Western Standard - UNCENSORED： Danielle Smith & Erin Coates

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00:04:00.000 good evening i'm derek fildebrandt welcome to another edition of danielle smith uncensored

00:04:24.000 guest hosting another segment of our special series we're doing on controversial COVID topics

00:04:32.900 uncensored. How are you doing, Danielle? Excellent. Thanks so much for hosting this

00:04:37.120 again tonight, Derek. Thank you. And I want to assure all visitors I am not the shortest here

00:04:41.980 and the camera can play some odd tricks. So I want to assure everyone that I'm not as short

00:04:48.020 as i look on camera right now uh we are joined by a very special guest tonight um aaron coats

00:04:55.540 is the wife of pastor uh grace life church of stony plain alberta uh aaron coats is the

00:05:06.820 i'm tying myself up here aaron coats is the wife of pastor coats who i think all of our viewers

00:05:12.660 know right now has been jailed for roughly two weeks now um he has been denied uh release on

00:05:21.460 bail because he refuses to stop preaching which uh was a condition of bail he was uh up for on

00:05:29.060 appeal of that bail condition today and uh big surprise uh delayed decision they're kicking the

00:05:36.100 can down the road we're going to be talking about that tonight uh aaron thank you so much for joining

00:05:41.300 us. Thank you for having me, Derek and Danielle. Oh, my pleasure. Do you want me to take it away,

00:05:46.560 Derek? Well, just one more second. We've got it. We're going to have another guest joining us very

00:05:51.580 soon. John Carpe or Jay Cameron of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms will be joining

00:05:57.940 us momentarily. The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms is representing

00:06:02.480 Pastor Coates in his battle with the Alberta government and its efforts to lock him up and

00:06:09.740 stop him from continuing to hold Sunday services at the Grace Life Church so

00:06:15.260 we're gonna be joined by the legal representation from either John Carpe

00:06:19.400 or Jay Cameron they'll be joining us very soon before we go ahead well I

00:06:26.300 don't know if you could remember it but I'll put it to Danielle to introduce our

00:06:31.140 sponsor for today and we'll get going but first I want to just thank all of

00:06:35.120 our Western Standard members who have joined up supporting bailout free media

00:06:38.920 and encourage everyone who's not yet a member

00:06:41.020 of the Western Standard to go to

00:06:42.300 westernstandardonline.com slash membership

00:06:44.540 and get a free trial for 15 days

00:06:47.620 and see if you want to pick up what we're putting down. 1.00

00:06:52.260 So I'll kick it to you, Danielle.

00:06:55.520 And I'll kick it back to you, Derek,

00:06:57.280 because you put the sponsorship in private chat last time

00:07:00.020 and you haven't done that this time,

00:07:01.140 so I can't read it.

00:07:01.880 I kind of kicked it to you hoping you'd remember,

00:07:03.440 but our sponsor today is Kyron's Way.

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00:07:32.600 times check out uh kyrensway.com for more information um we're gonna kick it to you

00:07:39.880 danielle right now and uh let you take it away and thanks so much for that derek and thank you

00:07:45.320 erin so much for joining us tonight i want to just start by telling you how confused i am by

00:07:51.080 your husband's case because there's a member of your church who is the daughter of a listener of

00:07:58.120 mine. So she's been keeping me up to date and on all of the developments. And it seems bizarre to

00:08:03.760 me that the pastor would be put in prison. Fair enough. Seems doubly bizarre that he was denied

00:08:10.600 bail. Fair enough. Seems triply bizarre that he was denied appeal on the bail and that they kicked

00:08:17.180 it over to tomorrow. So he's potentially going to be imprisoned in the remand center until May the

00:08:24.340 third to fifth when his case is supposed to be heard the reason i'm so perplexed about this is

00:08:30.260 because i thought it was against the criminal code to tell a pastor that they were not allowed to uh

00:08:36.900 to to give sermons and yet that seems to be one of the bail conditions um i'm also looking at this

00:08:42.660 story from a couple of days ago a kyle larson has been released from the reeve man center with a

00:08:49.620 warning from edmonton police they issue a public warning after a sexual offender is released again

00:08:56.500 they have reasonable grounds to believe kyle larson 29 will commit another sexual offense

00:09:02.020 against someone under the age of 16 while in the community this comes from the edmonton police

00:09:06.660 service so they clearly think that your husband is a greater danger to the to the community

00:09:13.620 than an offender like this this is why this case is so perplexing to me one more thing i read today

00:09:19.060 and we'll get your lawyer on to explain some of this as well is that um the remedy even if he is

00:09:25.620 found guilty isn't jailed so he may be jailed for months and even if they find him guilty they'll

00:09:32.020 release him so there's lots of legal stuff that is going on here i want my personal contention

00:09:39.140 is that the government is making a mockery of our criminal justice system i know that that is not

00:09:45.460 the uniform view across the board there i know you faced a lot of pushback

00:09:49.780 on some of the the crueler mediums i i i wish people had had a chance to hear

00:09:55.540 our conversation earlier because you are so kind and i just want to start by

00:09:59.700 asking people especially in your comments just be kind

00:10:03.540 because aaron coats and pastor james coats mean you no harm

00:10:07.060 they're really just fighting for their freedom and and

00:10:10.100 fighting for your freedom so let me just uh first get an opening comment from

00:10:14.100 you and i think we had hoped that there would be a special guest joining us here this evening that

00:10:17.700 your husband was going to be released today tell us uh tell us how you're feeling knowing that it's

00:10:22.660 going to be delayed till tomorrow yeah definitely disheartened um my children are are disheartened

00:10:29.700 it doesn't uh look very positive from our end so um it's hard not to be dejected and and to feel a

00:10:37.620 little bit weary um yeah there there are men opening their churches doing the exact same thing

00:10:44.260 that james has done and yet he's he's in jail so um that's a little i i think what's really hard

00:10:52.260 about the whole situation is it's confusing children as to what justice is um and you know

00:10:58.660 i've heard comments from children now they're afraid of the police because he they're arresting

00:11:03.620 a man that is doing good in the community and then letting criminals out of jail. I think there

00:11:09.700 was 50 that were released the day that James was put in prison so I think it's confusing them as

00:11:15.700 the next generation which is hugely important to inform them as to what justice and law is

00:11:20.740 and that's just confusing to them and it's disheartening a little bit. Well I don't want

00:11:24.980 to talk about the sawdust in someone else's eye without acknowledging the log in my own eye.

00:11:29.940 i hope i got that one right aaron but um you know what i decided when they refused to ease the

00:11:35.700 restrictions after we'd gotten below 300 that i was going back to the restrictions uh that they

00:11:40.820 had in place in summer i'm going to see my parents i'm going to see my cohort i'm going to go to

00:11:45.300 business meetings and so i just want you to know that i'm not following it to the letter of the

00:11:50.020 law either so i don't think i'm sitting here in judgment of you but this this that's the odd part

00:11:54.580 about it is that if people are being honest with each other with themselves as they're watching

00:11:59.300 this i'm pretty sure there's a whole pile of people who aren't following it to the letter

00:12:02.980 of the law either and so that that that i think is is one of the issues that we're facing is it

00:12:08.020 seems like it's kind of arbitrary it seems like they're making an example out of james do you

00:12:13.780 feel that way yeah i do um it's really unfortunate i mean i think our church works really hard

00:12:23.620 during the week to abide by all of the restrictions that have been put in place especially when we're

00:12:28.340 in public we're social distancing we're hand sanitizing we're wearing a mask when we're out so

00:12:34.020 um yeah it seems a little bit flip-flopped um that that people are willing to allow restrictions

00:12:40.980 to ease in other parts but um in the church it's different and i think that's important because one

00:12:47.300 One 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.

00:13:01.860 His 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.

00:13:12.340 And yet, why is this an exception?

00:13:15.460 And 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.

00:13:29.720 Tell us the distinction. Why be law abiding when you're out in public, but what changes when you come through the door?

00:13:36.400 Yeah, 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.

00:13:54.260 And so the restrictions that have been put on us are clear violations of what God has asked us to do in worshiping him.

00:14:01.260 Even 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.

00:14:11.920 And so that's really difficult when you start restricting certain people and calling them numbers.

00:14:17.700 They have names, they have faces, they have problems.

00:14:21.660 And 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.

00:14:34.760 And 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.

00:14:48.280 they're putting their lives on the line for us. And so we want to do the best to be sure that

00:14:53.120 we're backing them and helping them in communities. And so I think that's the only

00:14:59.200 distinction is when it comes to the worship of God, it has to be God's law that dictates it and

00:15:05.200 not the government. And I know Kenny believes that. I read an article that he wrote in, or

00:15:10.000 actually it was a speech I believe that he gave in 2014 in regards to conscience. So I know he knows

00:15:15.780 that let's uh see if we can play a portion of that speech now and i don't know if we maybe

00:15:22.980 can restart it from that point because i don't hear the volume on it there derek

00:15:30.180 no we're not getting the volume on it derek

00:15:37.140 technical difficulties please stand by give give me 30 seconds uh maybe just go on with

00:15:43.460 there for another you know because i i think the one of the things that that kenny has argued is

00:15:50.020 but 90.9 of all the other churches are are following the rules the 15 isn't a barrier

00:15:57.460 the social distancing isn't a problem um the restrictions on on singing they can abide by

00:16:04.020 them so why can't you so explain first of all we should maybe talk about the environment that you

00:16:09.300 have in the church so that we so that we know what kind of restrictions you are are or your

00:16:17.060 husband is being alleged to to have broken yeah i mean i think that comment dismisses the fact that

00:16:25.860 um not all faith like james would not call himself a a faith leader he would call himself

00:16:31.940 an ambassador of jesus christ who whose life is founded on the word of god and so you would have

00:16:37.300 to make a that's a general sweeping um comment that all churches and faiths all all worship the

00:16:44.260 same or have the same authority um our authority is the word of god and so i believe that comment

00:16:49.460 just doesn't leave room for conscience and our conscience is bound to the word of god as our

00:16:54.180 rule and authority for life so um that's where i think that comment is is not helpful now our our

00:17:00.580 church uh we're a family we we love each other we we help each other in life and the majority of that

00:17:08.180 work is really done on a sunday and so how our service works is the word of god is preached we

00:17:14.740 sing the word of god we take communion we do baptism um and after the sermon because we believe

00:17:21.940 that god is speaking to us through his word and and when that work does a when the word does a

00:17:27.220 work in our heart, we are communicating with one another, we're helping each other live during the

00:17:32.420 week, we're bearing one another's burdens, there's people grieving, there's people hurting, there's

00:17:36.960 people losing their jobs. And so we're just doing life together and making sure that we are, we're

00:17:44.380 not just physically healthy, but that we're emotionally and spiritually healthy as well. So

00:17:50.280 we really just seek to take care of the whole person. And we do that as a family. I mean,

00:17:55.500 scripture calls us brothers and sisters in christ so we're really just seeking to love

00:18:00.700 one another and the majority of that work happens on a sunday so why can't you limit the number of

00:18:07.280 people in the church to 15 i don't know how big your church is so i'm trying to get a sense of

00:18:12.960 how what your fire code capacity would be for right we're uh we're good to go i think okay

00:18:18.080 okay so well if we're all set up let's play that first then i'm going to get back to

00:18:23.920 to this has unavoidable political implications since the word addresses biblical morality

00:18:31.120 but that's about it and so you might be going well james what's changed i mean you seem to

00:18:39.740 have changed your position on this whole matter of your involvement in quote-unquote politics

00:18:46.260 well for one i've got to evaluate whether or not i've been negligent it's possible that i've been

00:18:56.440 negligent that i have not been fulfilling my god-given responsibility i've got to evaluate

00:19:03.260 that i've got to consider that but here's the fundamental difference

00:19:10.980 for the first time in my ministry the government is reaching into the life of the church

00:19:18.160 that's my domain that's the domain of the elders here at grace life church

00:19:24.500 that's the lord jesus christ's domain attempting to dictate to us the terms of worship

00:19:32.320 is not the government's jurisdiction and i refuse to give the government what isn't theirs caesar

00:19:39.460 has no jurisdiction here. So, as you can see, it was a pretty well-received statement that he made.

00:19:49.480 That's good there, Derek. We'll go on with our conversation here. So, I think that's important

00:19:53.900 because I think what I found really grounding about James' sermon was that he is a law-abiter

00:20:01.820 and he does ground his theology in being a law-abiter. He believes in law and order, but

00:20:07.280 he wants to have dominion over what happens within the church door. So let's talk about

00:20:12.560 how difficult that would be for you to practice your faith the way you normally do with these

00:20:18.620 restrictions. So I asked you before, so how many people would normally be in your congregation?

00:20:25.380 Well, before this, there was just over 350. So we went about 350, 380. We've significantly

00:20:32.320 grown during the pandemic just because you know their churches are closed and people are hurting

00:20:38.640 there there's depression and um they're struggling with various issues of of their heart and um and

00:20:46.160 they really need human contact and so one of our church was one of those safe havens for people

00:20:52.000 and even people who don't know god have come through our doors because they're just losing

00:20:56.080 hope there's no hope for them um with the pandemic um so so with the 15 you're also masked you're

00:21:04.320 social distanced uh you can't sing which is just a big part of our life singing to god is such a

00:21:10.240 joy um and then you're not supposed to speak to one another you have to leave immediately after

00:21:16.320 the service and so that just really hinders us in in the work that we can do in one another's

00:21:23.280 life and encouraging them to live um holy lives during the week and and and go into your jobs and

00:21:31.920 live healthy lives within the community and helping your community

00:21:35.920 couldn't you tell us though so if it was 50 people that you'd be allowed i guess give or

00:21:40.320 take based on what you've said there why would that be difficult to manage if you were doing

00:21:45.760 multiple multiple sermons for instance throughout the course of the day could could because that's

00:21:50.400 i think what other churches are doing to accommodate the their church community why not do that yeah

00:21:56.560 sure well we have um we have seven elders and we believe that in a in a worship service you're to

00:22:04.320 have your elders and your deacons present and once you put your elders and your deacons present

00:22:09.760 because they're they're there to do the work to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry

00:22:14.400 we're already at 50 and so you're limiting our leaders in regards to the responsibility so um

00:22:20.800 you used a word there um it's it's i forget not dictating um how we i look at it and how

00:22:29.360 scripture looks at it is james has been given a stewardship by god and so he's not allowed to um

00:22:37.680 fiddle with what god has commanded him and i i liken the story to a king who has a kingdom and

00:22:43.920 he has this wonderfully beautiful young bride and he's left he's leaving on a trip and he's leaving

00:22:50.640 this steward in charge of her to take care of the kingdom and to take care of his wife

00:22:56.000 and we can use the covid restrictions in there well the king goes away and then this steward is

00:23:00.720 restricting her communication with the people he's not feeding her well he's not washing her he's not

00:23:06.960 letting her shower because we call it washing in the word is is one of the things that scripture

00:23:11.280 uses. And so when the king comes back to see his beautiful wife, she is just sickly, and she's not

00:23:18.340 thriving in life. What's that king going to do to the steward? There's going to be a severe punishment

00:23:24.460 for him. And so James takes that very seriously. This is a stewardship that has been entrusted to

00:23:30.340 him by God, and he doesn't have permission to limit the gathering or limit how people believe

00:23:38.580 as individuals, they are to worship God. So we're individuals, but we're in a corporate body. So

00:23:43.940 that's the whole pull, is that we're a body. And this just doesn't seem to be ending. And I

00:23:52.840 watched a little bit of a show you did with Colonel Redmond, I believe, where he says,

00:23:58.240 we're always going to have pandemics. So if this is the precedent, we just have a responsibility

00:24:03.360 before the Lord to care for his people and we can't we can't restrict that I

00:24:10.800 want to tell you to go back to March April because there was a it was a

00:24:15.900 different world in March April for all of us I mean I don't hold government I

00:24:20.520 don't hold any grudge against them for taking some of the restrictions they did

00:24:24.460 then when we didn't know much about this virus we weren't sure how it was going

00:24:27.660 to spread we didn't know who who was most at risk your you all your church also dealt with things

00:24:33.580 differently back in march and april i want people to understand that because i think there's been a

00:24:37.580 bit of an evolution in how and how you've been looking at this virus and and how we have to

00:24:43.340 live with it so tell us what you did back in march april yeah we followed the restrictions

00:24:48.300 to a t back in in march and april and that really hurt our people it hurt them emotionally physically

00:24:55.260 spiritually um so as the the emergency um protocol or whatever it was called uh came to an end our

00:25:03.080 guys all of our leaders because james is he's the lead teaching pastor but he he's he has a plurality

00:25:10.020 of elders they have equal authority in the church um so he he's not like the head guy with there's

00:25:16.920 there's multiple guys that are put in place to shepherd the flock um so we followed that and

00:25:22.740 not knowing what is this? Are we harming our people? Are we harming our community?

00:25:27.820 So as that came to an end, and we were speaking to a doctor, and we were speaking to multiple

00:25:33.180 people who are working in hospitals, we're seeing the effect on our people. Our leaders just said,

00:25:40.620 you know, let's roll this out wisely. We're going to, you know, when you come to church,

00:25:46.400 it's your choice, whether you want to come, if you're afraid of the disease,

00:25:49.800 um you can stay back in live stream if you have health issues you can stay back in live stream

00:25:55.180 so we've never forced anybody to come to church um and uh and but we also say like if you're sick

00:26:02.100 if you're not feeling well if you have any of these symptoms don't come to church live stream

00:26:06.220 that but that's just that's just basic love if you have anything like just stay home don't go

00:26:11.800 out in public if you're sick that's the way it's always been um and so yeah our guys really wrestled

00:26:18.600 with it all the way along. But I think what it was, was they had to wrestle with what's

00:26:22.680 their responsibility towards God as the shepherd of the people as they were starting to express

00:26:28.220 just difficulty in living life and not being able to worship God altogether. So they had

00:26:33.880 to really thoughtfully and prayerfully evaluate everything.

00:26:39.380 I see John Carpe has joined us. John, you're going to be, I'll be bringing you in in a

00:26:43.280 bit, but we've got a few things we want to talk about with Aaron Coates. And John is,

00:26:46.120 of course the with the the executive director of the justice center for constitutional freedom

00:26:50.520 we'll have a longer session with him next week because he has a whole pile of cases that he's

00:26:55.720 taking forward we want to get an update on all of them so i just wanted to to welcome you and thanks

00:26:59.320 for being able to join us today so so erin let's then go back so i because i want to i want to

00:27:04.920 understand because i know that you've made a lot of provisions for those who don't feel comfortable

00:27:10.440 being in a large congregation you do you did you tell me as well that you had a sort of an area

00:27:15.320 cordoned off with plexiglass for those that if they want to set separately they

00:27:19.080 can yes yeah we have a balcony so that they can come upstairs they call and

00:27:25.680 they reserve that seating where they can be masked and social distance if that's

00:27:31.700 what they believe then that that section is there for them to do that tell us

00:27:36.200 about the the kids in the or in in the church as well because that's one of the

00:27:40.080 things we talked about earlier is that you've got a lot of kids who come to

00:27:43.400 who come to serve us we have a lot of children um i i don't know what to say other than people come

00:27:50.680 to our church and they're like wow there is so many children here and uh you know i just i love

00:27:57.320 the children these little toddlers who come up to you and they tell you their life story of what

00:28:02.520 they've done that week and i think that our church is a safe haven for them in that when they're out

00:28:08.280 in the community everyone's masked that no one's looking at you there's no smiling happening

00:28:14.120 um so this is our church brings a level of normalcy to and humanity i think to a growing

00:28:19.960 generation um that really needs to experience laughing and smiling and hugging all of things

00:28:28.200 that science has proved to be beneficial to a growing child and even adults um but yeah they're

00:28:35.800 I just love them. They're wonderful. And I feel like what we give them on a Sunday is healthy.

00:28:43.720 I like the point about a sense of normalcy, because you're right, kids aren't getting that

00:28:47.520 very many places. What about the argument that someone would make about the need for you to

00:28:53.220 protect the elders in your community, the seniors who might be overweight? Because we know by looking

00:28:59.040 at the profile of this disease and when it manifests, those over the age of 70, those with

00:29:04.440 multiple conditions those are the ones who are most at risk and I think part of the reason the

00:29:09.380 premier clamped down so hard on churches is early on there was a church which turned out to be a

00:29:15.560 super spreader event and I think sadly an 81 year old who attended the service ended up dying so I

00:29:21.460 understand where the idea comes from that he wants to provide this protection but what do you what

00:29:28.620 can you give us as a way of comfort that those individuals are being protected in the environment

00:29:34.880 that you're offering? Right. Well, I think they need to be able to choose. You know, we have an

00:29:41.060 81 or 82 year old gentleman in our congregation who's fought in the Cold War. And you cannot tell

00:29:47.060 him that he's not going to come to church. He's fought for freedom. He's been in the war. And for

00:29:51.440 them to tell him that he can't be with the people that he loves is devastating for him. So I think

00:29:58.320 that individuals have to weigh the risks, the elderly need to weigh the risks and choose

00:30:07.540 whether they're going to live stream. We will do our best to care for them any way that

00:30:12.060 we can. I know that members of our congregation, when they're going to visit their grandparents

00:30:16.740 or their parents, they will quarantine for two weeks before they go and see their parents

00:30:23.000 their grandparents um and then in the community you know we again we're masked and we're social

00:30:28.680 distanced we're not leaving the house if we're sick we have our hands sanitized which i if one

00:30:34.280 thing covid has just blessed me with it is clean hands because i'm a little bit of a germaphobe

00:30:40.600 with my husband um so yeah just making sure that we're caring for them that way let's talk about

00:30:48.200 what happened in the in the church because there were two exposures that you found out about and

00:30:54.920 you had a system in place to to double check and make sure that it wasn't going to result

00:31:00.280 in additional spreading can you tell us that story sure we had um some some cases in the

00:31:05.400 summer like you said and we weren't sure if they were in the gathering before or after they had

00:31:11.800 contracted it and so our guys pulled back on live stream and just did live stream told everyone to

00:31:17.400 to stay home for two weeks to make sure that it hadn't spread within our

00:31:21.300 gathering and it didn't but that's what our guys are willing to do and then

00:31:25.800 it's easy to do our own internal contact tracing because you know we know

00:31:29.940 everyone who's there so yeah we pulled back when that happened because we just

00:31:34.780 didn't we didn't know had they talked to somebody and they didn't know they had

00:31:38.120 COVID and they were in the gathering so but they had not been and that it

00:31:42.000 wasn't it wasn't transferred so that's kind of remarkable because those

00:31:45.000 Those exposures then happened or incidents happened in the summer, but we saw this huge

00:31:50.560 surge of cases that took place in November and December.

00:31:53.760 Were you meeting all the way through and were there any other instances that happened?

00:31:57.960 Yeah, we have been meeting all the way through.

00:32:02.360 There was what they call I think an outbreak at one of the homeless shelters that our guys

00:32:07.880 work at and there was I think two cases but they weren't in the gathering.

00:32:14.940 hadn't been in the gathering in two weeks and so we didn't feel the need that to need to quarantine

00:32:19.340 um and it never spread so yeah we're just very we're very careful i think um and how we do things

00:32:27.740 we we do care about people physically um i don't think our guys have been careless in this i think

00:32:33.180 they've done everything just really prayerfully um weighing because it's not just covid now that's

00:32:39.500 a concern um there's other things that are a concern in the community and um like suicide i

00:32:46.620 was if you just go on the canadian mental health association and you look at the numbers of suicide

00:32:50.940 going up or you go on the canadian center for substance abuse you can see things are are going

00:32:57.740 up there's a hopelessness in people and closing our doors to people who need help and hope is

00:33:03.500 is a devastating thing so you're weighing it's not just covet there's more than covet at risk here

00:33:10.700 um and i would just love our government to start acknowledging that fact um to know that one in

00:33:16.300 ten people are dealing with suicidal thoughts is a a massive number and that um suicide is the

00:33:23.020 second leading cause of death among among youth according to the canadian mental health association

00:33:28.460 um that's that's serious these are our children that are that are facing this so yeah i would i

00:33:35.240 would just love for them to start looking at stuff like that looking at the whole person

00:33:39.640 i'm trying to impress upon our listeners is that there those who are challenging the restrictions

00:33:47.020 are often mischaracterized as taking the view of well just let her rip and it doesn't sound to me

00:33:52.200 like you're just letting her rip it sounds to me like if there was an exposure you've got a number

00:33:57.280 of things in place you've got a two-week um let's do live stream protocol you've got contact tracing

00:34:03.280 and you're not going to put people at risk if there's an exposure is am i am i hearing that

00:34:08.560 correctly if you what would you do today if you found out that there had been somebody in the

00:34:13.040 congregation last week who was tested positive i i i don't i don't know for sure but i don't know

00:34:21.360 why we wouldn't uh do the same thing that we've always done in caring for people um yeah we we

00:34:28.560 do take it seriously all right and there is a there is a there is a mischaracter characterization

00:34:34.160 because all of a sudden you're anti-mask and anti-vaccine and um that's just i think lacking

00:34:41.680 an ability to engage with the actual facts and just kind of characterizing us as a certain kind

00:34:46.240 of people which which is just unfair um i wear a mask everywhere i go so so let's then talk about

00:34:54.640 why your husband was singled out because you've told us a bit so what what denomination are you

00:34:59.280 just so people understand because i i grew up catholic so um and maybe in a catholic service

00:35:05.120 because it's so distant and you've got the main priests and altar boys there's not there's not

00:35:10.480 the same amount of leadership that you have to work around as as is needed in your denomination

00:35:15.760 so what is your faith uh well we are bible believing christians is really the only thing

00:35:21.120 i can say because if i say we're evangelical or a different kind of uh that just has so many

00:35:27.360 different meanings but if you go on our website to gracelife.ca we have our doctrinal statement

00:35:32.400 there on what we believe on various things and we really just wanted our what we teach

00:35:36.880 uh to define us so we're non-denominational but we we we definitely lean in the the reformed camp

00:35:43.200 of of theology okay so you were but you said that earlier that james is only one of many

00:35:50.640 of uh of those who do the pastoral service who do the sermons so why has he been singled out this

00:35:56.400 way why why isn't everybody why is why aren't all 50 of the church leadership sitting in reman

00:36:02.960 uh well not 50 of the leadership if you do if you do our six elders and then our deacons and

00:36:07.680 their families together you have about you have about okay i see now uh if not more um we have

00:36:12.960 we have families that have a lot of children so uh you know probably because he he is the lead

00:36:19.600 pastor and he's the one that takes the pulpit the majority of time we we have an associate pastor

00:36:25.920 um that is preaching now um but james does the the majority of the preaching weekend and week

00:36:32.080 out is james um and so you kind of have a um what do they call it um first among equals is kind of

00:36:41.680 what they call it so they're all but that's important because the church services have

00:36:46.640 continued on even though he's been imprisoned for the last three weeks and so this is people

00:36:52.000 want consistency in how their government acts and this seems very inconsistent if what he did was a

00:36:58.320 crime worthy of being imprisoned for three weeks i guess like are the other pastors at risk then too

00:37:06.240 i 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

00:37:12.080 have been there the last couple weeks uh ahs was there this sunday so i we just don't even

00:37:18.320 know what's going on i don't know um why james was singled out i'm guessing it's because he's

00:37:23.920 he's at the front and and he is he he is kind of the face of grace life even though um

00:37:30.720 he is the first among equals we have elders that are that are all in the same plane um

00:37:37.600 so yeah i guess he just was the one willing to to take that so okay we'll get into this

00:37:42.560 some of the legal issues a little bit more with john but tell us what happened that day so i

00:37:46.640 watched i watched the the sermon and that was the last day you saw him right uh sunday the 14th he

00:37:56.240 preached the sermon and um we got a call from the rcmp saying that they they wanted actually sorry

00:38:03.920 they asked james to call monday i believe um and so he called them monday and they asked him to turn

00:38:10.480 himself in that he was going to be arrested uh for violating the undertaking which he didn't

00:38:16.320 sign which apparently it doesn't matter if he signed it or not but um and so the tuesday he

00:38:22.720 didn't think he was going to be detained um but he was detained and that was the last time that

00:38:29.200 i saw him why did you why did he not think he was going to be detained uh there was some indication

00:38:35.520 not not verbally like no you won't go to jail but there was some indication saying like you know

00:38:41.520 you can probably drive yourself um your wife doesn't have to drive your minivan for you

00:38:46.560 um so there's just an indication i think there that that i i think they thought he would have

00:38:53.440 signed the conditions really is what it is um but but for him to sign the conditions is to abrogate

00:39:00.000 is to let go of his pastoral duties um and severely restrict them so do you remember what

00:39:08.720 do you remember what the conditions are or should i ask john about that in a minute

00:39:12.240 yeah oh john can probably bring a little bit more clarity for me but the conditions are that he

00:39:16.800 doesn't um keep doing services like he had previously done and he has to adhere to whatever

00:39:22.800 restrictions are in place and that if he doesn't agree to do that he's not allowed on grace life

00:39:26.960 property wow okay so we're getting a nod from john so when he gets arrested and detained like tell us

00:39:34.400 what happened there because it's just so strange to have first of all him being arrested in the

00:39:38.720 first place and then you might think okay well maybe there's processing issues they're gonna

00:39:42.960 teach him a lesson and they'll hold him overnight but that's not what happened here so what did

00:39:48.320 happen the next day yeah well he went before to justice of the the peace that day when he went

00:39:55.360 into the rcmp um and then i i quickly spoke to him that night and he said he was staying overnight

00:40:03.920 because he had to go before a judge in the morning and so he slept at the rcmp that night um he said

00:40:11.520 he was cold um and then i was we we were we had people from our church calling the courthouse

00:40:18.400 trying to figure out when's his trial when is he standing before this judge and they kept telling

00:40:22.240 us like he's not here he had already left um and then one of our our elders was behind came behind

00:40:29.440 the courthouse and actually saw them taking him out in in um ankle and wrist cuffs like treating

00:40:35.680 him like a criminal and his comment to me when he called me because i was trying to get to him he

00:40:41.600 was trying to see me because they were detaining him um and so he's like honey i'm trying to see

00:40:45.920 you so i'm i'm driving to sorry um the rcmp and it's i'm within 15 minutes but his his comment

00:40:55.200 to me was honey they shackled me and that really affected him um and so i said okay i'm getting

00:41:01.600 there i'm getting to the rcmp i'm driving right now and then when i arrived there they had told

00:41:05.920 me he wasn't there that he had already left and so um yeah i just i couldn't i i just didn't see

00:41:14.000 him after that so what has happened in the meantime am i understanding that he's in isolation

00:41:18.960 but is it because he's an outsider coming into the facility and they have a rule that any new person

00:41:24.400 has to be in the 14 day COVID quarantine?

00:41:27.400 Or is there something more to it than that?

00:41:29.720 I have to believe that it's just COVID quarantine.

00:41:32.300 They did put him on a unit today.

00:41:33.800 I spoke with him tonight and they moved him to a unit.

00:41:36.340 So, but up until today, he was only allowed

00:41:40.360 out of his cell for two 15 minute blocks.

00:41:42.920 And so he was trying to call me on those blocks

00:41:46.260 when he wasn't showering.

00:41:48.080 If he showered, he would just call me and tell me

00:41:49.680 he loves me and then he'd hang up the phone.

00:41:52.280 but our calls were ranging anywhere from two minutes

00:41:56.320 to 16 minutes and just never sure when he was gonna call me.

00:42:01.080 So, and then, yeah, just, he was a little bit hungry.

00:42:04.360 He didn't have his canteen, which apparently you have to buy

00:42:07.520 to get extra snacks and stuff like that.

00:42:09.200 So he was hungry for the first probably week in a bit

00:42:13.000 that he was there and yeah, he was by himself.

00:42:19.160 I think after three days, I think he was by himself

00:42:22.280 after that for about a week and a half.

00:42:24.460 So are you going to be,

00:42:25.540 let's assume that he doesn't get bailed tomorrow

00:42:28.340 because they've moved the hearing over to tomorrow.

00:42:30.420 Are you going to be able to see him after tomorrow?

00:42:33.380 I'll only be able to see him via video for a 30 minute call.

00:42:36.780 I have to clarify whether it's every two days

00:42:39.000 or whether it's twice a week.

00:42:41.280 And I'm guessing that's going to be based

00:42:42.940 on availability of cameras.

00:42:45.760 I have to drive to the West End to see him,

00:42:48.660 but no, I can't see him live.

00:42:51.020 why not it's covid restrictions oh my goodness okay aaron i'm going to just let everybody soak

00:42:58.060 on what you've told us because it's bananas there's no other way to describe this and we're

00:43:03.180 going to see if we can get into some of the legal matters with john carpe executive director of the

00:43:08.860 justice center for constitutional freedom john i don't even know quite what to say here we started

00:43:15.340 before you joined us, we talked about this child sex molester who was released a few days ago with

00:43:21.760 a warning to the community that he was in danger of reoffending. Aaron mentioned that 50 other

00:43:26.860 hardened criminals were also released because of COVID issues, and yet they're cracking down

00:43:32.840 on Pastor James Coates. What am I missing here? I mean, none of this makes very much sense.

00:43:41.340 the other interesting thing is that the owner of the uh whistle stop uh a cafe or whistle stop

00:43:48.260 restaurant in mirror alberta he openly defied the government and said we're not we're not

00:43:54.520 complying with these health orders we're going to stay open you can find me i don't care how

00:43:59.660 much money you find me we're going to stay open and he is not in jail and so you know the the uh

00:44:07.300 And 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.

00:44:32.720 The lawyer on the file is Dream's Kitchen, but he's been so busy that we've kind of carved it up.

00:44:38.280 And I'm doing the media stuff and he's doing all the legal stuff.

00:44:43.060 But it's just I think when you stand up and say no, you know, we're only going to go so far.

00:44:52.480 And the church obviously has complied to a very large extent with all kinds of things.

00:44:57.740 But everybody's got their own line in the sand.

00:44:59.920 And there's a certain point where you say, yeah, I'll comply with A, B, and C, and that's reasonable.

00:45:05.280 But now you're asking for D, E, and F, and that's not reasonable, and I'm not doing it.

00:45:10.380 And so I think Pastor Coates is a hero.

00:45:13.200 It's people like him that make the difference in creating justice in a country.

00:45:19.940 Because 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.

00:45:33.220 But 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.

00:45:44.860 If 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.

00:45:56.940 I mean, the list of professions for which you need a university degree is very long.

00:46:02.260 And these students defied the university justly and legally, and they continue to express their pro-life views on campus.

00:46:10.780 And 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.

00:46:23.160 we took the university to court and the court ruled against the university and now we've got

00:46:29.000 a good precedent uh it hasn't solved all the problems but at least it's it's a good precedent

00:46:33.900 uh for for partly solving the problems would never have happened without the courage of those

00:46:39.180 students who said no to an unjust demand and here we have health orders that are not scientific

00:46:45.860 they're not constitutional um james james kitchen mentioned during the hearing earlier today

00:46:52.920 he said, you know, the government claims that churches and Grace Life in particular, but that

00:46:58.700 churches are, you know, this serious threat to public health, and they haven't produced any

00:47:03.800 evidence to back that up. It's just an assertion. And probably just that one of the anecdotes that

00:47:10.100 I relate a little bit earlier. It's interesting as well, because talk about exceptions. Remember

00:47:15.820 when the niece of Ralph Klein also opened her hair salon, and she certainly didn't end up in jail

00:47:22.100 either i can only imagine what would happen if they'd tried that so let's talk about some of

00:47:27.540 the legalities here because this is the real challenge that we have and we've talked about

00:47:31.700 this before is we're all sitting here thinking isn't there a charter of rights and freedoms

00:47:37.220 isn't religious freedom and freedom of conscience aren't they the first couple of enumerated freedoms

00:47:42.660 in there did do public health acts quash the charter does the charter no longer exist what

00:47:49.380 how how how come we don't have any of this being adjudicated through that lens what what why hasn't

00:47:55.620 that occurred well for one it takes time to uh to follow the court actions and to to get the rulings

00:48:03.460 the justice center has proceeded kind of cautiously on this in the sense that when when the measures

00:48:08.340 were first introduced and maybe this is the same for for grace life when back 12 months ago in in

00:48:15.620 in March of 2020, we didn't know what we know today.

00:48:19.580 And so there was a real possibility

00:48:22.000 that maybe this is an unusually deadly killer

00:48:24.780 that's gonna kill millions and millions and millions 0.98

00:48:27.360 of people and it's gonna be like the Spanish flu

00:48:29.820 or it's gonna be inflict permanent health damage

00:48:33.460 on large numbers of young people. 0.69

00:48:34.960 Maybe it's gonna kill a lot of children. 1.00

00:48:37.180 And in that situation, it's quite reasonable

00:48:40.700 for the government to say, okay,

00:48:42.400 we're closing the schools, we're closing the borders.

00:48:45.120 And 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?

00:48:57.420 Have 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?

00:49:08.780 have you thought about the impact of people with cancer that are not getting diagnosed with the

00:49:14.100 MRIs and the CT scans and I could go on and on and on and and yet no response to these questions

00:49:21.700 from the Alberta government or any other government they're not looking at the harms they're not even

00:49:25.740 thinking about it and this ties in with the charter because the charter says in a nutshell

00:49:30.800 and there's a complicated four-part test the Oaks test but skip that for now in a nutshell what the

00:49:38.360 charter requires is that whenever governments violate any of our rights and freedoms, and that

00:49:43.860 could be religion, conscience, expression, peaceful assembly, association, your right to not get locked

00:49:50.900 up in a jail, anytime rights and freedoms are violated, the onus is on the government to show

00:49:57.620 that these laws and policies are actually going to bring about more good than harm. And two or

00:50:07.020 three months into lockdowns it's there's governments have not and they are not showing

00:50:12.120 that the lockdowns are bringing about more good than harm and so they're failing under the charter

00:50:18.220 and legally in my view they should lose in court but you know anybody who makes a prediction about

00:50:25.480 a court ruling is a fool so I'm not going to make any predictions but the great thing about the

00:50:29.560 court actions is even if we lose for the very first time Dina Hinshaw is going to be cross-examined 0.95

00:50:35.740 and she's going to have to answer some questions and and not the softballs that she's been getting 0.87

00:50:40.380 from mainstream media in in the past 11 months did we lose danielle did we lose danielle

00:50:56.940 so that'd be her co-host hey i'm in the show it says i'm in the show am i in the show

00:51:02.860 i'm hearing you goodness can you hear me now i think i was backstage asking questions so

00:51:11.100 so yeah we'll turn it over to you erin you're awesome at this because you've had a lot of

00:51:15.020 experience doing a lot of these interviews you're really so poised and i don't know if i would be

00:51:20.700 as poised as you are under the under the circumstances or like how are you getting

00:51:25.900 um counsel and support right now is there or do you feel like you've got a good group of people

00:51:29.820 around you i i this is a hard conversation to have and i just want to be sensitive to that

00:51:35.180 yeah i have the most phenomenal people in the world around me my elders have um really stepped

00:51:41.820 up to care for us as a family um our whole church has stepped up to take care of us as a family

00:51:47.260 which is so different for us because james and i are so used to to serving them and and it's our

00:51:52.780 life of service towards them so now that i'm on the receiving end of that uh it's it's a little

00:51:57.740 overwhelming but just to see that the love and the care that they have taken care of us is is so

00:52:03.980 wonderful and i'm getting messages from all around the world of people just praying for us and

00:52:09.580 encouraging us and so i just really sense that god is using that in my life to um help me through

00:52:15.260 these interviews and be able to say what i need to say and in helping james get out see i told

00:52:20.620 you before i'm not particularly religious i'm a lapsed catholic maybe i should go to your church

00:52:24.540 maybe with with the singing and the fellowship maybe i'll i'll reconsider that but have you been

00:52:29.660 getting a lot of support from those is it mostly your church community or have you been getting

00:52:34.060 support from those who are who are um libertarian or not aligned or atheist or agnostic or non-believers

00:52:40.380 how how is the support coming in to you there is there's tons of support from all around the world

00:52:46.140 um i think i looked at a binder on our administrator's desk and and it was about this

00:52:51.980 gist of that week of encouraging emails. Yeah, I would say the community, you know, those who

00:52:58.600 don't believe in God and don't go to church, I'd say they're divided. There are those who

00:53:02.500 understand how, you know, we wouldn't say we're primarily fighting for rights. We would say we're

00:53:07.860 primarily fighting for Christ's lordship over his church and James's responsibility and our elders

00:53:13.020 responsibility to shepherd Christ's sheep. But we understand that the secondary cause of that is

00:53:20.660 fighting for freedom and so i think people see that we are fighting for for freedom um just

00:53:26.180 through that and so yeah we've had divided um comments there have been been great support from

00:53:32.900 people who who don't believe in god let's then talk about so that's the theological argument

00:53:38.420 how do you make the argument for religious freedom in this context in the court john like what is the

00:53:44.180 nature of the of the challenge going to be because i i guess there's a few things that i'm confused

00:53:49.220 about one is why why this pastor and no one else why this situation and none of the others what

00:53:57.360 about section 176 of the criminal code the premier sort of scoffed at me when i mentioned it but it

00:54:02.240 looked pretty clear to me like you're not allowed to arrest somebody to prevent them from doing a

00:54:06.980 service and that kind of seems to be what they're doing here uh what about the i think james kitchen

00:54:13.640 you're the lawyer made the argument today that even if he's found guilty in may jail is not the

00:54:19.480 penalty and so there's so much going on here that i like it's perplexing i just i'm trying to

00:54:24.680 understand the the legal case that they're going to make and then i want to know what your what

00:54:29.400 your challenge to it is going to be so that's a big question but but see if you can walk us through

00:54:33.160 some of it well one of your questions is why james coats and i i i don't know uh an educated guess

00:54:41.640 might be that he's one of the you know the only pastor in alberta or one of very few that was uh

00:54:48.520 not fully complying with the with the restrictions uh so that could be a reason but that still

00:54:55.160 doesn't answer why uh you know the owner of whistle stop is not in jail and and other

00:55:01.160 restaurants in terms of the legal test in court the the government can place reasonable limits on

00:55:09.160 restriction, reasonable restrictions on religion. And I can give you two, you know, extreme examples

00:55:15.740 if there was some Satanist cult that was engaging in ritual child abuse or something, you know,

00:55:23.080 the government should appropriately step in. Or if there's a religion that called for human sacrifice,

00:55:27.900 the government could step in. So there are reasonable limits. And I'm not aware of anybody

00:55:32.200 who really disputes that. The legal test in court is that when the government places restriction

00:55:38.660 on well let's take Grace Life for example so if there's restrictions on singing or how many people

00:55:46.100 can gather and other things that impact how they practice their faith and how they worship God

00:55:53.580 first of all the first component is it has to be because of a serious pressing

00:56:01.860 uh objective and here uh i know views are divided but i was looking at statistics canada which tells

00:56:09.460 us that the death rate in canada in 2020 was very much in line with the death rate from 2019 2018

00:56:17.300 2017. if it was true that covid was really this unusually deadly killer you would see a higher

00:56:23.460 death rate in canada in 2020 we don't see that so will the court consider that because i i guess

00:56:31.940 this is the thing is the deference the court is showing to health authorities i don't know if

00:56:37.140 it's because we just haven't seen it tested it seemed i don't know if you can comment uh on what

00:56:43.380 you might have learned from what happened in british columbia because they closed the churches

00:56:47.460 down this i think what the premier says well at least we haven't closed the churches down

00:56:51.700 but i think when it went to court the judge said so where's the affidavit from dr bonnie henry

00:56:57.300 where's her rationale what's her thinking behind this and she hadn't filed one they basically said

00:57:02.020 well going back judge and look at her press conferences and that's her justification which

00:57:06.260 seems ultimate that seems pretty lame and disrespectful to the court frankly but give me

00:57:11.380 your sense of of where we're at is it the deference to we're just going to assume that because they

00:57:16.900 gave a press conference that our charter rights don't exist and they have made just a case by

00:57:22.260 declaration that it's reasonable or is there going to be a higher test than that is the is

00:57:26.820 the court actually going to hold the the health officials to account well we haven't seen it yet

00:57:31.780 because the the court actions were filed i mean the alberta one was filed in uh the justice center

00:57:37.060 sued the the county government in uh december manitoba was filed a little bit earlier manitoba

00:57:43.380 will be the first one to be heard and that's going to be at the end of April. What has not yet

00:57:48.340 happened is the evidence being presented in court and this is what I'm very excited about because

00:57:54.500 you know even if we lose this will be the first time that the government can't just intimidate

00:58:00.420 people and engage in fear-mongering by way of a news conference you know backed up by pro-lockdown

00:58:06.260 biased media they're going to have to have they're going to have to put their chief medical officer

00:58:11.140 up to be cross-examined and this judge in bc is entirely correct uh shame on the bc government for

00:58:16.820 not having uh dr bonnie henry the chief medical officer of bc actually follow an affidavit because

00:58:23.140 how it works in court is you can't go by press conferences uh you actually need to present

00:58:29.540 evidence and very often affidavit is is one of those dina hinshaw has filed an affidavit in the

00:58:36.980 Alberta court action and she will be cross-examined and that cross-examination it might go on for days

00:58:44.420 and she's going to be asked every question about every lockdown harm and every scientific report

00:58:50.340 she's going to be asked to show us the science as to why she believes that asymptomatic people are

00:58:57.140 spreaders of of the virus when we have medical experts top-notch world-renowned people that

00:59:03.940 that are going to testify that asymptomatic people are not significant spreaders of the virus.

00:59:10.800 Dina Hinshaw is going to have to produce some science in court if she wants to persuade the

00:59:14.340 court that asymptomatic people are spreading the virus. So it's all supposed to be based on 1.00

00:59:19.380 evidence. And the case in BC is challenging. You have the total closure of all churches,

00:59:27.060 while not just box stores, big box stores, and liquor stores, and cannabis stores,

00:59:31.660 but even restaurants are open in BC you can have six people sitting close together at a table

00:59:36.320 without masks and churches even churches that were strictly complying with the health orders

00:59:41.500 have been shut down completely and so we're challenging that it's not a broad challenge

00:59:46.680 against the lockdowns in their entirety we might file that later in BC we probably will

00:59:52.240 but the BC case right now is saying look you've got no medical or scientific basis

00:59:58.260 for shutting down churches entirely and it is ours what is so what is the nuance with this

01:00:04.640 particular one in alberta then are you challenging the lockdowns in their entirety yes so so the

01:00:12.120 arguments uh and i think we do have a little bit of time so the four four points that the government

01:00:17.140 has to prove firstly this is there's a serious and pressing uh public policy concern so the

01:00:23.760 government's going to argue that COVID is an unusually deadly killer that we should all be

01:00:28.540 afraid of, and we should take, you know, very decisive, strong action. We're going to show

01:00:34.280 data that tells us that no, COVID is, yes, COVID is real, but it's not the unusually deadly killer

01:00:40.220 that the government makes out to be. Second point, there has to be a rational connection between

01:00:45.320 restriction and the benefit. So on that point, the government would have to prove,

01:00:51.100 back it up with science that asymptomatic people are spreaders because if asymptomatic people are 0.84

01:00:56.720 not significant spreaders well bye-bye social distancing and bye-bye mask wearing it just

01:01:02.000 doesn't hold any water the third point that the government has to comply with is to violate our

01:01:09.320 freedoms as little as possible to achieve the objective and we're arguing you've gone way too

01:01:15.800 far and you're destroying the economy, forcing people into isolation and just massively. You

01:01:22.600 can't have both of your parents over for Christmas dinner, although you could if they were divorced,

01:01:26.780 right? Because then they'd be from two different households. You could have your divorced mom and

01:01:30.280 dad come over for Christmas, but not if your parents are married. I mean, this is going way

01:01:35.580 too far. And the fourth one? The fourth one is that the government, the onus is on the government

01:01:41.140 to show that these violations these public health orders are doing more good than harm

01:01:46.980 and so for the first time the government's going to have to show in court not just claim that

01:01:51.860 lockdowns have saved lives because i've been hearing this for 11 months oh without the lockdowns way

01:01:56.820 more people would have died well if they say that in court the judge is going to say okay where's

01:02:01.700 the evidence what do you what's the basis for your claim that without lockdowns way more people would

01:02:07.780 have died they have to back that up they can't just use that as a as a slogan okay let me go

01:02:14.100 back to aaron because this sounds like a long haul and it's a huge case that your husband's

01:02:19.540 been willing to to take on and be the test case for but that could mean that you don't see him

01:02:24.660 for a couple of months are are you prepared for that is he prepared for that i think i have to

01:02:30.820 be prepared for that i mean thankfully i serve a god that is completely sovereign and he cares

01:02:36.580 about me. So anything he's calling me to walk through for him, I will do. I'll have to rely

01:02:44.220 on him and rely on our body and obviously be praying for my husband day in and day out and

01:02:49.900 have to deal with my children's hearts through it. But if I don't have a choice, so the only

01:02:56.860 other option is for him to compromise and just capitulate on what he believes. And no, I will

01:03:03.100 not i will not be the wife that makes her husband compromised that is that's awful so so john let's

01:03:09.420 talk about the what what he would have to agree to do in order to be released because if i read

01:03:16.140 one of the postings that you put online he has to agree that he's not going to deliver any more

01:03:22.540 sermons is that right or is it that he'll only deliver sermons if they fall within the parameters

01:03:28.140 that he's been dictated to just explain to me what what it is that he would have to commit to

01:03:32.800 so that we know why it's such a hard line I think my understanding is he would have to commit to

01:03:37.920 full compliance with the health orders 100 compliance and I think if he agreed to comply

01:03:44.500 100 he would be able to preach on Sundays but then it would be compromising on just the how

01:03:51.380 irrational and unscientific and unjustified these measures are and to his credit he's not willing

01:04:00.400 to do that I would hope that if I was in his shoes I would have that same courage and say

01:04:05.040 no you know there's a line I'm willing to do some certain forms of compliance up to a point yes

01:04:10.480 definitely but there's a line where it's like no this is this is an unjustified violation of my

01:04:15.460 freedoms so in a nutshell it's about full compliance as opposed to partial compliance

01:04:20.420 because as as uh as aaron outlined the church has gone to great i think great lengths to

01:04:27.460 really do all kinds of things but the church has a line in the sand where it's you know no like

01:04:32.900 we're not gonna we're not gonna go past this line well and aaron i want you to comment on that too

01:04:38.100 because i've heard you say this as well is that your whole approach is let people decide like

01:04:43.940 you're asking people to make their own judgment you're giving them actually a bit more dominion

01:04:49.140 over themselves than the government's prepared to do why is that important in your faith tell us

01:04:53.940 tell us where where you came to that conclusion well i think people need to be everyone grows and

01:05:00.100 learns at different rates and i think people have to be convinced with it within their own mind that

01:05:05.460 um that what they're doing is not sinning so um like in scripture it says that we're not to

01:05:10.900 neglect the gathering of the saints um but people have to be fully convinced and we're willing to

01:05:16.820 to patiently work with people as they come

01:05:19.580 to their different conclusions.

01:05:20.800 But it's hugely important that we just understand

01:05:26.040 you're an individual before God

01:05:27.900 and you will stand before him

01:05:29.640 and give an account for your life,

01:05:31.580 but you're also part of a body.

01:05:33.100 So I think it's so important

01:05:35.220 that people just have to be convinced in their own mind.

01:05:37.540 And there's varying things that could undergird

01:05:41.140 their decisions that we've decided

01:05:43.660 we'll walk with them through, so.

01:05:45.100 right thanks for that for giving us that clarification

01:05:48.780 so let's then talk about the bizarre extremes that they've gone to

01:05:54.220 with with james because to give him the impression

01:05:59.260 uh yeah okay should i get my wife to drop me off can i drive there myself

01:06:03.340 give the impression that he's only going to go down and get the formal

01:06:06.540 processing and then be able to go home and then to keep him there put him in

01:06:10.300 shackles and not allow his wife to to speak to

01:06:13.900 him any more than 15 minutes twice a day for two weeks now only allowed video conference uh as

01:06:20.220 somebody i think i saw a comment go up earlier most people are collecting these tickets and

01:06:24.380 using them for wallpaper no one's having um this kind of reaction uh there's a an instagrammer

01:06:31.100 who's kind of making it his personal mission to tell people how they can assert their rights to

01:06:37.020 travel section six one of the charter and section 14 one of the quarantine act says they can't stick

01:06:41.900 some foreign body up your nose and he gets tickets and he leaves and he helps others get tickets and 0.95

01:06:47.260 leave and so this is what i don't understand is why didn't they just write him a darn ticket 0.94

01:06:51.180 so that he could go back home what what's with all this rigmarole 0.82

01:06:57.340 i i can speculate i mean uh this is purely hypothetical if he if pastor coates have not

01:07:02.700 turned himself in i question whether the authorities whether the alberta government

01:07:08.700 would have had the temerity to actually go in and go into the church on a monday morning and arrest

01:07:14.700 him when there may have been you know several staff members around to record that with their

01:07:21.180 cell phones and to me it just looks like you know something done kind of uh on the sly in in darkness

01:07:28.780 no that's pure speculation i mean maybe if he hadn't turned himself in maybe they would have

01:07:32.380 come to the church and they would have been willing to risk uh you know international uh

01:07:37.100 uh cell phone video footage of uh you know here's an actual pastor getting arrested and handcuffed

01:07:44.060 and taken away into the police cart uh because governments don't like that kind of publicity

01:07:49.260 but at the same time they want to crack down on anybody who's a leader and who's principled and

01:07:53.740 who's saying no and who's standing up is going they'll they'll be the first people to uh to get

01:08:00.940 attacked and prosecuted and so on okay explain to me why i'm wrong that the the criminal code section

01:08:09.020 176 doesn't apply here because it does say in there you can't arrest somebody and prevent them

01:08:14.060 from being able to deliver a sermon that and it's actually a a two a potential two years in jail if

01:08:20.460 you violate that so why why isn't someone taking a criminal code violation against dr dina hinshaw

01:08:26.940 for authorizing this like what what what am i missing about about that provision in the criminal

01:08:31.420 code because if it doesn't mean anything in this situation then it doesn't mean anything at all

01:08:36.460 i think you could make an argument that in the course of law enforcement you might be required

01:08:42.540 to uh to to break the law i mean if you were some undercover cop and you're trying to

01:08:48.300 bust a you know a drug ring or something maybe there'll be situations where you have to smoke

01:08:53.820 some marijuana to you know keep your your undercover status or something

01:08:58.140 assuming marijuana was still illegal but I don't see that I don't see that

01:09:02.580 justification here when they can actually they don't need to disrupt the church

01:09:07.500 service this is a huge problem I know in Calgary we get one Catholic priest and a

01:09:14.220 number of quite a few pastors you know you've gone kind of harassment and

01:09:20.580 almost borderline disrupting of church services,

01:09:24.020 which is also a criminal co-defense.

01:09:26.480 And I see no need for it.

01:09:28.420 I could see potentially there could be situations

01:09:31.060 where law enforcement could break the law

01:09:33.860 as part of the bigger picture of law enforcement.

01:09:37.860 But there's nothing that stops the health authorities

01:09:41.040 from issuing a ticket on a Monday morning.

01:09:44.760 So it's, I don't know.

01:09:47.440 And I won't speculate as to, you know, to what extent is Dina Hinshaw directing this.

01:09:53.380 My guess would be that she's not personally involved in making these local decisions about who gets persecuted or not.

01:09:59.920 But there's something ugly going on inside Alberta Health Services when you've got, you know, this kind of aggressive takedown of one pastor.

01:10:12.200 um again in the absence of science and evidence because they the government has been um and aaron

01:10:18.520 you can correct me if the time is wrong but i believe it's been six months that the government's

01:10:22.120 been at your church and you know being there on sunday mornings the government's had six months

01:10:28.760 to come up with some credible evidence as to uh churches being uh super spreaders and 0.91

01:10:36.040 asymptomatic people being spreaders and a full church actually causing public harm they've had 0.68

01:10:42.440 six months to come up with evidence and they haven't produced any evidence they're they're 0.77

01:10:46.920 before the courts making this assertion you know based on one anecdote that yeah once upon a time

01:10:52.440 there was one church that was full and one person died well that's not science that's that's just

01:10:57.320 anecdotal and it shouldn't uh stand up in court so aaron let me ask you that how did you get on

01:11:03.880 the government radar because they were i mean they said that they've been working with you

01:11:07.800 all this time but there must have been an initial complaint or what why is it that they targeted you

01:11:14.280 because i as much as the premier likes to say you're the only one that is violating the orders

01:11:19.400 i i have a hard time believing that yeah and i think there's been churches in the news that

01:11:24.520 prove that wrong but um they somebody must must have reported us around the end of november

01:11:30.360 because we have ministries that run during the week um so that's really when ahs started to press

01:11:35.960 us was the end of november but we have been open since the beginning of july or end of june um and

01:11:42.120 so they really just started to come in hard and then showing up with the rcmp every week and

01:11:47.800 putting a closure notice on our door finding james um and just starting to get more aggressive and

01:11:54.120 more aggressive they took them to court um to to up the ante of the consequences if we kept gathering

01:12:01.640 um so yeah it was it's been since the end of november is when i believe they first contacted

01:12:08.760 us that that somebody had had complained that there was too many cars in the parking lot which

01:12:13.640 we would have been abiding by the 15 capacity at that point so weird so it wasn't it was a neighbor

01:12:19.640 they use the snitch line yeah so during the week yeah we were abiding by the by the capacity rules

01:12:25.240 so wow okay what are the other pastors saying to you the other churches saying to you i i gather

01:12:32.600 and i've only heard the second hand as i mentioned to you i have somebody who's a listener who um

01:12:38.440 whose daughter goes to your church and it sounds like and i don't know if this went ahead it sounds

01:12:42.680 like the premier was having some faith leaders powwow at five o'clock today i don't know if that

01:12:47.800 went ahead or if you know anything about it but is there some kind of coordinated effort to put

01:12:53.160 to have other faith leaders i know your husband doesn't call himself that but to have other um

01:12:58.440 people with positions in churches to put some pressure on you to just give in yeah um there's

01:13:04.040 been some requests for james to call various pastors that i heard was was a requested call

01:13:11.560 um he's also received pressure from other members of parliament to back down um and they just don't

01:13:17.960 understand it he can't it's his conscience um this isn't a political move for him this is his

01:13:24.040 obedience before god and he takes that very seriously he knows he's going to be judged for

01:13:28.520 the souls that have been entrusted to him to with that stewardship um and so when it comes to a man

01:13:34.360 telling you to shut a building versus the the eternal god who bought you with his own blood

01:13:40.760 that's a terrifying reality for him and he does not want to meet him in court that's not an option

01:13:46.200 for him is okay so so john what what is the um maybe you can help us understand those who are

01:13:54.360 watching who might not have religious conviction why is freedom of religion and freedom of conscience

01:14:01.400 why is it enshrined in the charter anyway it seems like people are looking at it as being

01:14:06.760 outdated old-fashioned um it doesn't apply in this situation can be overridden what's the

01:14:13.240 what's the importance of that why was it put in there in the first place

01:14:17.560 well freedom of conscience is is broader and it applies to everybody so let's say that you had a

01:14:23.480 conscientious belief that uh it's it's wrong to kill an animal it's always wrong to kill an animal

01:14:30.040 if there's a government law or government policy that that directly or indirectly requires you to

01:14:35.080 kill animals or participate in it now it's a it's a bizarre example it's not a good i can't think of

01:14:40.120 a law that that forces people to to kill animals um but a conscientious belief i can because they

01:14:47.480 were killing grizzly bears and bear cubs and abandoned black bear cubs and a conservation

01:14:52.520 officer refused to kill them and he actually got disciplined for it so there would be an example

01:14:57.480 continue okay so there's an example yeah that conservation officer if his conscience told him

01:15:03.320 it's always wrong to kill an animal. You know, we have to deal with this problem in a way other

01:15:09.600 than killing the animal. We just, we cannot do this. Then what the government's supposed to do

01:15:13.940 is say, okay, well, we'll find somebody else to shoot the grizzly bear. There's supposed to be

01:15:18.800 respect for that. Again, within reason, right? You can't say, well, my conscience, you know,

01:15:24.060 says that I have to run around and rob gas stations or something, right? This is subject

01:15:31.260 to to to to reason and to uh uh sincerity and so forth but freedom of conscience means that

01:15:39.500 uh the government should not be forcing you to do something you believe is fundamentally wrong

01:15:45.180 practical example would be uh assisted suicide in health care lots of non-religious doctors

01:15:51.500 who interpret the hepatic oath that that it's just you you do not help people to commit suicide

01:15:57.340 you ease their suffering uh you help them in other ways but you do not assist with suicide

01:16:02.780 right so that could be religious or non-religious or okay so the government has an obligation to say

01:16:08.460 okay if you have that conscientious belief as a doctor then you should not be pressured uh

01:16:15.180 directly or indirectly to help people to commit suicide uh if it's if it's a government objective

01:16:21.500 to provide assisted suicide the government has to go to a point of of uh hardship to find other

01:16:28.620 people to help with carrying out assisted suicide but why does that matter is it because we have

01:16:37.260 a foundation for the like where does the foundation for those rights come from do they come from

01:16:42.700 the bible is it is there a biblical strain there is that why we enshrined those things in the

01:16:48.300 constitution or in the charter is it the founding of our nation because we had to deal with protestants 0.97

01:16:54.780 and catholics who are fighting and we needed to make sure that one didn't force the other to do

01:16:58.940 something they didn't want to do i'm what's the i guess i'm trying to understand is are these rights

01:17:04.460 that stand the test of time or can the court just say they don't matter in this circumstance

01:17:11.820 well the rights and freedoms that we have i think uh by way of history and by way of tradition they

01:17:17.180 do originate in religion, although there's lots of atheists that are militant, fervent

01:17:29.220 supporters of the same rights and freedoms, so it's not religious per se.

01:17:33.580 But most of the democracies, and I think Japan would be an exception, but most of the democracies

01:17:40.140 in the world uh they do come from christian cultures and it's within a christian culture

01:17:46.860 that the the rights and freedoms emerged and blossomed and i'm saying that as again as a

01:17:52.620 matter of historical truth and so uh it's within that culture that the idea came about that that

01:17:59.740 we are free people and we have uh we have dignity and part of our our freedoms include

01:18:05.740 include the freedom to worship and to choose one's religion, the freedom to live out your

01:18:11.600 life according to your conscientious beliefs, religious or not, the freedom of expression to

01:18:17.280 say what you want in a peaceful manner. It doesn't include rioting and looting and setting buildings

01:18:22.820 on fire, but to speak whatever you want, to associate with whomever you want, to assemble

01:18:31.120 peacefully so those are all the charter section two freedoms and then there's another fundamental

01:18:36.040 freedom that's not in the charter that is to uh to use and enjoy your own property uh the fruit

01:18:43.040 of your labor to use your own home your own business to run your own business to earn a

01:18:49.120 livelihood and earning a livelihood is in the charter um so the i always see them as a bundle

01:18:55.900 I 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.

01:19:10.120 I think it's a seamless garment. And I think that the freedom to practice your religion.

01:19:16.320 So 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.

01:19:23.960 The freedom to practice your religion is just as important as your freedom to express your opinions and to associate and to assemble.

01:19:33.920 I 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.

01:19:51.900 I felt like there's sort of a mainstream narrative and we're not allowed to have these conversations.

01:19:56.540 And there's a lot of de-platforming and literally I wasn't sleeping at night for about six months.

01:20:00.980 So I understand viscerally the importance of living consistent with your own conscience and values.

01:20:07.860 And I wonder if you can describe what it would mean for you or for your husband if he was forced to compromise on this.

01:20:13.840 What would it do?

01:20:14.780 well i think it would just severely limit um well how we worship god first and foremost but how he

01:20:23.280 cares for the people that have been entrusted to him um so he he's not only uh the the main

01:20:29.740 teaching pastor at grace life church he's a member of grace life church and so the way the bible

01:20:34.080 talks about us is that we've all been given spiritual gifts to serve one another and to

01:20:38.040 love one another. And so for him not to be able to be free to do that would be, that's heartbreaking

01:20:46.060 for him. Not only would he be disobeying God, but he wouldn't be loving the people who have

01:20:53.500 been entrusted to him that he's to care for and to shepherd and to love. So that's his highest

01:20:59.460 priority is loving the people that make up Grace Life Church and all of the souls that

01:21:05.400 comprise her this is we have eternity in view and caring for her her eternal soul so you know this

01:21:12.720 is maybe the difficulty that non-religious people have in understanding what you've just said is

01:21:19.040 that we're living in a state of fear of dying we're living in a state of fear of a virus we're

01:21:25.840 living in a state of fear that oh my gosh I could be that exception I could be the you know one in

01:21:32.680 100 000 49 year old women who i still have one more month before i'm 50 guys 49 year old women

01:21:39.880 with no health conditions who weirdly end up having the worst manifestation of it and die

01:21:45.240 and i think that that that is a paralyzing fear for the vast majority of society i don't feel

01:21:51.320 that i've never felt fear about this virus because i had a pretty good handle on who was most at risk

01:21:55.800 and i determined very early that i was not in a high risk category but but maybe you can talk

01:22:00.840 about why that is not the number one consideration in your congregation that like maybe you've got a

01:22:08.600 healthier view of mortality and illness and death than than those of us who are in a sort of a

01:22:15.240 non-religious sphere can you can you talk about that a bit because i i heard an interview where

01:22:18.920 you you did mention that we're sort of creating this paralyzing fear of viruses and creating that

01:22:25.400 normalcy for kids is so that they don't run around for the next hundred you know 40 years with a

01:22:30.040 paralyzing risk of viruses so can you comment on that a bit? Well I think again I believe in a God

01:22:37.560 who's sovereign and in scripture in Psalm 139 it says that he's numbered our days and so he knows

01:22:43.800 when we're when we're going to be born and when we're going to die. I think that the there is a

01:22:49.480 legitimate fear out there with the virus but we believe that there's an even greater fear in

01:22:53.720 regards to people's souls that they have to consider that God is a judge and they will stand

01:22:58.840 before him and that jesus christ's death and resurrection is the only way to be reconciled to

01:23:03.160 the father uh and living for him now and in eternity so uh we don't just care about the

01:23:09.480 physical aspect we care about the eternal aspect and so for us it's more important for us to tell

01:23:14.520 people you have an eternal soul and and that soul is important when you die you don't just

01:23:19.560 you're not just annihilated um you will stand before god and give give an account for your life

01:23:24.600 and that's where we believe that Jesus Christ is the one who died the perfect death as a sacrifice

01:23:31.400 for sinners and that through his resurrection he reconciles people back to God by repentance and

01:23:37.320 faith and so we really that's our main concern is the whole person which most importantly

01:23:44.760 is their eternal soul. So John I guess this is going to be something you'll have to argue in

01:23:49.400 court so i think erin sort of put out there the the theology of how she approaches her faith

01:23:55.720 but isn't the government going to come back and say yeah but there's lots of christian

01:23:59.480 denominations who feel exactly the same way about about their service to to god and to jesus and

01:24:05.720 they've been able to live within these rules so so so this church should have been able to live

01:24:10.680 within these rules does that matter is it is it because the majority has decided they can do it

01:24:15.560 this way you should too help us understand the the legal argument well i think the government would

01:24:21.400 be foolish to bring that argument forward because it was rejected by the supreme court of canada

01:24:26.520 in a case uh out of quebec called um and um the at issue there was uh it was orthodox jews that 0.96

01:24:36.120 wanted uh uh it was a hut uh that that the jews are required to build and the condo board didn't

01:24:44.840 want these things on the balcony and at one point in the lower courts the uh the government brought

01:24:51.880 in different rabbis and there were some rabbis that said well judaism doesn't actually require

01:24:58.280 this and the the supreme court ruled it doesn't matter even if 90 of of jewish rabbis say that

01:25:06.840 this is not a bona fide requirement of judaism for these particular jews uh for these particular

01:25:13.400 orthodox jews it was a requirement for them that they had to uh you know build sort of a hut type

01:25:19.760 of thing on their balcony for two or three weeks a year and so what matters uh is that 0.83

01:25:26.740 pastor coats in in his religious faith uh believes that the health orders have gone too far

01:25:33.360 so i don't think the government if they try to raise that i i think that would be a dumb move

01:25:37.820 on their part because so it doesn't matter even if pastor coats was the only christian pastor in

01:25:42.240 Alberta, who rejected the full compliance with these health orders, that's good enough to make

01:25:50.640 religious freedom claim. But I want to get back real briefly to ask a really good question about, 0.91

01:25:58.060 you know, why should this matter to non-religious people? And two-part answer. One is that you don't

01:26:05.600 have to be religious to believe that we are not merely physical beings, but we have a mind and

01:26:11.340 a spirit and a soul and i don't i don't think you can argue that lockdowns are not having a

01:26:17.480 massively destructive impact on our minds souls and spirits in fact the lockdowns seem to be

01:26:24.520 predicated on this uh this materialistic belief that the only thing that matters is our physical

01:26:30.620 bodies which is itself is a religious belief if you believe that that the only thing that matters

01:26:35.440 is is is your your physical body that too is is is religious belief um the second thing is in terms

01:26:43.600 of this seamless web thing you know i would say to if they're atheist people or non-religious people

01:26:50.080 that are you know not really too fond of whatever pastor coats and his church want to do on a sunday

01:26:55.840 morning i would say if you allow the government to crush that church who's going to be there for

01:27:02.320 you when the government wants to permanently say you can never have people over for Christmas or

01:27:06.320 Thanksgiving, you have to social distance forever, you have to have your kids masked and living in

01:27:12.560 fear forever. So it's a seamless web. If you allow religious freedom to get crushed, you're shooting

01:27:21.120 yourself in the foot because that just empowers the government to more aggressively go after

01:27:27.280 freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of peaceful assembly, private property,

01:27:31.680 right now i know that i think cory morgan has joined us because derek had another obligation

01:27:39.580 and so cory if you're listening here's the challenge when you're doing a televised this

01:27:44.680 is kind of why i like a podcast and and radio because you can have breaks where you can look

01:27:49.300 at all of the text coming in and you can identify some questions that you want to post to your guests

01:27:53.620 and you're also able to look at the text screen without having to worry about your fact that

01:27:58.820 you're not looking in the camera so that's my way of asking Corey if he wants to come on

01:28:02.680 and identify any questions that have come through and there's tons of comments that are coming in

01:28:06.760 and so I want I know that they've been flashing up on the screen but Corey if you want to join us so

01:28:11.460 that I still have questions I can ask but I want to make sure that I'm not missing anything

01:28:15.380 important from the audience so let's um let's continue on with what happens now because I

01:28:21.200 I don't understand what it is the government has to gain from going through this process John the

01:28:26.660 way you described it, you're going to skewer them because I've seen the stats as well as you have

01:28:31.060 and the four cases that they're going to have to make, you're going to have a counter argument for

01:28:35.940 why would they want this to be adjudicated in court? Why wouldn't they just give him his bail,

01:28:41.840 maybe give him a $50,000 fine if they want to be crazy about it and say, we showed you,

01:28:46.440 but why would they want this to go to a trial? I don't understand why they're not just backing

01:28:53.420 down on this? It could be just, you know, once people have committed to a course of action and

01:28:59.980 they've invested a lot in it, we've seen politicians of all parties in all provinces

01:29:06.100 and federally, with few exceptions. I mean, Maxime Bernier and you've got, you know, Drew Barnes,

01:29:11.940 anti-lockdown MLA and some others. But by and large, every politician on both the government

01:29:18.480 side of the house and the opposition side of the house they've all been uh they've all pushed this

01:29:25.360 narrative that we're dealing with an unusually deadly killer uh lockdowns are the way to go

01:29:30.880 even though this has never been tried before in human history to lock down a healthy population

01:29:35.120 rather than quarantining the sick nevertheless without any historical precedent lockdowns are

01:29:39.600 the way to go we've saved lots of lives uh lockdown harms aren't all that bad and the benefits are

01:29:46.320 are worth it and once you've committed to that for 11 months and that's been your public policy

01:29:52.640 it would take an astronomical amount of humility to back off and say yeah and Jason to his credit

01:30:00.580 did back off he said in the fall he kind of hinted that you know maybe we've made a mistake here

01:30:05.940 we've gone too far we've we've caused too much economic damage we're not going back this he was

01:30:11.240 saying the right things like i was shocked and and happy at some of the things he was saying

01:30:16.720 that takes a lot of humility but you know for a government to back down at this stage i mean to

01:30:22.280 to admit that uh asymptomatic people don't spread the virus to admit that the virus is not

01:30:29.040 you know nearly as deadly as as what's been claimed to admit that lockdowns have caused

01:30:35.120 far more harm than good, an astronomical amount of humility would be required. And so I think

01:30:42.260 there's a strong commitment to the narrative. I think it's a moving train. And I think a lot

01:30:46.780 of media people would need the same kind of humility to say, oh, gee, you know, we really

01:30:51.440 weren't asking tough questions that we should have asked.

01:30:55.960 I've got a number of people wondering what the end game is here. Like, how do you think this

01:31:01.180 is going to turn out? Because my great fear is that he's denied bail tomorrow again, and he sits

01:31:07.100 in imprisoned until May 3rd, 4th, 5th. And then I don't even know what happens at that point.

01:31:13.980 At what point does he get released? Well, if I mean, if we lose tomorrow,

01:31:18.640 it's the Alberta Court of Queen's bench, we can appeal that to the Alberta Court of Appeal.

01:31:23.040 And typically, bail matters are heard quite quickly. So you're not looking at a, you know,

01:31:27.280 six-month or 12-month delay. So we might be able to put that before the Court of Appeal

01:31:31.600 in short order if we get a bad ruling tomorrow morning. But I mean, the trial coming up,

01:31:40.700 it'll be interesting to see if the government does not just simply withdraw the charges and

01:31:45.340 withdraw the tickets. Because at that trial, May 3rd to 5th, we're going to demand that the

01:31:51.860 government show all the evidence and we're going to we're going to subpoena Dina Hinshaw to to come

01:31:58.480 and be part of the trial of James Coates and it'll be interesting to see if the government still

01:32:03.680 wants to go ahead with the trial when they actually get pushed to show the evidence at that trial

01:32:09.700 and Aaron what are you hoping comes of this like tell us how best case scenario that this plays out

01:32:15.280 for you. Best case scenario is he gets released tomorrow and they lift the restrictions off

01:32:23.020 churches and churches can decide from there how they want to conduct themselves. That's the best

01:32:30.620 case scenario. And is that likely to happen, John? I mean, this is the thing is that that's exactly

01:32:36.660 what happened in the restaurant situation. And it's exactly what happened in the hair salon

01:32:40.640 situation. We're now down at the lowest that we've been since this latest surge. I think before

01:32:45.200 I came on, I looked, we're at 247 cases in hospital and 47 in ICU. So we're down, we're

01:32:53.060 approaching the level of 150, which is supposed to, so we're supposed to be getting to stage four

01:32:58.020 pretty soon based on these numbers. So it should be fairly easy for them to do exactly what they

01:33:04.300 had done in the case of those other two examples. And I don't know, why wouldn't they do that?

01:33:11.620 Well, 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.

01:33:31.700 The 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.

01:33:43.660 I mean this is outrageous to pretend that that Canadian hospitals are overcrowded because of

01:33:49.380 COVID is intellectually dishonest and the government's going to have to explain in court

01:33:53.420 why they're pushing that kind of fear-mongering when it's normal not good but normal for many

01:34:00.000 hospitals to be overwhelmed and overrun and hallway medicine has been the norm in Canadian

01:34:04.600 hospitals for years and then trying to say oh it's because of COVID they'll have to answer for

01:34:10.880 that in court. Well, in fact, I know Western Standard did a news story on an access to

01:34:16.280 information request about ICU capacity. I'll see if I can post that on my local's account a little

01:34:22.480 bit later, but it actually showed that the capacity of ICUs was lower than what we had seen in the two

01:34:29.980 previous years. And so if the argument is that ICUs were overwhelmed, the data doesn't even

01:34:35.560 doesn't even make the case for it. So what are the implications though, John? Like, I guess I'm

01:34:40.440 worried that the court are they prepared to look at this hard evidence are they prepared to go

01:34:46.280 through i'm just trying to understand precedents that have been set in the past because there've

01:34:50.440 been all kinds of cases that come before the court where they are deferential to government and i'm

01:34:55.080 just wondering if they're going to to to take the argument seriously that you put forward or

01:35:00.440 or is it oh well it's a public health emergency and so uh there's going to be a different set

01:35:06.200 of rules? Well, a fair-minded judge will look at the evidence and his or her judgment is going to

01:35:13.760 contain a review of the evidence. And so it's kind of hard. I'm not saying we're guaranteed

01:35:23.000 a win. I mean, you never know what's going to happen in court. The court ruling would

01:35:28.400 explain and describe what is the government's evidence that they've put forward to suggest

01:35:33.400 that this is really this unusually deadly killer that warrants all kinds of extreme measures that

01:35:39.040 violate charter freedoms. And they'll have to look at evidence that we put forward on the defense

01:35:44.600 side that says, well, no, you look at Statistics Canada, even Alberta data. I mean, what are we up

01:35:51.740 to now? The Alberta data is something like two and a half percent of the people that have died

01:36:00.420 with COVID did not have any pre-existing health conditions. 75% of the people who died of COVID

01:36:07.240 had three or more serious illnesses like cancer and emphysema and heart disease and so on.

01:36:14.620 So the court's going to look at the evidence on all of these issues, on PCR testing, on

01:36:21.860 hospitals supposedly being overrun on how lethal COVID actually is compared to what we've been

01:36:30.660 told, how effective the mask wearing and social distancing actually are, whether asymptomatic

01:36:37.600 people are actual spreaders of the virus. All of these issues, the government's going to have to

01:36:43.360 not just say, oh, you know, if you disagree with us, you're just a Neanderthal and you're

01:36:49.760 uneducated and you're not scientific because we've got the science on our side that's what they're

01:36:53.920 saying now well in court they're gonna have to show the science i guess the there's great peril

01:37:00.000 you talk about they'd have to have great humility but there's the real danger they're going to have

01:37:04.320 humiliation if they have this all played out in court wouldn't that kind of indicate that i mean

01:37:11.920 that gives a gives a forum for people to question everything we've been told over the last year that

01:37:17.520 that creates great peril for the government if what we've been told doesn't mesh with the facts

01:37:23.040 that you put forward and i i don't know why they would want to risk the credibility of their senior

01:37:29.040 health officials i don't know why they want to risk the credibility of their government i don't know

01:37:32.240 what they'd want to risk the credibility of the health system it seems like a huge risk and so

01:37:37.280 this is why i i don't understand there's something i'm missing here john well it's it gets back to

01:37:43.520 being heavily invested in something right if you've uh if you've put you know i think about

01:37:50.240 your personal life you've put a lot of investment into a relationship or into a mutual fund or into

01:37:55.280 a career or into whatever right it's really hard to let go when you're invested in something so

01:38:02.000 there's a huge investment because indeed um if the uh if the health orders are struck down in full

01:38:08.320 or in part, it does call into question, you know, has government been truthful with us for the past

01:38:15.100 11 months? But I should also say, though, it's not that black and white in court. You could get

01:38:20.940 a court ruling that says, well, you know, we still accept that COVID is pretty scary and pretty

01:38:26.040 deadly. However, some of these restrictions have gone too far. And so there might not be that

01:38:32.840 necessarily that degree of victory on our side or degree of humiliation on the other side.

01:38:37.580 you could get a court ruling that says well you know we accept some of the government's points

01:38:42.080 we think COVID really is dangerous however some of these measures are not based on science and

01:38:48.200 evidence and they can strike down measures in part and so that's also you know it's not just

01:38:54.700 win or lose there could be a mixed ruling in that fashion that could be forthcoming. I'm going to

01:39:01.620 make a prediction because last year in May was when we started easing the restrictions so there

01:39:06.940 is going to be some easing of the restrictions that happen after this sort of april 30th end of

01:39:11.900 the spring break traveling season which everybody seems to be geared towards so i'm trying to figure

01:39:16.700 out the different avenues that this could potentially go could they at any point say

01:39:21.020 we're dropping the charges i think the thing that comes to my mind is edward maurice he was uh

01:39:26.860 initially trying to he was charged i think the firearms offenses because he was trying to defend

01:39:32.540 his home when someone broke in and he ended up shooting the person who broke into his home but

01:39:39.580 they ultimately made the decision to drop the case and so that looks like it had some political

01:39:45.340 intervention whether it was a crown prosecutor or casey maddu because i think that happened

01:39:49.340 just after casey maddu became the the justice minister couldn't couldn't there be a political

01:39:54.220 intervention on the part of of Casey Maddow to end this case now? Well then I suppose so but we

01:40:02.860 have to be careful of what we wish for. We do want a society that is subject to the rule of law

01:40:09.740 and so there should not be, as a general principle, there should not be political interference in a

01:40:15.260 decision to prosecute or a decision not to prosecute. We saw that with Trudeau in the

01:40:20.620 SNC-Lavalin and what's her name, the MP from Vancouver, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who was,

01:40:31.140 and I'm just going from memory here, but was basically told, you know, you need to

01:40:35.320 stop the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. Ah, this is what I'm saying, though. I'm not asking Premier

01:40:41.260 Kenney to make that decision, because that would be the political interference. Remember, it was

01:40:46.260 always she has the it's her decision hers alone so casey maddu does he have as attorney general

01:40:52.780 and justice uh minister does he have the authority if he doesn't think this is a winnable case

01:40:58.720 does he have the authority to say we're not going to pursue this because ultimately when you think

01:41:03.420 of what happened there the prosecutors in the snc lavallon case decided to plead with a company

01:41:09.060 gave them a they pled guilty to a lesser charge and the company got completely let off the hook

01:41:13.320 so there is a lot of latitude to resolve these cases as long as it's being done internally

01:41:18.360 within the department so i i hate the buck passing that's what i'm upset about is that you talk to

01:41:23.880 the premier and you say oh it wasn't me it was dina hinshaw i talked to dina hinshaw it wasn't

01:41:27.080 the health alberta health services that was just the rcmp well it wasn't the rcmp it's the court

01:41:32.040 putting these provisions in someone's got to be pinned down on this and somebody's got to be

01:41:35.960 responsible for it so in my view there should be some role for the politicians to step in and say

01:41:41.960 whoa this has gone way too far this is not where we're where we're heading we don't think we're

01:41:45.640 going to get a conviction we're sorry no no harm no foul you're right we're backing out of this

01:41:51.720 well it's an excellent question i think the the two criteria that prosecution prosecutors are

01:41:58.200 supposed to look at is is is the is a prosecution in the public interest and is there a likelihood

01:42:03.960 of conviction and as you pointed out danielle a prosecutor can very legitimately not prosecute

01:42:11.640 if there's a belief that uh there's there's no likelihood of conviction right because then you're

01:42:15.960 wasting resources on on other prosecutions where there is a likelihood of conviction um

01:42:23.800 if charges are withdrawn uh if the prosecution is stayed then uh it's got to be done for the

01:42:29.640 right reasons and it you know it can't be because of of public opinion because he that's not that's

01:42:37.560 contrary to the rule of law having said that they're a little bit between the rock and a hard

01:42:41.560 place because they have um not that i have much sympathy for them but they are between a rock and

01:42:46.600 a hard place that they put themselves into because if on the one hand if you say that

01:42:51.560 covet is an unusually deadly killer and all these lockdown restrictions and and violations of our

01:42:57.160 charter freedom are truly necessary and they're helpful and they're effective if that's really

01:43:02.360 your position then how can you logically and consistently not enforce the law and not prosecute

01:43:09.800 right so i think that's kind of the rock in the the hard place uh position that they've put

01:43:15.840 themselves into okay i saw someone pop up a little bit earlier asking what's the worst case scenario

01:43:21.680 for pastor codes because i i think that this has a pretty uh large chance of it being the worst

01:43:27.920 case scenario for the government but what let's look at the other extreme what happens if they

01:43:32.360 throw the book at him what does that look like i i don't know i i ought to know this i'm sorry i

01:43:38.520 don't know what the uh what the penalty is but i don't think it's jail time i think it's just

01:43:43.500 fines i'm not sure if you can be i think apart from uh being in contempt of court where the

01:43:50.060 government has obtained an injunction to shut down a church and then the church still defies

01:43:56.560 the injunction and doesn't abide by it then you could have a scenario where the church members

01:44:03.120 are in contempt of court because there's a specific court injunction that says that a

01:44:07.940 particular church must be closed but apart from an injunction proceedings I think all the government

01:44:13.060 can do is levy fines and you know and I Aaron would know if there's been injunction proceedings

01:44:23.060 against the church i mean i don't think that's the case

01:44:26.340 well let's ask erin about that because i think what we're now all worried about

01:44:30.660 is what happens to the rest of your congregation what happens to the others

01:44:34.740 who've stepped in to take his place and they're

01:44:37.300 continuing to hold the services and is do you get any sense that you're

01:44:42.180 you're here's the sometimes government goes a step too far

01:44:46.500 and then they realize whoopsie we can't do that again and i'm trying to figure

01:44:49.700 out if there's been enough blowback on them from enough people in alberta saying this is not what

01:44:55.460 we elected you to do that there's some hesitancy or if they're emboldened um if they if they think

01:45:01.460 they're winning this argument with with public opinion i'm i i would think you'd be on the front

01:45:06.180 lines of seeing and observing how you're being treated now by the authorities what's your sense

01:45:11.860 of it is there are we going to see more arrests and more incarcerations i really don't know i

01:45:19.060 I hope not. I know that there are churches that open Sunday and a few more that are planning on

01:45:25.540 opening. I know in BC, churches are going to be opening on the 14th. I know that there's churches

01:45:32.560 open in Ontario. There is the Liberty Coalition, and I believe I counted over 100 churches across

01:45:39.300 Canada, which is not that much, that are opening. So people are slowly opening their doors. And

01:45:45.580 it's so unfortunate the majority of comments that i get are from people from bc that are just hurting

01:45:50.780 people and they they need to be with other human beings and this has been taken away from them so

01:45:56.300 the majority of emails i get are from people just really hurting in bc because their lockdown

01:46:01.340 measures have been so extreme um but i i really i really don't know we i mean i wasn't really

01:46:08.140 expecting them to jail my husband in the first place so um and i don't know why they would have

01:46:13.980 put that that restriction in place knowing that he he's unwilling to give up the gathering to put

01:46:20.460 that restriction in place and think he would sign it is just baffling to me all right so i have a

01:46:27.980 lot of people saying especially after hearing john's argument that this isn't just a narrow

01:46:33.420 argument about freedom of religion they're your your husband's the test case for the whole shebang

01:46:39.900 and the whole approach and i think that there's probably something to be said for yes justified

01:46:45.580 with extreme restrictions march april as we've gone along maybe not as much and as we're in the

01:46:51.980 situation that we're in now we're on the cusp of reopening becomes even more difficult but i've got

01:46:56.540 a lot of people here saying we have to see this fought out in court but that's that's your husband

01:47:02.780 we're sort of all saying yeah you go get him but it's going to have a very real impact on you and

01:47:07.580 and him and your family and your kids i just want us to all be a little bit

01:47:12.780 well i need to understand what that's going to look like for you if if this is a much longer

01:47:18.140 process yeah i mean again i think god is in control if that's what he's calling us to do

01:47:25.740 we're not revolutionaries we're not um we're not freedom fighters we're just trying to be obedient

01:47:31.660 to god that's it and so we will do whatever he calls us to do and if the secondary causes

01:47:36.380 our freedoms uh in alberta and hopefully across canada then i just have to be willing to do that

01:47:41.980 out of love for my neighbor um but it is it is a sacrifice for sure for our family this is this is

01:47:48.780 detrimental to my children it is very hard on our church um and but i think we're all

01:47:56.140 we'll sacrifice if that's what god wants us to do um but again that's that's not it's not the

01:48:02.940 primary reason that we're doing it so talk about the impact on your kids because they are a little

01:48:07.740 bit older and so i want people to know sort of what your family environment is like and and

01:48:13.420 tell us tell us about uh how old they are and how they're perceiving what their dad's going through

01:48:18.940 yeah i have an 18 year old and an 11 year old and um for them what their dad is doing is not

01:48:27.500 any different than how he's lived his life and obedience to christ he's always sacrificed himself

01:48:32.860 for the church he's always served other people and so when they look at the situation this isn't

01:48:37.580 really this this is dad just being himself um now that's obviously landed him in jail and that's

01:48:44.140 brought a lot of tears and and hurt but i think especially my oldest um he understands there's

01:48:50.380 a bigger picture and that um he understands there's a work god needs to do in his own heart

01:48:56.540 and uh so they i mean they've been sitting under their eyes preaching for 11 years i think they

01:49:02.220 they get as christians um that this is consistently what has happened to people in church history

01:49:09.260 and uh so we're not anything special uh we're just trying to be faithful um but it's there yeah

01:49:16.780 there's there's some tears um there's been some really uh not kind comments to my youngest child

01:49:24.140 and um can you elaborate on that are you able to say it without using cuss words or like what

01:49:30.600 happened well they're children speaking to him but you know you have kids telling your dad

01:49:34.980 deserves jail and and he's he's broken the law your your your dad's killing people that kind of

01:49:41.000 stuff um like we've been called murderers and um and so it's just that that kind of stuff but it

01:49:48.320 it helps me to teach him um you know when when when somebody we know is carrying a burden or is

01:49:56.160 hurt it's not our job to sit back and evaluate is that person's burden a burden i should be

01:50:02.640 evaluating if i should carry or not we just carry it for them it doesn't matter how they got there

01:50:08.000 so this is really just teaching giving the opportunity to teach my children how to love

01:50:12.400 and um how to love in the face when people just don't understand what you're doing

01:50:17.920 um so all of this is teaching opportunities for them um but it's hard my youngest is starting to

01:50:25.200 um to really feel the the loss of his dad they both my children have a wonderful relationship

01:50:31.200 with their father and he works from home so we we have access to him um during the day we

01:50:37.200 We homeschool our kids. So they, this is very different from that. James is a, he's, he's a

01:50:44.180 funny guy and he's, he makes all of these just loud noises and he's always singing and making

01:50:50.660 the dog get all riled up. And so when he's not home, it is eerily quiet in the house. So there's

01:50:56.560 just adjustments that we're having to make, but I think they're, they're, they're okay. I think

01:51:01.840 they understand that god is at work and they they have to trust him in that you know it's it's one

01:51:08.480 thing to have two weeks but it's going to be another if this drags out for another another

01:51:13.040 two months is there anything that you're asking for by by way of assistance is there anything that

01:51:18.640 that you want people to do i mean i i understand john carpe's point that the court has to operate

01:51:27.040 independently that said the reason why we have jury trials is because

01:51:31.520 the what the courts do have to pass muster

01:51:34.800 with the jury of their peers and i i i understand that this is split but i'm

01:51:39.520 i'm wondering if there's some way that people can give you support um

01:51:44.320 that they can persuade the uh the government to if they

01:51:48.960 if casey maddu has the power to intervene i'm just wondering what

01:51:52.640 what can be done here is it just a matter of playing it out

01:51:57.760 is that for me or for john it's for you it's for you

01:52:01.680 people are wondering what they can do to help you i mean

01:52:05.120 do you have a a place where you receive texts and emails so that people can

01:52:10.800 tell you that they're with you i've got all kinds of emails and texts that are

01:52:13.520 coming in here people just saying they're with you and i think that

01:52:16.720 even if um you saw some of that it's tricky right because you also get some

01:52:21.440 of the negative when you're looking online at some of the comments but how can people tell you that

01:52:25.440 they're with you and and they're supportive of you um we our office at gracelife.ca um is is

01:52:33.440 making a binder of just the the encouragement for us so that we can go through that and that just

01:52:40.320 is enough to lift spirits i mean you can write the edmonton remand center and write james

01:52:46.000 um to encourage him um we i think somebody set up a gofundme but we are not in need of finances

01:52:53.200 right now so we've been saying if you want to donate to something please donate to the jccf

01:52:57.840 they have been doing our case pro bono and working really hard um so financially our family is is

01:53:03.840 taken care of um so we don't have a need right now and and james is always the kind of person that

01:53:09.840 when a need arises, then we take care of it. He doesn't tend to, to, um, want stuff before you

01:53:16.620 need it. So, uh, and then write your MLAs, write your MPs, write Kenny, and just share your heart

01:53:25.400 with them about the lockdowns. And, um, I think start to put pressure on, on, you know, how even

01:53:31.820 letting them know your personal experience, how this has affected you and, uh, write your pastors,

01:53:36.740 Let them know how this has affected you.

01:53:39.680 And I think that's the best way to help right now.

01:53:42.960 All 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.

01:53:49.780 And as I said, we'll talk in a couple of weeks time about the full range of litigation that you're taking on.

01:53:57.100 But give us an idea of what your needs are there.

01:53:59.840 Well, it's a privilege and an honor to have Pastor Coates as a client.

01:54:06.600 And I've never met him, but I hope to at some point in the future.

01:54:11.200 And I mean, the Justice Center is more busy than ever.

01:54:16.840 We're actively looking to hire four more lawyers.

01:54:20.260 We had a good interview with somebody yesterday, but that person can't start until September.

01:54:26.240 and um the generosity of canadians has been great and so we've got nine full-time staff lawyers

01:54:34.000 we're gonna hire another four as soon as possible and we just appreciate support in you know

01:54:41.400 whatever amount uh a lot of our a big chunk of our annual budget comes in the form of 200 100

01:54:49.980 dollar fifty dollar donations uh that's a big chunk of our budget and you know of course we also

01:54:56.300 get larger you know one thousand or ten thousand as well uh but yeah so people that that have been

01:55:03.960 donating thank you very much i mean it's because of your donations that you know we've got james

01:55:08.380 kitchen uh representing pastor coats and and other staff lawyers are also involved in the same file

01:55:15.600 We've got three people, three out of nine lawyers have extensive criminal law background.

01:55:21.540 So, you know, so James is also getting support and advice and assistance.

01:55:28.120 We very much take a team approach to all of the cases.

01:55:32.100 So if people want to donate, you can go online, www.jccf.ca.

01:55:37.640 And we are a registered charity and we do issue official tax receipts.

01:55:41.720 So if that's important to you, that's a bonus.

01:55:44.700 you'll get a you'll get an official tax receipt uh sent to you in in early 2022 for anything that

01:55:51.260 you donate in uh 2021 one more position i thought that you you'd posted for and i want to know if

01:55:57.500 you filled it is for somebody to be full-time fighting against lockdowns in the country is

01:56:02.300 tell us what what the status is there it has uh it's so frustrating i've got so much on my plate

01:56:09.980 uh the justice center wants to move ahead with uh with hiring one or two uh

01:56:17.500 full-time or part-time staff we want to expand staff more in the direction of advocacy i mean

01:56:23.340 the legal side of it will always be you know 90 of the organization so that's uh we're moving

01:56:30.860 ahead on that but we we haven't started advertising for that yet but we do want to hire more people

01:56:35.740 to help out on the advocacy side because we understand that much as the court actions are

01:56:41.020 important governments would not be locking us down and violating our charter rights and freedoms

01:56:46.860 if there wasn't substantial public support for these measures and that's the reality

01:56:52.540 and unless and until public opinion changes uh we're going to be stuck with these horrible

01:56:58.140 destructive uh suffering inflicting measures for a very long time and that one more point

01:57:06.540 and this ties in with it you know if you've suffered because of the lockdowns don't just

01:57:10.860 complain to your friends and family but but phone your mla and or tell the mla staff i want to talk

01:57:15.820 to my mla share your story with your mla about how a relative died because her surgery got cancelled

01:57:21.500 or because your uncle's going to die of cancer because he didn't get his mri on time or how your

01:57:27.180 your life savings that you had invested in your business are totally destroyed because the the

01:57:32.620 mlas need to hear from the anti-lockdown people and uh they need to hear a lot more so that that's

01:57:40.620 extremely important absolutely and there is um i in my last newsletter i mentioned covet common sense

01:57:47.820 is an organization that has startup they've got a web presence facebook instagram twitter and they

01:57:53.180 they're looking to collect those stories as well because the the province is just getting

01:57:57.580 one side and they're getting skewed poll results because we keep going getting told 80 of people

01:58:03.980 not only like the lockdowns but they want them harder which i guess i'm in the wrong 20 because

01:58:08.940 that's not that's not what my social circle is saying let me just finish with a last a final

01:58:14.540 couple questions to aaron because one of the things that you've said and your husband has said

01:58:20.620 and i played that quote earlier is you know maybe maybe that you have to do some self-reflection

01:58:26.780 about the the amount of involvement you've had in politics and and what should happen next and

01:58:33.820 you supported the ucp and jason kenney and i'm i'm just wondering how how you feel now like

01:58:39.740 if i could choose one premier that i ever thought would be the premier the international community

01:58:45.100 was talking about having jailed a pastor jason kenney would have been at the bottom of the list

01:58:49.900 i i can't even i don't even know if this is happening anywhere else it's stunning to me

01:58:54.460 and i'm just wondering how that is has impacted your perception of politics um well i i do i've

01:59:01.820 had to evaluate have i been negligent in the area of just what knowing my rights knowing our charter

01:59:07.900 of rights and freedoms knowing our our alberta bill um and freedoms and and even going through

01:59:15.420 this whole um health order like i i read today from um an organization they're called police

01:59:23.340 on guard for thee and they are current and uh retired police officers that are really fighting

01:59:30.220 for the freedoms of canadians and they had put in an article that they wrote about james that

01:59:35.340 um the the health order that's put in place in section 75 can trump any document except

01:59:42.460 for the alberta rights bill of rights and so that was shocking to me um because our alberta bill of

01:59:49.980 rights gives us the freedom of worship and freedom of conscience so um it's just i didn't know all

01:59:56.700 these things so i've had to evaluate am i being negligent um and and start to understand more how

02:00:02.780 does our country work because um i think growing up in canada i never learned about this stuff in

02:00:09.980 school first of all um but i think growing up in canada there's just been so many restrictions upon

02:00:16.540 us that i didn't even realize are on us because we've always been living this way and james

02:00:21.100 kitchen likes to say that we're kind of the the frog in the boiling pot like we don't even realize

02:00:25.820 how restricted we actually are um so i'm starting to see that now um and yeah in regards to jason

02:00:34.300 kenny man if you could have seen our house on election night when he um got in to to be the

02:00:42.220 premier we were cheering and uh we were so excited that he had won that election um so this has been

02:00:49.500 really heartbreaking for me especially to see him change his mind um from things that he said in the

02:00:56.060 summertime to now um from from the speech that he gave in 2014 on freedom of conscience uh to make

02:01:03.660 general generalizations towards the church and attempt to bind their conscience. Well,

02:01:10.900 that has been really, really difficult for us to watch. I'm sure he's a great man. I know he has a

02:01:17.860 lot of pressure on him. I know from James, just being a leader in the church, how difficult a

02:01:22.340 church is to lead. I can't imagine how difficult a province is to lead when you have all of these

02:01:26.400 political ideas happening. But yeah, it's been hugely disappointing for us to see in the last

02:01:32.780 couple months how he's handled them i think i think he's he's he's a smart man and i think

02:01:38.940 it would say a lot if he if he started standing up for albertans and and letting off the

02:01:44.920 restrictions so so what would it take for him to win your support in future is is it too is it too

02:01:56.080 late or is there are there a few things that he can do to win to win your support back i'm probably

02:02:02.720 gonna get hammered for saying this but i am uh i'm a person who believes in repentance and uh

02:02:08.720 you know i i my life is is that so um i think if he was just the man that we elected the man that

02:02:17.520 um he started doing some of the things that we believed him to be as the man running alberta

02:02:23.920 um I think he could go a long way in winning our confidence back you know I'm I obviously would

02:02:29.580 have to discuss a lot with my husband but um I probably gonna get hammered for this but I don't

02:02:37.200 believe anyone's beyond redemption so you know what there always needs to be a pathway back right

02:02:41.860 isn't that what we all talk about I know the premier's under a lot of pressure and a lot of

02:02:45.420 stress I feel the same way you do I'm gravely disappointed and I just want him to be the guy

02:02:49.840 thought he was so you've said that so well aaron coates any final thoughts for us um about uh

02:02:56.080 about about anything that we need to know before i let you go i i know that you've gotten a lot of

02:03:01.280 support from around the world like give us some sense of how how big a story this is i've got a

02:03:06.320 lot of people saying why aren't we hearing any of this in the mainstream media but it sounds like

02:03:10.320 it's there's a ton of of of interest in your story what where have you heard from what's what's going

02:03:16.800 on out there and how can people continue to watch developments with what's happening in your case

02:03:22.800 we've heard from people from germany we've heard from people from iran we've heard from people from

02:03:27.520 ireland scotland africa um australia all over the world um a lot of people from the united

02:03:36.560 states i'm getting a lot of requests to do interviews and podcasts um not with with

02:03:41.840 mainstream media of course um and i think mainstream media i think they've gone silent

02:03:47.280 for a reason i think they've lacked integrity and how they've handled this story um how they've

02:03:53.440 reported things and as my husband said he thinks that the mainstream media in alberta is on life

02:03:59.920 support um and so i think that they they say what they want to say but they maybe don't report all

02:04:05.840 the facts um but there is a huge um just voice from the united states i mean i think i read today

02:04:12.640 there was 16 states that have lifted the mask mandates and and don't have any um restrictions

02:04:20.320 in place we have lots of friends from florida and uh oklahoma and texas and they don't have

02:04:28.000 restrictions florida let go of their restrictions a long time ago and so they've been fully opened

02:04:33.200 um talking to a lot of churches in the united states they don't have restrictions either they're

02:04:36.960 just living life as normal so i think we're on the stage a little bit at least with the christian

02:04:42.960 community which is very large around the world um and that this is this is saying something about

02:04:50.240 canada and it's i don't think it's it's good i agree with you you are just a paragon of grace

02:04:58.400 i think everybody has just been amazed by how calm and poised you are and generous as well that even

02:05:05.360 though you're going through a pretty awful time you're still willing to to give everybody who's

02:05:10.800 done this to your family another chance if they would just uh acknowledge what they've done and

02:05:16.080 go a different direction so thank you so much for your time we all pass on our our best regards to

02:05:21.520 your husband and hope that he holds up well no matter how long it takes to get him out of uh

02:05:26.240 out of remand so thank you so much for your time today aaron thank you very much you got it and

02:05:32.400 john carpe will be speaking again with john carpe justice center for constitutional freedom

02:05:36.800 and part of his roster of lawyers as he mentioned he has nine that are already on staff another four

02:05:43.760 that uh he's planning on hiring they have cases all over the country we didn't have time to get

02:05:48.880 into all of those today but that will be our next segment march the 18th i was going to do one on

02:05:54.720 on March the 16th, but I have another obligation that day.

02:05:58.140 I'll tell you about that a little bit later, but we'll be back on March the 18th

02:06:02.000 with Jay Cameron and John Carpey and a couple of other staff lawyers.

02:06:06.020 And I see Derek Fildebrand is back.

02:06:08.380 So let me throw it over to Derek so you can give one more shout out to the

02:06:11.160 sponsor and say some final thoughts about how people can continue to follow

02:06:16.480 the great work that you're doing.

02:06:18.840 Oh, thank you, Danielle. I've been a fantastic host as always.

02:06:22.620 Um, I also want to give a special shout out to Corey Morgan.

02:06:26.300 I'm not sure if anyone saw him, but, uh, I had to bow out, uh, for some family reasons

02:06:31.060 here and, uh, I was able to get, uh, our four year old down, uh, to bed while you guys were

02:06:37.180 talking, but I was here for most of it.

02:06:39.060 It was a fantastic conversation.

02:06:40.780 Praise be.

02:06:41.780 That's a miracle.

02:06:42.620 I think Derek for a four year old, I'll assume that, uh, well, she's good, but, uh, it's 0.90

02:06:48.620 It's a bit like calf roping.

02:06:51.200 But, yeah, so shout out to Corey Morgan, who did a great job keeping things running smoothly while I bowed out.

02:06:59.360 John Carpe, who's doing fantastic work at the Justice Center.

02:07:05.480 People cannot overstate the work that he is doing right now.

02:07:12.360 So everybody who's able to – John has been very modest in – he should be asking for money a lot more aggressively than he did.

02:07:22.000 So if you can give, please go to jccf.ca slash donate and kick in a few bucks.

02:07:29.440 Lawyers are not cheap, and these guys can probably make a lot more money handling people's personal problems.

02:07:35.160 Instead, they're putting – they're devoting their careers to helping us all.

02:07:39.860 So 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.

02:07:56.920 The 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.

02:08:11.280 So thank you so much for your presence here tonight.

02:08:15.380 And thank everybody who's watched.

02:08:17.240 We've had a tremendous turnout tonight.

02:08:20.420 Share this.

02:08:21.500 Like it.

02:08:22.180 Share it.

02:08:22.900 Get this out if you thought this was valuable and that others need to see it.

02:08:26.920 Do your part. Share this through your circles. Email it around. It's on YouTube and Facebook.

02:08:32.040 And we'll be doing some follow-up stories on this on the Western Standard tomorrow.

02:08:36.180 Of course, if you support this kind of media that is willing to have an uncensored conversation

02:08:43.280 about this kind of topic with these kinds of guests,

02:08:46.900 please consider becoming a member of the Western Standard, westernstandardonline.com slash membership.

02:08:52.880 Try out a membership. It's $10 a month for standard membership.

02:08:56.920 unlimited access try it out free for 15 days see if you like it um before we go we also want to

02:09:03.980 thank uh sort of a sort of a sponsor but uh a group that's been helping to put together a lot

02:09:09.180 of what we're doing covidcommonground.com uh there's great people there who are trying to

02:09:13.600 collect stories and uh really credible stuff that is not necessarily uh it's not the government's

02:09:21.280 uh official propaganda but it's also not the kooky conspiracy stuff it's just solid uh solid facts

02:09:27.280 and stories uh that you're just not seeing in most of the mainstream media check them out they're

02:09:31.680 doing great work uh again thank you our guests thank you all for watching tonight it's been a

02:09:36.000 fantastic uh episode uh have a good evening god bless thank you thank you thank you i have to run

02:09:46.080 And James is calling me.

02:09:48.080 Oh, no, go, go!

02:09:53.080 Wonderful evening.

Western Standard - March 05, 2021

UNCENSORED： Danielle Smith & Erin Coates

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