffed at me when i mentioned it but it
00:54:02.240looked pretty clear to me like you're not allowed to arrest somebody to prevent them from doing a
00:54:06.980service and that kind of seems to be what they're doing here uh what about the i think james kitchen
00:54:13.640you're the lawyer made the argument today that even if he's found guilty in may jail is not the
00:54:19.480penalty and so there's so much going on here that i like it's perplexing i just i'm trying to
00:54:24.680understand the the legal case that they're going to make and then i want to know what your what
00:54:29.400your challenge to it is going to be so that's a big question but but see if you can walk us through
00:54:33.160some of it well one of your questions is why james coats and i i i don't know uh an educated guess
00:54:41.640might be that he's one of the you know the only pastor in alberta or one of very few that was uh
00:54:48.520not fully complying with the with the restrictions uh so that could be a reason but that still
00:54:55.160doesn't answer why uh you know the owner of whistle stop is not in jail and and other
00:55:01.160restaurants in terms of the legal test in court the the government can place reasonable limits on
00:55:09.160restriction, reasonable restrictions on religion. And I can give you two, you know, extreme examples
00:55:15.740if there was some Satanist cult that was engaging in ritual child abuse or something, you know,
00:55:23.080the government should appropriately step in. Or if there's a religion that called for human sacrifice,
00:55:27.900the government could step in. So there are reasonable limits. And I'm not aware of anybody
00:55:32.200who really disputes that. The legal test in court is that when the government places restriction
00:55:38.660on well let's take Grace Life for example so if there's restrictions on singing or how many people
00:55:46.100can gather and other things that impact how they practice their faith and how they worship God
00:55:53.580first of all the first component is it has to be because of a serious pressing
00:56:01.860uh objective and here uh i know views are divided but i was looking at statistics canada which tells
00:56:09.460us that the death rate in canada in 2020 was very much in line with the death rate from 2019 2018
00:56:17.3002017. if it was true that covid was really this unusually deadly killer you would see a higher
00:56:23.460death rate in canada in 2020 we don't see that so will the court consider that because i i guess
00:56:31.940this is the thing is the deference the court is showing to health authorities i don't know if
00:56:37.140it's because we just haven't seen it tested it seemed i don't know if you can comment uh on what
00:56:43.380you might have learned from what happened in british columbia because they closed the churches
00:56:47.460down this i think what the premier says well at least we haven't closed the churches down
00:56:51.700but i think when it went to court the judge said so where's the affidavit from dr bonnie henry
00:56:57.300where's her rationale what's her thinking behind this and she hadn't filed one they basically said
00:57:02.020well going back judge and look at her press conferences and that's her justification which
00:57:06.260seems ultimate that seems pretty lame and disrespectful to the court frankly but give me
00:57:11.380your sense of of where we're at is it the deference to we're just going to assume that because they
00:57:16.900gave a press conference that our charter rights don't exist and they have made just a case by
00:57:22.260declaration that it's reasonable or is there going to be a higher test than that is the is
00:57:26.820the court actually going to hold the the health officials to account well we haven't seen it yet
00:57:31.780because the the court actions were filed i mean the alberta one was filed in uh the justice center
00:57:37.060sued the the county government in uh december manitoba was filed a little bit earlier manitoba
00:57:43.380will be the first one to be heard and that's going to be at the end of April. What has not yet
00:57:48.340happened is the evidence being presented in court and this is what I'm very excited about because
00:57:54.500you know even if we lose this will be the first time that the government can't just intimidate
00:58:00.420people and engage in fear-mongering by way of a news conference you know backed up by pro-lockdown
00:58:06.260biased media they're going to have to have they're going to have to put their chief medical officer
00:58:11.140up to be cross-examined and this judge in bc is entirely correct uh shame on the bc government for
00:58:16.820not having uh dr bonnie henry the chief medical officer of bc actually follow an affidavit because
00:58:23.140how it works in court is you can't go by press conferences uh you actually need to present
00:58:29.540evidence and very often affidavit is is one of those dina hinshaw has filed an affidavit in the
00:58:36.980Alberta court action and she will be cross-examined and that cross-examination it might go on for days
00:58:44.420and she's going to be asked every question about every lockdown harm and every scientific report
00:58:50.340she's going to be asked to show us the science as to why she believes that asymptomatic people are
00:58:57.140spreaders of of the virus when we have medical experts top-notch world-renowned people that
00:59:03.940that are going to testify that asymptomatic people are not significant spreaders of the virus.
00:59:10.800Dina Hinshaw is going to have to produce some science in court if she wants to persuade the
00:59:14.340court that asymptomatic people are spreading the virus. So it's all supposed to be based on1.00
00:59:19.380evidence. And the case in BC is challenging. You have the total closure of all churches,
00:59:27.060while not just box stores, big box stores, and liquor stores, and cannabis stores,
00:59:31.660but even restaurants are open in BC you can have six people sitting close together at a table
00:59:36.320without masks and churches even churches that were strictly complying with the health orders
00:59:41.500have been shut down completely and so we're challenging that it's not a broad challenge
00:59:46.680against the lockdowns in their entirety we might file that later in BC we probably will
00:59:52.240but the BC case right now is saying look you've got no medical or scientific basis
00:59:58.260for shutting down churches entirely and it is ours what is so what is the nuance with this
01:00:04.640particular one in alberta then are you challenging the lockdowns in their entirety yes so so the
01:00:12.120arguments uh and i think we do have a little bit of time so the four four points that the government
01:00:17.140has to prove firstly this is there's a serious and pressing uh public policy concern so the
01:00:23.760government's going to argue that COVID is an unusually deadly killer that we should all be
01:00:28.540afraid of, and we should take, you know, very decisive, strong action. We're going to show
01:00:34.280data that tells us that no, COVID is, yes, COVID is real, but it's not the unusually deadly killer
01:00:40.220that the government makes out to be. Second point, there has to be a rational connection between
01:00:45.320restriction and the benefit. So on that point, the government would have to prove,
01:00:51.100back it up with science that asymptomatic people are spreaders because if asymptomatic people are0.84
01:00:56.720not significant spreaders well bye-bye social distancing and bye-bye mask wearing it just
01:01:02.000doesn't hold any water the third point that the government has to comply with is to violate our
01:01:09.320freedoms as little as possible to achieve the objective and we're arguing you've gone way too
01:01:15.800far and you're destroying the economy, forcing people into isolation and just massively. You
01:01:22.600can't have both of your parents over for Christmas dinner, although you could if they were divorced,
01:01:26.780right? Because then they'd be from two different households. You could have your divorced mom and
01:01:30.280dad come over for Christmas, but not if your parents are married. I mean, this is going way
01:01:35.580too far. And the fourth one? The fourth one is that the government, the onus is on the government
01:01:41.140to show that these violations these public health orders are doing more good than harm
01:01:46.980and so for the first time the government's going to have to show in court not just claim that
01:01:51.860lockdowns have saved lives because i've been hearing this for 11 months oh without the lockdowns way
01:01:56.820more people would have died well if they say that in court the judge is going to say okay where's
01:02:01.700the evidence what do you what's the basis for your claim that without lockdowns way more people would
01:02:07.780have died they have to back that up they can't just use that as a as a slogan okay let me go
01:02:14.100back to aaron because this sounds like a long haul and it's a huge case that your husband's
01:02:19.540been willing to to take on and be the test case for but that could mean that you don't see him
01:02:24.660for a couple of months are are you prepared for that is he prepared for that i think i have to
01:02:30.820be prepared for that i mean thankfully i serve a god that is completely sovereign and he cares
01:02:36.580about me. So anything he's calling me to walk through for him, I will do. I'll have to rely
01:02:44.220on him and rely on our body and obviously be praying for my husband day in and day out and
01:02:49.900have to deal with my children's hearts through it. But if I don't have a choice, so the only
01:02:56.860other option is for him to compromise and just capitulate on what he believes. And no, I will
01:03:03.100not i will not be the wife that makes her husband compromised that is that's awful so so john let's
01:03:09.420talk about the what what he would have to agree to do in order to be released because if i read
01:03:16.140one of the postings that you put online he has to agree that he's not going to deliver any more
01:03:22.540sermons is that right or is it that he'll only deliver sermons if they fall within the parameters
01:03:28.140that he's been dictated to just explain to me what what it is that he would have to commit to
01:03:32.800so that we know why it's such a hard line I think my understanding is he would have to commit to
01:03:37.920full compliance with the health orders 100 compliance and I think if he agreed to comply
01:03:44.500100 he would be able to preach on Sundays but then it would be compromising on just the how
01:03:51.380irrational and unscientific and unjustified these measures are and to his credit he's not willing
01:04:00.400to do that I would hope that if I was in his shoes I would have that same courage and say
01:04:05.040no you know there's a line I'm willing to do some certain forms of compliance up to a point yes
01:04:10.480definitely but there's a line where it's like no this is this is an unjustified violation of my
01:04:15.460freedoms so in a nutshell it's about full compliance as opposed to partial compliance
01:04:20.420because as as uh as aaron outlined the church has gone to great i think great lengths to
01:04:27.460really do all kinds of things but the church has a line in the sand where it's you know no like
01:04:32.900we're not gonna we're not gonna go past this line well and aaron i want you to comment on that too
01:04:38.100because i've heard you say this as well is that your whole approach is let people decide like
01:04:43.940you're asking people to make their own judgment you're giving them actually a bit more dominion
01:04:49.140over themselves than the government's prepared to do why is that important in your faith tell us
01:04:53.940tell us where where you came to that conclusion well i think people need to be everyone grows and
01:05:00.100learns at different rates and i think people have to be convinced with it within their own mind that
01:05:05.460um that what they're doing is not sinning so um like in scripture it says that we're not to
01:05:10.900neglect the gathering of the saints um but people have to be fully convinced and we're willing to
01:05:16.820to patiently work with people as they come
01:09:47.440And I won't speculate as to, you know, to what extent is Dina Hinshaw directing this.
01:09:53.380My guess would be that she's not personally involved in making these local decisions about who gets persecuted or not.
01:09:59.920But there's something ugly going on inside Alberta Health Services when you've got, you know, this kind of aggressive takedown of one pastor.
01:10:12.200um again in the absence of science and evidence because they the government has been um and aaron
01:10:18.520you can correct me if the time is wrong but i believe it's been six months that the government's
01:10:22.120been at your church and you know being there on sunday mornings the government's had six months
01:10:28.760to come up with some credible evidence as to uh churches being uh super spreaders and0.91
01:10:36.040asymptomatic people being spreaders and a full church actually causing public harm they've had0.68
01:10:42.440six months to come up with evidence and they haven't produced any evidence they're they're0.77
01:10:46.920before the courts making this assertion you know based on one anecdote that yeah once upon a time
01:10:52.440there was one church that was full and one person died well that's not science that's that's just
01:10:57.320anecdotal and it shouldn't uh stand up in court so aaron let me ask you that how did you get on
01:11:03.880the government radar because they were i mean they said that they've been working with you
01:11:07.800all this time but there must have been an initial complaint or what why is it that they targeted you
01:11:14.280because i as much as the premier likes to say you're the only one that is violating the orders
01:11:19.400i i have a hard time believing that yeah and i think there's been churches in the news that
01:11:24.520prove that wrong but um they somebody must must have reported us around the end of november
01:11:30.360because we have ministries that run during the week um so that's really when ahs started to press
01:11:35.960us was the end of november but we have been open since the beginning of july or end of june um and
01:11:42.120so they really just started to come in hard and then showing up with the rcmp every week and
01:11:47.800putting a closure notice on our door finding james um and just starting to get more aggressive and
01:11:54.120more aggressive they took them to court um to to up the ante of the consequences if we kept gathering
01:12:01.640um so yeah it was it's been since the end of november is when i believe they first contacted
01:12:08.760us that that somebody had had complained that there was too many cars in the parking lot which
01:12:13.640we would have been abiding by the 15 capacity at that point so weird so it wasn't it was a neighbor
01:12:19.640they use the snitch line yeah so during the week yeah we were abiding by the by the capacity rules
01:12:25.240so wow okay what are the other pastors saying to you the other churches saying to you i i gather
01:12:32.600and i've only heard the second hand as i mentioned to you i have somebody who's a listener who um
01:12:38.440whose daughter goes to your church and it sounds like and i don't know if this went ahead it sounds
01:12:42.680like the premier was having some faith leaders powwow at five o'clock today i don't know if that
01:12:47.800went ahead or if you know anything about it but is there some kind of coordinated effort to put
01:12:53.160to have other faith leaders i know your husband doesn't call himself that but to have other um
01:12:58.440people with positions in churches to put some pressure on you to just give in yeah um there's
01:13:04.040been some requests for james to call various pastors that i heard was was a requested call
01:13:11.560um he's also received pressure from other members of parliament to back down um and they just don't
01:13:17.960understand it he can't it's his conscience um this isn't a political move for him this is his
01:13:24.040obedience before god and he takes that very seriously he knows he's going to be judged for
01:13:28.520the souls that have been entrusted to him to with that stewardship um and so when it comes to a man
01:13:34.360telling you to shut a building versus the the eternal god who bought you with his own blood
01:13:40.760that's a terrifying reality for him and he does not want to meet him in court that's not an option
01:13:46.200for him is okay so so john what what is the um maybe you can help us understand those who are
01:13:54.360watching who might not have religious conviction why is freedom of religion and freedom of conscience
01:14:01.400why is it enshrined in the charter anyway it seems like people are looking at it as being
01:14:06.760outdated old-fashioned um it doesn't apply in this situation can be overridden what's the
01:14:13.240what's the importance of that why was it put in there in the first place
01:14:17.560well freedom of conscience is is broader and it applies to everybody so let's say that you had a
01:14:23.480conscientious belief that uh it's it's wrong to kill an animal it's always wrong to kill an animal
01:14:30.040if there's a government law or government policy that that directly or indirectly requires you to
01:14:35.080kill animals or participate in it now it's a it's a bizarre example it's not a good i can't think of
01:14:40.120a law that that forces people to to kill animals um but a conscientious belief i can because they
01:14:47.480were killing grizzly bears and bear cubs and abandoned black bear cubs and a conservation
01:14:52.520officer refused to kill them and he actually got disciplined for it so there would be an example
01:14:57.480continue okay so there's an example yeah that conservation officer if his conscience told him
01:15:03.320it's always wrong to kill an animal. You know, we have to deal with this problem in a way other
01:15:09.600than killing the animal. We just, we cannot do this. Then what the government's supposed to do
01:15:13.940is say, okay, well, we'll find somebody else to shoot the grizzly bear. There's supposed to be
01:15:18.800respect for that. Again, within reason, right? You can't say, well, my conscience, you know,
01:15:24.060says that I have to run around and rob gas stations or something, right? This is subject
01:15:31.260to to to to reason and to uh uh sincerity and so forth but freedom of conscience means that
01:15:39.500uh the government should not be forcing you to do something you believe is fundamentally wrong
01:15:45.180practical example would be uh assisted suicide in health care lots of non-religious doctors
01:15:51.500who interpret the hepatic oath that that it's just you you do not help people to commit suicide
01:15:57.340you ease their suffering uh you help them in other ways but you do not assist with suicide
01:16:02.780right so that could be religious or non-religious or okay so the government has an obligation to say
01:16:08.460okay if you have that conscientious belief as a doctor then you should not be pressured uh
01:16:15.180directly or indirectly to help people to commit suicide uh if it's if it's a government objective
01:16:21.500to provide assisted suicide the government has to go to a point of of uh hardship to find other
01:16:28.620people to help with carrying out assisted suicide but why does that matter is it because we have
01:16:37.260a foundation for the like where does the foundation for those rights come from do they come from
01:16:42.700the bible is it is there a biblical strain there is that why we enshrined those things in the
01:16:48.300constitution or in the charter is it the founding of our nation because we had to deal with protestants0.97
01:16:54.780and catholics who are fighting and we needed to make sure that one didn't force the other to do
01:16:58.940something they didn't want to do i'm what's the i guess i'm trying to understand is are these rights
01:17:04.460that stand the test of time or can the court just say they don't matter in this circumstance
01:17:11.820well the rights and freedoms that we have i think uh by way of history and by way of tradition they
01:17:17.180do originate in religion, although there's lots of atheists that are militant, fervent
01:17:29.220supporters of the same rights and freedoms, so it's not religious per se.
01:17:33.580But most of the democracies, and I think Japan would be an exception, but most of the democracies
01:17:40.140in the world uh they do come from christian cultures and it's within a christian culture
01:17:46.860that the the rights and freedoms emerged and blossomed and i'm saying that as again as a
01:17:52.620matter of historical truth and so uh it's within that culture that the idea came about that that
01:17:59.740we are free people and we have uh we have dignity and part of our our freedoms include
01:18:05.740include the freedom to worship and to choose one's religion, the freedom to live out your
01:18:11.600life according to your conscientious beliefs, religious or not, the freedom of expression to
01:18:17.280say what you want in a peaceful manner. It doesn't include rioting and looting and setting buildings
01:18:22.820on fire, but to speak whatever you want, to associate with whomever you want, to assemble
01:18:31.120peacefully so those are all the charter section two freedoms and then there's another fundamental
01:18:36.040freedom that's not in the charter that is to uh to use and enjoy your own property uh the fruit
01:18:43.040of your labor to use your own home your own business to run your own business to earn a
01:18:49.120livelihood and earning a livelihood is in the charter um so the i always see them as a bundle
01:18:55.900I think, you know, if you can't, in my view, you can't take away freedom of religion and hope that the rest is going to function okay, or you can't take away freedom of expression and hope that the rest of the freedoms will do okay.
01:19:10.120I think it's a seamless garment. And I think that the freedom to practice your religion.
01:19:16.320So and that's, you know, not just inside your own home, but outside of your home and in your life and at your place of worship.
01:19:23.960The freedom to practice your religion is just as important as your freedom to express your opinions and to associate and to assemble.
01:19:33.920I wonder, Erin, if you can put some sort of emotion around that, because part of the reason I'm doing these Western Standard Onlines is I had a crisis of conscience in the mainstream media, that there was a whole range of issues that I didn't feel I could fully explore and talk about.
01:19:51.900I felt like there's sort of a mainstream narrative and we're not allowed to have these conversations.
01:19:56.540And there's a lot of de-platforming and literally I wasn't sleeping at night for about six months.
01:20:00.980So I understand viscerally the importance of living consistent with your own conscience and values.
01:20:07.860And I wonder if you can describe what it would mean for you or for your husband if he was forced to compromise on this.
01:20:14.780well i think it would just severely limit um well how we worship god first and foremost but how he
01:20:23.280cares for the people that have been entrusted to him um so he he's not only uh the the main
01:20:29.740teaching pastor at grace life church he's a member of grace life church and so the way the bible
01:20:34.080talks about us is that we've all been given spiritual gifts to serve one another and to
01:20:38.040love one another. And so for him not to be able to be free to do that would be, that's heartbreaking
01:20:46.060for him. Not only would he be disobeying God, but he wouldn't be loving the people who have
01:20:53.500been entrusted to him that he's to care for and to shepherd and to love. So that's his highest
01:20:59.460priority is loving the people that make up Grace Life Church and all of the souls that
01:21:05.400comprise her this is we have eternity in view and caring for her her eternal soul so you know this
01:21:12.720is maybe the difficulty that non-religious people have in understanding what you've just said is
01:21:19.040that we're living in a state of fear of dying we're living in a state of fear of a virus we're
01:21:25.840living in a state of fear that oh my gosh I could be that exception I could be the you know one in
01:21:32.680100 000 49 year old women who i still have one more month before i'm 50 guys 49 year old women
01:21:39.880with no health conditions who weirdly end up having the worst manifestation of it and die
01:21:45.240and i think that that that is a paralyzing fear for the vast majority of society i don't feel
01:21:51.320that i've never felt fear about this virus because i had a pretty good handle on who was most at risk
01:21:55.800and i determined very early that i was not in a high risk category but but maybe you can talk
01:22:00.840about why that is not the number one consideration in your congregation that like maybe you've got a
01:22:08.600healthier view of mortality and illness and death than than those of us who are in a sort of a
01:22:15.240non-religious sphere can you can you talk about that a bit because i i heard an interview where
01:22:18.920you you did mention that we're sort of creating this paralyzing fear of viruses and creating that
01:22:25.400normalcy for kids is so that they don't run around for the next hundred you know 40 years with a
01:22:30.040paralyzing risk of viruses so can you comment on that a bit? Well I think again I believe in a God
01:22:37.560who's sovereign and in scripture in Psalm 139 it says that he's numbered our days and so he knows
01:22:43.800when we're when we're going to be born and when we're going to die. I think that the there is a
01:22:49.480legitimate fear out there with the virus but we believe that there's an even greater fear in
01:22:53.720regards to people's souls that they have to consider that God is a judge and they will stand
01:22:58.840before him and that jesus christ's death and resurrection is the only way to be reconciled to
01:23:03.160the father uh and living for him now and in eternity so uh we don't just care about the
01:23:09.480physical aspect we care about the eternal aspect and so for us it's more important for us to tell
01:23:14.520people you have an eternal soul and and that soul is important when you die you don't just
01:23:19.560you're not just annihilated um you will stand before god and give give an account for your life
01:23:24.600and that's where we believe that Jesus Christ is the one who died the perfect death as a sacrifice
01:23:31.400for sinners and that through his resurrection he reconciles people back to God by repentance and
01:23:37.320faith and so we really that's our main concern is the whole person which most importantly
01:23:44.760is their eternal soul. So John I guess this is going to be something you'll have to argue in
01:23:49.400court so i think erin sort of put out there the the theology of how she approaches her faith
01:23:55.720but isn't the government going to come back and say yeah but there's lots of christian
01:23:59.480denominations who feel exactly the same way about about their service to to god and to jesus and
01:24:05.720they've been able to live within these rules so so so this church should have been able to live
01:24:10.680within these rules does that matter is it is it because the majority has decided they can do it
01:24:15.560this way you should too help us understand the the legal argument well i think the government would
01:24:21.400be foolish to bring that argument forward because it was rejected by the supreme court of canada
01:24:26.520in a case uh out of quebec called um and um the at issue there was uh it was orthodox jews that
01:24:36.120wanted uh uh it was a hut uh that that the jews are required to build and the condo board didn't
01:24:44.840want these things on the balcony and at one point in the lower courts the uh the government brought
01:24:51.880in different rabbis and there were some rabbis that said well judaism doesn't actually require
01:24:58.280this and the the supreme court ruled it doesn't matter even if 90 of of jewish rabbis say that
01:25:06.840this is not a bona fide requirement of judaism for these particular jews uh for these particular
01:25:13.400orthodox jews it was a requirement for them that they had to uh you know build sort of a hut type
01:25:19.760of thing on their balcony for two or three weeks a year and so what matters uh is that0.83
01:25:26.740pastor coats in in his religious faith uh believes that the health orders have gone too far
01:25:33.360so i don't think the government if they try to raise that i i think that would be a dumb move
01:25:37.820on their part because so it doesn't matter even if pastor coats was the only christian pastor in
01:25:42.240Alberta, who rejected the full compliance with these health orders, that's good enough to make
01:25:50.640religious freedom claim. But I want to get back real briefly to ask a really good question about,0.91
01:25:58.060you know, why should this matter to non-religious people? And two-part answer. One is that you don't
01:26:05.600have to be religious to believe that we are not merely physical beings, but we have a mind and
01:26:11.340a spirit and a soul and i don't i don't think you can argue that lockdowns are not having a
01:26:17.480massively destructive impact on our minds souls and spirits in fact the lockdowns seem to be
01:26:24.520predicated on this uh this materialistic belief that the only thing that matters is our physical
01:26:30.620bodies which is itself is a religious belief if you believe that that the only thing that matters
01:26:35.440is is is your your physical body that too is is is religious belief um the second thing is in terms
01:26:43.600of this seamless web thing you know i would say to if they're atheist people or non-religious people
01:26:50.080that are you know not really too fond of whatever pastor coats and his church want to do on a sunday
01:26:55.840morning i would say if you allow the government to crush that church who's going to be there for
01:27:02.320you when the government wants to permanently say you can never have people over for Christmas or
01:27:06.320Thanksgiving, you have to social distance forever, you have to have your kids masked and living in
01:27:12.560fear forever. So it's a seamless web. If you allow religious freedom to get crushed, you're shooting
01:27:21.120yourself in the foot because that just empowers the government to more aggressively go after
01:27:27.280freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, private property,
01:27:31.680right now i know that i think cory morgan has joined us because derek had another obligation
01:27:39.580and so cory if you're listening here's the challenge when you're doing a televised this
01:27:44.680is kind of why i like a podcast and and radio because you can have breaks where you can look
01:27:49.300at all of the text coming in and you can identify some questions that you want to post to your guests
01:27:53.620and you're also able to look at the text screen without having to worry about your fact that
01:27:58.820you're not looking in the camera so that's my way of asking Corey if he wants to come on
01:28:02.680and identify any questions that have come through and there's tons of comments that are coming in
01:28:06.760and so I want I know that they've been flashing up on the screen but Corey if you want to join us so
01:28:11.460that I still have questions I can ask but I want to make sure that I'm not missing anything
01:28:15.380important from the audience so let's um let's continue on with what happens now because I
01:28:21.200I don't understand what it is the government has to gain from going through this process John the
01:28:26.660way you described it, you're going to skewer them because I've seen the stats as well as you have
01:28:31.060and the four cases that they're going to have to make, you're going to have a counter argument for
01:28:35.940why would they want this to be adjudicated in court? Why wouldn't they just give him his bail,
01:28:41.840maybe give him a $50,000 fine if they want to be crazy about it and say, we showed you,
01:28:46.440but why would they want this to go to a trial? I don't understand why they're not just backing
01:28:53.420down on this? It could be just, you know, once people have committed to a course of action and
01:28:59.980they've invested a lot in it, we've seen politicians of all parties in all provinces
01:29:06.100and federally, with few exceptions. I mean, Maxime Bernier and you've got, you know, Drew Barnes,
01:29:11.940anti-lockdown MLA and some others. But by and large, every politician on both the government
01:29:18.480side of the house and the opposition side of the house they've all been uh they've all pushed this
01:29:25.360narrative that we're dealing with an unusually deadly killer uh lockdowns are the way to go
01:29:30.880even though this has never been tried before in human history to lock down a healthy population
01:29:35.120rather than quarantining the sick nevertheless without any historical precedent lockdowns are
01:29:39.600the way to go we've saved lots of lives uh lockdown harms aren't all that bad and the benefits are
01:29:46.320are worth it and once you've committed to that for 11 months and that's been your public policy
01:29:52.640it would take an astronomical amount of humility to back off and say yeah and Jason to his credit
01:30:00.580did back off he said in the fall he kind of hinted that you know maybe we've made a mistake here
01:30:05.940we've gone too far we've we've caused too much economic damage we're not going back this he was
01:30:11.240saying the right things like i was shocked and and happy at some of the things he was saying
01:30:16.720that takes a lot of humility but you know for a government to back down at this stage i mean to
01:30:22.280to admit that uh asymptomatic people don't spread the virus to admit that the virus is not
01:30:29.040you know nearly as deadly as as what's been claimed to admit that lockdowns have caused
01:30:35.120far more harm than good, an astronomical amount of humility would be required. And so I think
01:30:42.260there's a strong commitment to the narrative. I think it's a moving train. And I think a lot
01:30:46.780of media people would need the same kind of humility to say, oh, gee, you know, we really
01:30:51.440weren't asking tough questions that we should have asked.
01:30:55.960I've got a number of people wondering what the end game is here. Like, how do you think this
01:31:01.180is going to turn out? Because my great fear is that he's denied bail tomorrow again, and he sits
01:31:07.100in imprisoned until May 3rd, 4th, 5th. And then I don't even know what happens at that point.
01:31:13.980At what point does he get released? Well, if I mean, if we lose tomorrow,
01:31:18.640it's the Alberta Court of Queen's bench, we can appeal that to the Alberta Court of Appeal.
01:31:23.040And typically, bail matters are heard quite quickly. So you're not looking at a, you know,
01:31:27.280six-month or 12-month delay. So we might be able to put that before the Court of Appeal
01:31:31.600in short order if we get a bad ruling tomorrow morning. But I mean, the trial coming up,
01:31:40.700it'll be interesting to see if the government does not just simply withdraw the charges and
01:31:45.340withdraw the tickets. Because at that trial, May 3rd to 5th, we're going to demand that the
01:31:51.860government show all the evidence and we're going to we're going to subpoena Dina Hinshaw to to come
01:31:58.480and be part of the trial of James Coates and it'll be interesting to see if the government still
01:32:03.680wants to go ahead with the trial when they actually get pushed to show the evidence at that trial
01:32:09.700and Aaron what are you hoping comes of this like tell us how best case scenario that this plays out
01:32:15.280for you. Best case scenario is he gets released tomorrow and they lift the restrictions off
01:32:23.020churches and churches can decide from there how they want to conduct themselves. That's the best
01:32:30.620case scenario. And is that likely to happen, John? I mean, this is the thing is that that's exactly
01:32:36.660what happened in the restaurant situation. And it's exactly what happened in the hair salon
01:32:40.640situation. We're now down at the lowest that we've been since this latest surge. I think before
01:32:45.200I came on, I looked, we're at 247 cases in hospital and 47 in ICU. So we're down, we're
01:32:53.060approaching the level of 150, which is supposed to, so we're supposed to be getting to stage four
01:32:58.020pretty soon based on these numbers. So it should be fairly easy for them to do exactly what they
01:33:04.300had done in the case of those other two examples. And I don't know, why wouldn't they do that?
01:33:11.620Well, you've just raised two other issues that the government's going to have to answer for in court. One of them is the PCR tests, which are not designed to diagnose COVID, which have a high false positive rate. And the government's going to have to explain in court why they're relying on PCR tests in the first place when they are not the gold standard.
01:33:31.700The other related issue, the government's been fear mongering for 11 months about overcrowded hospitals, as though hospitals in Canada have never been overcrowded in the last, you know, 20 or 30 years, or at least the last several years.
01:33:43.660I mean this is outrageous to pretend that that Canadian hospitals are overcrowded because of
01:33:49.380COVID is intellectually dishonest and the government's going to have to explain in court
01:33:53.420why they're pushing that kind of fear-mongering when it's normal not good but normal for many
01:34:00.000hospitals to be overwhelmed and overrun and hallway medicine has been the norm in Canadian
01:34:04.600hospitals for years and then trying to say oh it's because of COVID they'll have to answer for
01:34:10.880that in court. Well, in fact, I know Western Standard did a news story on an access to
01:34:16.280information request about ICU capacity. I'll see if I can post that on my local's account a little
01:34:22.480bit later, but it actually showed that the capacity of ICUs was lower than what we had seen in the two
01:34:29.980previous years. And so if the argument is that ICUs were overwhelmed, the data doesn't even
01:34:35.560doesn't even make the case for it. So what are the implications though, John? Like, I guess I'm
01:34:40.440worried that the court are they prepared to look at this hard evidence are they prepared to go
01:34:46.280through i'm just trying to understand precedents that have been set in the past because there've
01:34:50.440been all kinds of cases that come before the court where they are deferential to government and i'm
01:34:55.080just wondering if they're going to to to take the argument seriously that you put forward or
01:35:00.440or is it oh well it's a public health emergency and so uh there's going to be a different set
01:35:06.200of rules? Well, a fair-minded judge will look at the evidence and his or her judgment is going to
01:35:13.760contain a review of the evidence. And so it's kind of hard. I'm not saying we're guaranteed
01:35:23.000a win. I mean, you never know what's going to happen in court. The court ruling would
01:35:28.400explain and describe what is the government's evidence that they've put forward to suggest
01:35:33.400that this is really this unusually deadly killer that warrants all kinds of extreme measures that
01:35:39.040violate charter freedoms. And they'll have to look at evidence that we put forward on the defense
01:35:44.600side that says, well, no, you look at Statistics Canada, even Alberta data. I mean, what are we up
01:35:51.740to now? The Alberta data is something like two and a half percent of the people that have died
01:36:00.420with COVID did not have any pre-existing health conditions. 75% of the people who died of COVID
01:36:07.240had three or more serious illnesses like cancer and emphysema and heart disease and so on.
01:36:14.620So the court's going to look at the evidence on all of these issues, on PCR testing, on
01:36:21.860hospitals supposedly being overrun on how lethal COVID actually is compared to what we've been
01:36:30.660told, how effective the mask wearing and social distancing actually are, whether asymptomatic
01:36:37.600people are actual spreaders of the virus. All of these issues, the government's going to have to
01:36:43.360not just say, oh, you know, if you disagree with us, you're just a Neanderthal and you're
01:36:49.760uneducated and you're not scientific because we've got the science on our side that's what they're
01:36:53.920saying now well in court they're gonna have to show the science i guess the there's great peril
01:37:00.000you talk about they'd have to have great humility but there's the real danger they're going to have
01:37:04.320humiliation if they have this all played out in court wouldn't that kind of indicate that i mean
01:37:11.920that gives a gives a forum for people to question everything we've been told over the last year that
01:37:17.520that creates great peril for the government if what we've been told doesn't mesh with the facts
01:37:23.040that you put forward and i i don't know why they would want to risk the credibility of their senior
01:37:29.040health officials i don't know why they want to risk the credibility of their government i don't know
01:37:32.240what they'd want to risk the credibility of the health system it seems like a huge risk and so
01:37:37.280this is why i i don't understand there's something i'm missing here john well it's it gets back to
01:37:43.520being heavily invested in something right if you've uh if you've put you know i think about
01:37:50.240your personal life you've put a lot of investment into a relationship or into a mutual fund or into
01:37:55.280a career or into whatever right it's really hard to let go when you're invested in something so
01:38:02.000there's a huge investment because indeed um if the uh if the health orders are struck down in full
01:38:08.320or in part, it does call into question, you know, has government been truthful with us for the past
01:38:15.10011 months? But I should also say, though, it's not that black and white in court. You could get
01:38:20.940a court ruling that says, well, you know, we still accept that COVID is pretty scary and pretty
01:38:26.040deadly. However, some of these restrictions have gone too far. And so there might not be that
01:38:32.840necessarily that degree of victory on our side or degree of humiliation on the other side.
01:38:37.580you could get a court ruling that says well you know we accept some of the government's points
01:38:42.080we think COVID really is dangerous however some of these measures are not based on science and
01:38:48.200evidence and they can strike down measures in part and so that's also you know it's not just
01:38:54.700win or lose there could be a mixed ruling in that fashion that could be forthcoming. I'm going to
01:39:01.620make a prediction because last year in May was when we started easing the restrictions so there
01:39:06.940is going to be some easing of the restrictions that happen after this sort of april 30th end of
01:39:11.900the spring break traveling season which everybody seems to be geared towards so i'm trying to figure
01:39:16.700out the different avenues that this could potentially go could they at any point say
01:39:21.020we're dropping the charges i think the thing that comes to my mind is edward maurice he was uh
01:39:26.860initially trying to he was charged i think the firearms offenses because he was trying to defend
01:39:32.540his home when someone broke in and he ended up shooting the person who broke into his home but
01:39:39.580they ultimately made the decision to drop the case and so that looks like it had some political
01:39:45.340intervention whether it was a crown prosecutor or casey maddu because i think that happened
01:39:49.340just after casey maddu became the the justice minister couldn't couldn't there be a political
01:39:54.220intervention on the part of of Casey Maddow to end this case now? Well then I suppose so but we
01:40:02.860have to be careful of what we wish for. We do want a society that is subject to the rule of law
01:40:09.740and so there should not be, as a general principle, there should not be political interference in a
01:40:15.260decision to prosecute or a decision not to prosecute. We saw that with Trudeau in the
01:40:20.620SNC-Lavalin and what's her name, the MP from Vancouver, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was,
01:40:31.140and I'm just going from memory here, but was basically told, you know, you need to
01:40:35.320stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Ah, this is what I'm saying, though. I'm not asking Premier
01:40:41.260Kenney to make that decision, because that would be the political interference. Remember, it was
01:40:46.260always she has the it's her decision hers alone so casey maddu does he have as attorney general
01:40:52.780and justice uh minister does he have the authority if he doesn't think this is a winnable case
01:40:58.720does he have the authority to say we're not going to pursue this because ultimately when you think
01:41:03.420of what happened there the prosecutors in the snc lavallon case decided to plead with a company
01:41:09.060gave them a they pled guilty to a lesser charge and the company got completely let off the hook
01:41:13.320so there is a lot of latitude to resolve these cases as long as it's being done internally
01:41:18.360within the department so i i hate the buck passing that's what i'm upset about is that you talk to
01:41:23.880the premier and you say oh it wasn't me it was dina hinshaw i talked to dina hinshaw it wasn't
01:41:27.080the health alberta health services that was just the rcmp well it wasn't the rcmp it's the court
01:41:32.040putting these provisions in someone's got to be pinned down on this and somebody's got to be
01:41:35.960responsible for it so in my view there should be some role for the politicians to step in and say
01:41:41.960whoa this has gone way too far this is not where we're where we're heading we don't think we're
01:41:45.640going to get a conviction we're sorry no no harm no foul you're right we're backing out of this
01:41:51.720well it's an excellent question i think the the two criteria that prosecution prosecutors are
01:41:58.200supposed to look at is is is the is a prosecution in the public interest and is there a likelihood
01:42:03.960of conviction and as you pointed out danielle a prosecutor can very legitimately not prosecute
01:42:11.640if there's a belief that uh there's there's no likelihood of conviction right because then you're
01:42:15.960wasting resources on on other prosecutions where there is a likelihood of conviction um
01:42:23.800if charges are withdrawn uh if the prosecution is stayed then uh it's got to be done for the
01:42:29.640right reasons and it you know it can't be because of of public opinion because he that's not that's
01:42:37.560contrary to the rule of law having said that they're a little bit between the rock and a hard
01:42:41.560place because they have um not that i have much sympathy for them but they are between a rock and
01:42:46.600a hard place that they put themselves into because if on the one hand if you say that
01:42:51.560covet is an unusually deadly killer and all these lockdown restrictions and and violations of our
01:42:57.160charter freedom are truly necessary and they're helpful and they're effective if that's really
01:43:02.360your position then how can you logically and consistently not enforce the law and not prosecute
01:43:09.800right so i think that's kind of the rock in the the hard place uh position that they've put
01:43:15.840themselves into okay i saw someone pop up a little bit earlier asking what's the worst case scenario
01:43:21.680for pastor codes because i i think that this has a pretty uh large chance of it being the worst
01:43:27.920case scenario for the government but what let's look at the other extreme what happens if they
01:43:32.360throw the book at him what does that look like i i don't know i i ought to know this i'm sorry i
01:43:38.520don't know what the uh what the penalty is but i don't think it's jail time i think it's just
01:43:43.500fines i'm not sure if you can be i think apart from uh being in contempt of court where the
01:43:50.060government has obtained an injunction to shut down a church and then the church still defies
01:43:56.560the injunction and doesn't abide by it then you could have a scenario where the church members
01:44:03.120are in contempt of court because there's a specific court injunction that says that a
01:44:07.940particular church must be closed but apart from an injunction proceedings I think all the government
01:44:13.060can do is levy fines and you know and I Aaron would know if there's been injunction proceedings
01:44:23.060against the church i mean i don't think that's the case
01:44:26.340well let's ask erin about that because i think what we're now all worried about
01:44:30.660is what happens to the rest of your congregation what happens to the others
01:44:34.740who've stepped in to take his place and they're
01:44:37.300continuing to hold the services and is do you get any sense that you're
01:44:42.180you're here's the sometimes government goes a step too far
01:44:46.500and then they realize whoopsie we can't do that again and i'm trying to figure
01:44:49.700out if there's been enough blowback on them from enough people in alberta saying this is not what
01:44:55.460we elected you to do that there's some hesitancy or if they're emboldened um if they if they think
01:45:01.460they're winning this argument with with public opinion i'm i i would think you'd be on the front
01:45:06.180lines of seeing and observing how you're being treated now by the authorities what's your sense
01:45:11.860of it is there are we going to see more arrests and more incarcerations i really don't know i
01:45:19.060I hope not. I know that there are churches that open Sunday and a few more that are planning on
01:45:25.540opening. I know in BC, churches are going to be opening on the 14th. I know that there's churches
01:45:32.560open in Ontario. There is the Liberty Coalition, and I believe I counted over 100 churches across
01:45:39.300Canada, which is not that much, that are opening. So people are slowly opening their doors. And
01:45:45.580it's so unfortunate the majority of comments that i get are from people from bc that are just hurting
01:45:50.780people and they they need to be with other human beings and this has been taken away from them so
01:45:56.300the majority of emails i get are from people just really hurting in bc because their lockdown
01:46:01.340measures have been so extreme um but i i really i really don't know we i mean i wasn't really
01:46:08.140expecting them to jail my husband in the first place so um and i don't know why they would have
01:46:13.980put that that restriction in place knowing that he he's unwilling to give up the gathering to put
01:46:20.460that restriction in place and think he would sign it is just baffling to me all right so i have a
01:46:27.980lot of people saying especially after hearing john's argument that this isn't just a narrow
01:46:33.420argument about freedom of religion they're your your husband's the test case for the whole shebang
01:46:39.900and the whole approach and i think that there's probably something to be said for yes justified
01:46:45.580with extreme restrictions march april as we've gone along maybe not as much and as we're in the
01:46:51.980situation that we're in now we're on the cusp of reopening becomes even more difficult but i've got
01:46:56.540a lot of people here saying we have to see this fought out in court but that's that's your husband
01:47:02.780we're sort of all saying yeah you go get him but it's going to have a very real impact on you and
01:47:07.580and him and your family and your kids i just want us to all be a little bit
01:47:12.780well i need to understand what that's going to look like for you if if this is a much longer
01:47:18.140process yeah i mean again i think god is in control if that's what he's calling us to do
01:47:25.740we're not revolutionaries we're not um we're not freedom fighters we're just trying to be obedient
01:47:31.660to god that's it and so we will do whatever he calls us to do and if the secondary causes
01:47:36.380our freedoms uh in alberta and hopefully across canada then i just have to be willing to do that
01:47:41.980out of love for my neighbor um but it is it is a sacrifice for sure for our family this is this is
01:47:48.780detrimental to my children it is very hard on our church um and but i think we're all
01:47:56.140we'll sacrifice if that's what god wants us to do um but again that's that's not it's not the
01:48:02.940primary reason that we're doing it so talk about the impact on your kids because they are a little
01:48:07.740bit older and so i want people to know sort of what your family environment is like and and
01:48:13.420tell us tell us about uh how old they are and how they're perceiving what their dad's going through
01:48:18.940yeah i have an 18 year old and an 11 year old and um for them what their dad is doing is not
01:48:27.500any different than how he's lived his life and obedience to christ he's always sacrificed himself
01:48:32.860for the church he's always served other people and so when they look at the situation this isn't
01:48:37.580really this this is dad just being himself um now that's obviously landed him in jail and that's
01:48:44.140brought a lot of tears and and hurt but i think especially my oldest um he understands there's
01:48:50.380a bigger picture and that um he understands there's a work god needs to do in his own heart
01:48:56.540and uh so they i mean they've been sitting under their eyes preaching for 11 years i think they
01:49:02.220they get as christians um that this is consistently what has happened to people in church history
01:49:09.260and uh so we're not anything special uh we're just trying to be faithful um but it's there yeah
01:49:16.780there's there's some tears um there's been some really uh not kind comments to my youngest child
01:49:24.140and um can you elaborate on that are you able to say it without using cuss words or like what
01:49:30.600happened well they're children speaking to him but you know you have kids telling your dad
01:49:34.980deserves jail and and he's he's broken the law your your your dad's killing people that kind of
01:49:41.000stuff um like we've been called murderers and um and so it's just that that kind of stuff but it
01:49:48.320it helps me to teach him um you know when when when somebody we know is carrying a burden or is
01:49:56.160hurt it's not our job to sit back and evaluate is that person's burden a burden i should be
01:50:02.640evaluating if i should carry or not we just carry it for them it doesn't matter how they got there
01:50:08.000so this is really just teaching giving the opportunity to teach my children how to love
01:50:12.400and um how to love in the face when people just don't understand what you're doing
01:50:17.920um so all of this is teaching opportunities for them um but it's hard my youngest is starting to
01:50:25.200um to really feel the the loss of his dad they both my children have a wonderful relationship
01:50:31.200with their father and he works from home so we we have access to him um during the day we
01:50:37.200We homeschool our kids. So they, this is very different from that. James is a, he's, he's a
01:50:44.180funny guy and he's, he makes all of these just loud noises and he's always singing and making
01:50:50.660the dog get all riled up. And so when he's not home, it is eerily quiet in the house. So there's
01:50:56.560just adjustments that we're having to make, but I think they're, they're, they're okay. I think
01:51:01.840they understand that god is at work and they they have to trust him in that you know it's it's one
01:51:08.480thing to have two weeks but it's going to be another if this drags out for another another
01:51:13.040two months is there anything that you're asking for by by way of assistance is there anything that
01:51:18.640that you want people to do i mean i i understand john carpe's point that the court has to operate
01:51:27.040independently that said the reason why we have jury trials is because
01:51:31.520the what the courts do have to pass muster
01:51:34.800with the jury of their peers and i i i understand that this is split but i'm
01:51:39.520i'm wondering if there's some way that people can give you support um
01:51:44.320that they can persuade the uh the government to if they
01:51:48.960if casey maddu has the power to intervene i'm just wondering what
01:51:52.640what can be done here is it just a matter of playing it out
01:51:57.760is that for me or for john it's for you it's for you
01:52:01.680people are wondering what they can do to help you i mean
01:52:05.120do you have a a place where you receive texts and emails so that people can
01:52:10.800tell you that they're with you i've got all kinds of emails and texts that are
01:52:13.520coming in here people just saying they're with you and i think that
01:52:16.720even if um you saw some of that it's tricky right because you also get some
01:52:21.440of the negative when you're looking online at some of the comments but how can people tell you that
01:52:25.440they're with you and and they're supportive of you um we our office at gracelife.ca um is is
01:52:33.440making a binder of just the the encouragement for us so that we can go through that and that just
01:52:40.320is enough to lift spirits i mean you can write the edmonton remand center and write james
01:52:46.000um to encourage him um we i think somebody set up a gofundme but we are not in need of finances
01:52:53.200right now so we've been saying if you want to donate to something please donate to the jccf
01:52:57.840they have been doing our case pro bono and working really hard um so financially our family is is
01:53:03.840taken care of um so we don't have a need right now and and james is always the kind of person that
01:53:09.840when a need arises, then we take care of it. He doesn't tend to, to, um, want stuff before you
01:53:16.620need it. So, uh, and then write your MLAs, write your MPs, write Kenny, and just share your heart
01:53:25.400with them about the lockdowns. And, um, I think start to put pressure on, on, you know, how even
01:53:31.820letting them know your personal experience, how this has affected you and, uh, write your pastors,
01:53:36.740Let them know how this has affected you.
01:53:39.680And I think that's the best way to help right now.
01:53:42.960All right, John, tell us a little bit more about your needs then since Aaron has said if anyone wants to make a contribution, it's to you.
01:53:49.780And as I said, we'll talk in a couple of weeks time about the full range of litigation that you're taking on.
01:53:57.100But give us an idea of what your needs are there.
01:53:59.840Well, it's a privilege and an honor to have Pastor Coates as a client.
01:54:06.600And I've never met him, but I hope to at some point in the future.
01:54:11.200And I mean, the Justice Center is more busy than ever.
01:54:16.840We're actively looking to hire four more lawyers.
01:54:20.260We had a good interview with somebody yesterday, but that person can't start until September.
01:54:26.240and um the generosity of canadians has been great and so we've got nine full-time staff lawyers
01:54:34.000we're gonna hire another four as soon as possible and we just appreciate support in you know
01:54:41.400whatever amount uh a lot of our a big chunk of our annual budget comes in the form of 200 100
01:54:49.980dollar fifty dollar donations uh that's a big chunk of our budget and you know of course we also
01:54:56.300get larger you know one thousand or ten thousand as well uh but yeah so people that that have been
01:55:03.960donating thank you very much i mean it's because of your donations that you know we've got james
01:55:08.380kitchen uh representing pastor coats and and other staff lawyers are also involved in the same file
01:55:15.600We've got three people, three out of nine lawyers have extensive criminal law background.
01:55:21.540So, you know, so James is also getting support and advice and assistance.
01:55:28.120We very much take a team approach to all of the cases.
01:55:32.100So if people want to donate, you can go online, www.jccf.ca.
01:55:37.640And we are a registered charity and we do issue official tax receipts.
01:55:41.720So if that's important to you, that's a bonus.
01:55:44.700you'll get a you'll get an official tax receipt uh sent to you in in early 2022 for anything that
01:55:51.260you donate in uh 2021 one more position i thought that you you'd posted for and i want to know if
01:55:57.500you filled it is for somebody to be full-time fighting against lockdowns in the country is
01:56:02.300tell us what what the status is there it has uh it's so frustrating i've got so much on my plate
01:56:09.980uh the justice center wants to move ahead with uh with hiring one or two uh
01:56:17.500full-time or part-time staff we want to expand staff more in the direction of advocacy i mean
01:56:23.340the legal side of it will always be you know 90 of the organization so that's uh we're moving
01:56:30.860ahead on that but we we haven't started advertising for that yet but we do want to hire more people
01:56:35.740to help out on the advocacy side because we understand that much as the court actions are
01:56:41.020important governments would not be locking us down and violating our charter rights and freedoms
01:56:46.860if there wasn't substantial public support for these measures and that's the reality
01:56:52.540and unless and until public opinion changes uh we're going to be stuck with these horrible
01:56:58.140destructive uh suffering inflicting measures for a very long time and that one more point
01:57:06.540and this ties in with it you know if you've suffered because of the lockdowns don't just
01:57:10.860complain to your friends and family but but phone your mla and or tell the mla staff i want to talk
01:57:15.820to my mla share your story with your mla about how a relative died because her surgery got cancelled
01:57:21.500or because your uncle's going to die of cancer because he didn't get his mri on time or how your
01:57:27.180your life savings that you had invested in your business are totally destroyed because the the
01:57:32.620mlas need to hear from the anti-lockdown people and uh they need to hear a lot more so that that's
01:57:40.620extremely important absolutely and there is um i in my last newsletter i mentioned covet common sense
01:57:47.820is an organization that has startup they've got a web presence facebook instagram twitter and they
01:57:53.180they're looking to collect those stories as well because the the province is just getting
01:57:57.580one side and they're getting skewed poll results because we keep going getting told 80 of people
01:58:03.980not only like the lockdowns but they want them harder which i guess i'm in the wrong 20 because
01:58:08.940that's not that's not what my social circle is saying let me just finish with a last a final
01:58:14.540couple questions to aaron because one of the things that you've said and your husband has said
01:58:20.620and i played that quote earlier is you know maybe maybe that you have to do some self-reflection
01:58:26.780about the the amount of involvement you've had in politics and and what should happen next and
01:58:33.820you supported the ucp and jason kenney and i'm i'm just wondering how how you feel now like
01:58:39.740if i could choose one premier that i ever thought would be the premier the international community
01:58:45.100was talking about having jailed a pastor jason kenney would have been at the bottom of the list
01:58:49.900i i can't even i don't even know if this is happening anywhere else it's stunning to me
01:58:54.460and i'm just wondering how that is has impacted your perception of politics um well i i do i've
01:59:01.820had to evaluate have i been negligent in the area of just what knowing my rights knowing our charter
01:59:07.900of rights and freedoms knowing our our alberta bill um and freedoms and and even going through
01:59:15.420this whole um health order like i i read today from um an organization they're called police
01:59:23.340on guard for thee and they are current and uh retired police officers that are really fighting
01:59:30.220for the freedoms of canadians and they had put in an article that they wrote about james that
01:59:35.340um the the health order that's put in place in section 75 can trump any document except
01:59:42.460for the alberta rights bill of rights and so that was shocking to me um because our alberta bill of
01:59:49.980rights gives us the freedom of worship and freedom of conscience so um it's just i didn't know all
01:59:56.700these things so i've had to evaluate am i being negligent um and and start to understand more how
02:00:02.780does our country work because um i think growing up in canada i never learned about this stuff in
02:00:09.980school first of all um but i think growing up in canada there's just been so many restrictions upon
02:00:16.540us that i didn't even realize are on us because we've always been living this way and james
02:00:21.100kitchen likes to say that we're kind of the the frog in the boiling pot like we don't even realize
02:00:25.820how restricted we actually are um so i'm starting to see that now um and yeah in regards to jason
02:00:34.300kenny man if you could have seen our house on election night when he um got in to to be the
02:00:42.220premier we were cheering and uh we were so excited that he had won that election um so this has been
02:00:49.500really heartbreaking for me especially to see him change his mind um from things that he said in the
02:00:56.060summertime to now um from from the speech that he gave in 2014 on freedom of conscience uh to make
02:01:03.660general generalizations towards the church and attempt to bind their conscience. Well,
02:01:10.900that has been really, really difficult for us to watch. I'm sure he's a great man. I know he has a
02:01:17.860lot of pressure on him. I know from James, just being a leader in the church, how difficult a
02:01:22.340church is to lead. I can't imagine how difficult a province is to lead when you have all of these
02:01:26.400political ideas happening. But yeah, it's been hugely disappointing for us to see in the last
02:01:32.780couple months how he's handled them i think i think he's he's he's a smart man and i think
02:01:38.940it would say a lot if he if he started standing up for albertans and and letting off the
02:01:44.920restrictions so so what would it take for him to win your support in future is is it too is it too
02:01:56.080late or is there are there a few things that he can do to win to win your support back i'm probably
02:02:02.720gonna get hammered for saying this but i am uh i'm a person who believes in repentance and uh
02:02:08.720you know i i my life is is that so um i think if he was just the man that we elected the man that
02:02:17.520um he started doing some of the things that we believed him to be as the man running alberta
02:02:23.920um I think he could go a long way in winning our confidence back you know I'm I obviously would
02:02:29.580have to discuss a lot with my husband but um I probably gonna get hammered for this but I don't
02:02:37.200believe anyone's beyond redemption so you know what there always needs to be a pathway back right
02:02:41.860isn't that what we all talk about I know the premier's under a lot of pressure and a lot of
02:02:45.420stress I feel the same way you do I'm gravely disappointed and I just want him to be the guy
02:02:49.840thought he was so you've said that so well aaron coates any final thoughts for us um about uh
02:02:56.080about about anything that we need to know before i let you go i i know that you've gotten a lot of
02:03:01.280support from around the world like give us some sense of how how big a story this is i've got a
02:03:06.320lot of people saying why aren't we hearing any of this in the mainstream media but it sounds like
02:03:10.320it's there's a ton of of of interest in your story what where have you heard from what's what's going
02:03:16.800on out there and how can people continue to watch developments with what's happening in your case
02:03:22.800we've heard from people from germany we've heard from people from iran we've heard from people from
02:03:27.520ireland scotland africa um australia all over the world um a lot of people from the united
02:03:36.560states i'm getting a lot of requests to do interviews and podcasts um not with with
02:03:41.840mainstream media of course um and i think mainstream media i think they've gone silent
02:03:47.280for a reason i think they've lacked integrity and how they've handled this story um how they've
02:03:53.440reported things and as my husband said he thinks that the mainstream media in alberta is on life
02:03:59.920support um and so i think that they they say what they want to say but they maybe don't report all
02:04:05.840the facts um but there is a huge um just voice from the united states i mean i think i read today
02:04:12.640there was 16 states that have lifted the mask mandates and and don't have any um restrictions
02:04:20.320in place we have lots of friends from florida and uh oklahoma and texas and they don't have
02:04:28.000restrictions florida let go of their restrictions a long time ago and so they've been fully opened
02:04:33.200um talking to a lot of churches in the united states they don't have restrictions either they're
02:04:36.960just living life as normal so i think we're on the stage a little bit at least with the christian
02:04:42.960community which is very large around the world um and that this is this is saying something about
02:04:50.240canada and it's i don't think it's it's good i agree with you you are just a paragon of grace
02:04:58.400i think everybody has just been amazed by how calm and poised you are and generous as well that even
02:05:05.360though you're going through a pretty awful time you're still willing to to give everybody who's
02:05:10.800done this to your family another chance if they would just uh acknowledge what they've done and
02:05:16.080go a different direction so thank you so much for your time we all pass on our our best regards to
02:05:21.520your husband and hope that he holds up well no matter how long it takes to get him out of uh
02:05:26.240out of remand so thank you so much for your time today aaron thank you very much you got it and
02:05:32.400john carpe will be speaking again with john carpe justice center for constitutional freedom
02:05:36.800and part of his roster of lawyers as he mentioned he has nine that are already on staff another four
02:05:43.760that uh he's planning on hiring they have cases all over the country we didn't have time to get
02:05:48.880into all of those today but that will be our next segment march the 18th i was going to do one on
02:05:54.720on March the 16th, but I have another obligation that day.
02:05:58.140I'll tell you about that a little bit later, but we'll be back on March the 18th
02:06:02.000with Jay Cameron and John Carpey and a couple of other staff lawyers.
02:06:51.200But, yeah, so shout out to Corey Morgan, who did a great job keeping things running smoothly while I bowed out.
02:06:59.360John Carpe, who's doing fantastic work at the Justice Center.
02:07:05.480People cannot overstate the work that he is doing right now.
02:07:12.360So everybody who's able to – John has been very modest in – he should be asking for money a lot more aggressively than he did.
02:07:22.000So if you can give, please go to jccf.ca slash donate and kick in a few bucks.
02:07:29.440Lawyers are not cheap, and these guys can probably make a lot more money handling people's personal problems.
02:07:35.160Instead, they're putting – they're devoting their careers to helping us all.
02:07:39.860So these are not lawyers making the big bucks. These are lawyers who are fighting the good fight. So please chip in and help them out, do what you can do. And Aaron Coates, I think the most common comments we saw come up, we had well over a thousand comments, many more than that.
02:07:56.920The most common thread was this, you are grace under fire here doing just, I would be a lot more visibly angry than you are right now if, say, my wife was thrown in prison for doing this kind of thing.
02:08:11.280So thank you so much for your presence here tonight.