Western Standard - UNCENSORED： Danielle Smith & the lawyers fighting the lockdown

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00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Thank you.

00:01:30.000 Hey, y'all.

00:01:58.700 Welcome to what'll be the fourth Western Standard special of Danielle Smith, Uncensored.

00:02:05.820 Danielle has been coming on and speaking to experts and others on the pandemic, our reaction

00:02:11.500 to it, the legalities, the health issues. Tonight, Danielle's got a whole raft of lawyers from the

00:02:16.860 Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms to talk to, and they've been very busy and

00:02:21.020 very active with some of the people who've been charged under restrictions and things such as

00:02:26.300 that so it's going to be a very informative show i just uh got to introduce and go through a number

00:02:32.300 of things quickly here uh we do have a sponsor she's been a great local sponsor it's kyrensway.com

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00:02:57.660 consultations are free and Penny might be just what you need right now. So without much further

00:03:04.400 ado, don't forget to subscribe to the Western Standard. We don't get tax funding. We rely on

00:03:10.540 you, the viewers, the listeners, the readers to help us along. It's important. We can cut through

00:03:15.840 these things. You're not finding this information on the mainstream media. You can only get it in

00:03:19.580 spots like this Danielle's greatly giving it out so by all means and

00:03:23.980 subscribe to the YouTube channel and on Facebook so you don't miss any of these

00:03:27.380 specials as they come along so I'll get right on to it and get Danielle and the

00:03:30.920 rest of the guests on here and we're really looking forward to a great show

00:03:35.800 all right i think i've just unmuted myself so uh welcome to the program thanks once again it's so

00:03:51.480 funny to think that it's been i think two weeks since we did one of these western standard online

00:03:57.240 uncensored and the last interview that we did was with the justice center for constitutional

00:04:02.200 freedoms john carpe he uh gave us the the lowdown on what was happening in the case of pastor james

00:04:07.960 coates we of course interviewed aaron coates it sounds like there's been a major breakthrough in

00:04:12.360 that case we'll get an update on that but what i always found when i talked with a lawyer from the

00:04:17.640 from the justice center for constitutional freedoms is we never had enough time and so

00:04:23.160 tonight we've got lots of time and we've got lots of legal expertise jay cameron joins us

00:04:28.280 as well as Alison Pahovic she is from Manitoba and she's spearheading the case against general

00:04:33.800 lockdowns there as well as Lisa Bildy from Ontario and she'll tell us a little more about how she's

00:04:39.720 fighting some of the constitutional and charter challenges also so the way we'll conduct the

00:04:44.280 evening and you can feel free to send us comments and texts as you go along if you've got any

00:04:48.600 questions um I'll try to keep monitoring them I'll ask Corey if he can keep monitoring them

00:04:53.160 and flag any of the ones that he thinks I should ask as we get into the question and answer but

00:04:57.720 But I want to start by getting some feedback and sort of a framework for the range of issues that the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms have taken on.

00:05:08.460 I think we've talked with John Carpe about this before.

00:05:11.020 And part of what they do that's different is that they have on staff lawyers, which allows them to take on an immense number of cases.

00:05:19.220 And you'll see as we go through this, just the incredible amount of work that we're doing or that they're doing.

00:05:23.840 And we'll also be able to tell you how you can support their work, because it's only through supporting these kind of efforts that they're going to have success.

00:05:31.920 So let's begin by talking with Jay Cameron, and he's going to give us a background of all of the different cases that they're pursuing.

00:05:39.740 We'll find out why it is that they're pursuing it through a charter means, because I understand that there's another case that they're trying to pursue criminal charges.

00:05:46.900 And so I'll get their perspective on that. But let's begin with Jay Cameron. Jay, thanks so much for being with us tonight.

00:05:53.440 Danielle, thanks for having me on.

00:05:54.860 Yeah, so I want to get an update on Pastor Coates, but let's begin by just doing the

00:06:00.720 broad framework so that people understand just how many cases you have that you've taken

00:06:05.080 forward, and then we'll get into some of the granular detail on each of them.

00:06:09.160 What are you fighting right now?

00:06:11.080 We have current litigation in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario against aspects of the

00:06:18.500 lockdowns. And I learned actually just moments before that a decision has been handed down in

00:06:24.280 BC. It's a partial success with respect to the lockdowns. I can get into that momentarily.

00:06:29.720 The Justice Center is also challenging Bill 10, which is the transference of legislative authority

00:06:35.140 to the Minister of Health, Tyler Shandro, as well as other cabinet ministers, which we say is an

00:06:40.760 unprecedented transference of power. And we have also challenged long-term care home restrictions,

00:06:50.000 preventing families from getting together with their loved ones in care homes. And then we have

00:06:54.960 a host of other cases that we have also run with respect to the pandemic that are concluded or in

00:07:01.940 various stages of conclusion. And then finally, we have approximately 100 ticket cases, which we are

00:07:08.260 handling currently and they they go from coast to coast. So talk to me about the framework that

00:07:14.620 we find ourselves in because I guess I thought that the charter meant something prior to us

00:07:20.300 going into this COVID series of lockdowns across the country. I'm astonished actually

00:07:26.020 that we haven't seen the kind of departure between provinces really that we've observed

00:07:31.220 in the United States. We look south of the border and we see that there's a whole range

00:07:35.860 from complete lockdowns in places like new york to complete openness in places like florida

00:07:41.940 whereas it seems like in canada the approach has been fairly uniform it doesn't matter whether you

00:07:46.740 got an ndp or a conservative or a liberal government in they seem to take the same approach

00:07:51.540 which surprises me because i would have thought there would have been a little more care and

00:07:55.780 concern about taking measures that could potentially violate the charter of rights and

00:07:59.940 freedom so what am i missing here there's a number of key differences between canada and

00:08:05.380 the United States, and I'll highlight two of the ones which I think are the most important.

00:08:10.580 In the United States, you have elected officials who retain power, and those are the governors.

00:08:15.840 But in Canada, in the provinces, you have had the wholesale, in some provinces at least,

00:08:21.960 the transference of power to these public health officials. And depending on the province you're

00:08:27.860 talking about, for example, in Alberta and British Columbia, for example, that power is

00:08:34.800 exercised in a unilateral fashion, meaning that they do not have to consult with the legislature

00:08:39.380 in order to enact, pass one of these orders that broadly infringes constitutional rights.

00:08:45.720 And so you have this enormous centralized power in an unelected official who does not have to

00:08:53.060 consult with the legislature, is not required to seek a second opinion. And so that is

00:08:59.640 a significant difference. And it has resulted in these individuals retaining power. And they are

00:09:07.520 a, you know, to be honest with you, Danielle, I mean, we're speaking candidly here, this is live

00:09:12.520 and uncensored, but the existence of these public health officials have provided some of these

00:09:18.620 elected officials, like the premiers, with a buffer between themselves and the electorate,

00:09:23.120 because when the electorate are angry, and they call their MLAs, or they call the premier, or they

00:09:27.620 gather at the legislature and they protest the MLA say well we can't do

00:09:31.700 anything about this public health official well I mean you kind of get

00:09:36.320 that in the US and so let me I just want to drill down a little bit more on that

00:09:39.680 because I suppose what I observed from the media perspective is watching all

00:09:44.900 of the big tech companies clamp down on anyone who had an opinion that was

00:09:50.780 counter to dr. Anthony Fauci so it seemed to me like there was great

00:09:55.580 deference for Dr. Fauci at least in the mainstream reporting as a result of some

00:10:01.020 of the positions that the big tech companies took on censoring doctors but

00:10:05.860 why is that so what power does Dr. Fauci have is he really just in a position to

00:10:11.300 offer guidance and recommendations and then ultimately the decision-making

00:10:15.080 authority falls to the governors yeah that's correct and Dr. Fauci of course

00:10:19.580 is a federal figurehead at the CDC, but you also have very strong states' rights in the United

00:10:27.200 States. Not that you don't have a separation of powers between federal and provincial governments

00:10:33.100 in Canada, but you have provinces hold power over health in the provinces, and that's in the

00:10:41.740 Constitution Act section 92. And, and so that that separation is it gives the powers to the

00:10:49.660 province. One of the differences though, is that in Canada, there's universal healthcare. And this

00:10:55.140 universal healthcare has become something of a master as opposed to a tool. And if you've seen

00:11:02.820 my analogy with respect to iRobot, that I think the talk that I gave with the angry Albertan,

00:11:09.020 Yeah, so you should you should tell us what that analogy is because it sounds like a good one

00:11:13.820 Well, so in the movie I robot you have these robots and they are servants to humanity until

00:11:20.060 They become sentient and then they lock down the humans and they say well, this is for your own good

00:11:25.820 If you're allowed out you get in car accidents you get in fights you get in altercations

00:11:30.240 You know, you're not safe. The way to keep you safe is in your house. And so

00:11:34.820 the universal health care system has become a

00:11:37.420 a, for lack of a better word, a kind of sacred cow, which has become the all-encompassing

00:11:47.000 aim of government. And so whereas the Constitution contemplates a free and democratic society,

00:11:51.900 you have the universal healthcare system with the power centralized in a doctor who is unelected

00:11:59.480 and who has no training with respect to socioeconomic issues or tourism or trade or agriculture 0.54

00:12:06.040 or the impacts of what she's doing to society. 1.00

00:12:09.780 She has no training or he in the Constitution.

00:12:13.440 And so you have this incredible power and this enormous impact on society,

00:12:19.360 but you have a lack of the checks and balances

00:12:22.000 that normally accompany the use of this kind of power.

00:12:26.560 And so, you know, you hear the phrase, you know, we have to preserve capacity.

00:12:32.200 That is why we have to do this.

00:12:34.200 And so as opposed to the health care system being a servant of the people, now it has become its

00:12:39.000 master and it is used to justify some really truly draconian infringements of people's rights.

00:12:45.160 Here's what I want to understand about the federal role, because we know that the federal

00:12:49.240 government uses its spending power to dictate a huge area of federal interests and federal

00:12:56.200 jurisdiction. And I've wondered if it ultimately comes down to the provinces to pass the legislation

00:13:03.000 that hands off this delegation i mean we can hold our provincial leaders to account unless

00:13:08.120 does the federal government have some lever that they're able to hold over the provinces to dictate

00:13:12.760 that they that they all line up i know that we've had conversations um in the media and even

00:13:18.360 politicians floating this idea that oh my goodness if the provinces don't play ball the way we want

00:13:24.120 them to the federal government can come in with its emergency power and take over is can that

00:13:28.920 actually happen? And is that part of what explains why there's been this uniform response across the

00:13:33.100 provinces? There is overlap between the federal jurisdiction and the provinces. To some extent,

00:13:38.920 there's the peace order and good government power, which is referred to as the POG power

00:13:42.780 that resides, that rests in the hands of the federal government. But the lack of,

00:13:47.720 you know, there is significant differences, especially as we move into the latter stages

00:13:54.500 of this whole affair between some of the provinces.

00:13:57.880 You have Ontario, for example, with Toronto,

00:13:59.780 which is one of the most, if not the most,

00:14:02.400 locked down city in the entire world.

00:14:05.340 And then you have other provinces with large cities,

00:14:08.440 and there's significant differences

00:14:11.540 between them and Ontario.

00:14:15.460 And Lisa is in Ontario, and I know that she's dreading

00:14:19.800 this threatened third lockdown,

00:14:22.760 which Premier Ford and the health officials are planning to enact. And so it's, you know,

00:14:29.360 it's a very different world. And that is, you know, it underscores part of the arbitrariness

00:14:35.060 of what's happening. You have one virus. It's the same across the country and around the world.

00:14:41.980 Now they're talking about variants, but, you know, variants don't recognize borders. And so,

00:14:47.220 but you have very different responses, despite the fact that you have one constitution.

00:14:51.680 And so one of the things that comes out of this B.C. decision, which I can talk about later on, is that the judge is saying, well, you don't have the health officials don't have to be correct in their actions.

00:15:03.740 You know, if they if they trample on your constitutional rights, but they can say, well, this is a reasonable alternative that was available to us, then that's constitutional.

00:15:13.900 And we have a problem with that.

00:15:16.820 I can I can imagine I mean it almost sounds to me like we don't really have a

00:15:21.980 Charter of Rights and Freedoms so the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has just

00:15:25.160 been a piece of paper and if you can say that it's reasonable in a limitation in

00:15:30.320 a free and democratic society or some other way of balancing it it sounds like

00:15:34.880 the courts are prepared to defer to the the health officials is that the sense

00:15:39.140 that you're getting I think in a nutshell yes and you know I've always

00:15:43.940 said that talking about our cases is one of the most dangerous things that we do. But I'm going

00:15:48.560 to go out on a limb and tell you that I think the way that the Charter was originally envisioned,

00:15:53.320 it was supposed to be a very broad, permissive protection for liberty in Canada with small,

00:16:01.280 narrow exceptions that were justified under Section 1. But over the course of decades since

00:16:06.720 1982, those exceptions have gotten bigger and bigger, and the freedoms have gotten smaller and

00:16:11.560 smaller. And there's this old saying by a former prime minister of Great Britain. And he said that

00:16:19.160 necessity is the argument for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants.

00:16:26.120 It is the creed of slaves. And so necessity becomes the justification in all circumstances

00:16:32.860 to strip people of their civil liberties. And that has been an axiom of tyranny since time

00:16:40.860 immemorial okay so we're going to try to do a bit of a review across the country and then get

00:16:45.980 deeper into the cases so why don't we start with british columbia and tell us in some ways i'm

00:16:52.780 trying to figure out who has really the best balance between lives and livelihoods as the

00:16:58.140 premier of alberta likes to say and maybe it's british columbia i saw somebody recently who was

00:17:04.220 in bc and they said wow are you ever a lot more locked down in alberta and i'm sure that in

00:17:08.460 manitoba listening to us and in ontario listening to us uh allison and lisa saying gee i wish we

00:17:14.380 were only as locked down as you out there so i want to make sure that we have the broad perspective

00:17:18.380 of what the range is but then you look at at atlantic canada and in some ways they've got more

00:17:22.860 freedoms but i i served a table the other i've got a restaurant so i served the table last week

00:17:27.900 and they just come back from new brunswick and they talked about how they've got border patrols

00:17:31.820 set up with checkpoints that have police at them like this is not what i would expect canada to be

00:17:36.380 so you've you've seen sort of the survey of the land so so give us a sense of where the

00:17:42.220 restrictions are at in british columbia right now and then if you can kind of point out some

00:17:46.700 of the highlights as we go across the country just so that we understand how different it is

00:17:50.460 from one province to the next sure so i mean i i'm not the lawyer who handled the litigation

00:17:55.820 in british columbia but i can tell you what the case was generally about we represented churches

00:17:59.820 and individuals, and primarily challenged the restrictions on religious gatherings and the

00:18:07.900 prohibition on protesting. Because of course, one of the things that's happened in the pandemic is

00:18:12.680 if you can't gather, if you can't go see your loved one, your mother's dying in the hospital,

00:18:18.180 your grandmother is dying, your sister is in long-term care, you can't go and see that

00:18:23.280 individual, or at least that was the way that it was. And if you want to go downtown, you lost your

00:18:28.620 job, you want to protest at the legislature. There have been people who have been given big tickets

00:18:34.220 in the range of thousands of dollars because they exercise their right to peacefully assemble.

00:18:39.340 And so in British Columbia, we challenged this. And so the prohibition on worship services in BC

00:18:47.020 was total. And there were some exceptions that had recently been given to some religious groups

00:18:54.760 to gather for the purposes of specific ceremonies, but by and large, these restrictions were in place.

00:19:02.160 And so some of our clients had bent over backwards to comply, but they felt like, you know, the

00:19:07.560 Constitution, according to Section 52 of the Constitution Act 1982, that is the supreme law

00:19:13.460 in Canada, not these health orders. And so we are going to open, we're going to have religious 0.89

00:19:17.340 services. And, you know, they got tickets for that, and the Crown brought an injunction

00:19:23.720 application to prevent them from doing that. And then that went to litigation at the court two

00:19:29.160 weeks ago. And the decision came out today, and it was a mixed result. So Chief Justice Hinkson

00:19:35.280 of the V.C. Supreme Court has struck down the prohibition on assembling for the purposes of

00:19:41.900 protesting, but he has retained the prohibition of religious services. He has upheld it.

00:19:48.820 Wow, that's kind of remarkable, isn't it? I mean, I would have almost thought it would have been

00:19:52.240 the reverse that you would have had to honor religious freedom and religious right to assemble

00:19:57.120 and they might have continued with some of the restrictions on protest what what explains why

00:20:02.160 why they didn't take why they didn't take a more permissive view on religious services

00:20:06.880 well uh chief justice sinxson has done something different than what uh the rest of the judges who

00:20:11.600 have heard uh some of these arguments on a preliminary basis have has done and he has

00:20:16.480 said that these are administrative decisions they are not laws of general application so

00:20:21.200 The difference is, is that when you have a challenge to a law, the standard of review as to whether or not that law is constitutional is correctness.

00:20:32.860 It's the strictest standard that there is. But these administrative decision makers, government officials who are tasked with making decisions, their decisions are often reviewed on a standard of reasonableness.

00:20:45.120 And so what Chief Justice Hinkson has done is said, well, these decisions from these orders from Dr. Henry are more like administrative decisions as opposed to laws from the legislature.

00:20:58.720 And that that is a departure from the way that courts have handled that issue in Alberta and in Manitoba so far.

00:21:05.020 And so that's something that we're going to be looking at.

00:21:07.920 Why does that sound upside down to me, Jay? Like, it sounds to me like it's a lower bar to pass an administrative rule that has such serious consequences on people's rights, whereas you would hold the legislature to a higher standard if they were sitting there debating, going through three readings, passing through royal assent.

00:21:26.420 I don't understand why it wouldn't be easier to throw out one of these arbitrary administrative decisions than something that's been duly argued in a legislature.

00:21:35.160 Sure. Yeah, with all due respect to the Chief Justice, I think he's made an error there.

00:21:40.440 And the reason is, is because you have these broad rules, these orders, which are of general

00:21:46.160 application. This individual who is passing the order, who is making the order, she has not

00:21:51.360 scrutinized the individual circumstances of people. You know, there's no consideration of

00:21:58.940 the individual rights of people, which are what are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights

00:22:03.540 and freedoms and instead you're passing this this law carte blanche which applies across the

00:22:08.180 province and and it is exceedingly restrictive um and and uh and overturns the fundamental rights

00:22:16.020 and freedoms uh which are guaranteed uh in the canadian charter of rights of freedom so i agree

00:22:21.620 with you entirely it is backwards in my respectful submission uh danielle and uh it's something that

00:22:27.780 Okay, let's then move over to Alberta and tell us what happened in the update with Pastor James Coates. I saw that Erin Coates had issued a statement on Facebook expecting that her husband might be released as soon as tomorrow. So what's gone down here?

00:22:42.320 So there was a rumor that was circulating that the matter was going to be called forward tomorrow, Friday.

00:22:49.800 That has been moved over to Monday, and Pastor Coates remains in custody.

00:22:55.940 But his matter will be brought forward on Monday, and the Crown has committed to withdraw the criminal code charge of breaching and undertaking.

00:23:05.860 That is the only charge that carries jail time, and that is the only criminal charge for which Pastor Coates is in custody for.

00:23:13.780 So the withdrawal of that charge is a very significant victory and something to celebrate.

00:23:21.720 We anticipate that he's going to be released on Monday.

00:23:26.440 The Crown is also withdrawing one of the other public health order accusations, allegations.

00:23:33.300 And so there's one remaining charge and a trial will be held in early May on that issue.

00:23:40.720 OK, so let's let's go. We'll talk more about that case, but I want to just do a quick review of what's happening across the country so that we know.

00:23:49.300 Let's go to on to Manitoba and bring in Alison Pijalovic for a bit of an understanding of what's going on there, because, you know, I'm sort of shocked.

00:23:59.620 where it's funny, the three jurisdictions we'll be talking about are all ones that are led by

00:24:03.300 conservative premiers. I tend to think of conservative premiers as understanding this

00:24:07.080 balance between lives and livelihoods or liberty and the role of government. And I've been gravely

00:24:12.240 disappointed that none of them seem to have distinguished themselves. But Brian Pallister

00:24:16.280 came up with some bizarre decisions. I think the one I remember the most was when he allowed the

00:24:22.720 big box stores to open, but because he was keeping retail closed, they had to cordon off the areas

00:24:28.380 that had non-essential goods and you just ended up with some weird altercations and so give us a

00:24:33.180 sense of what it's of what it's like living in manitoba um allison well yeah that was uh that

00:24:39.580 was just in time for christmas uh we had it was actually dr rosen who's the um the chief medical

00:24:47.180 health officer made orders just before christmas that allowed retail stores that's just big box

00:24:54.620 stores that were still allowed to be open to sell only what were deemed essential items and

00:25:01.420 non-essential items had to be taped off cordoned off and that included books toys a lot of

00:25:10.940 children's clothing um you know just things that you'd be buying for your family for christmas and

00:25:18.860 it was extremely stressful for people you could still order a curbside pickup but uh you couldn't

00:25:25.340 even buy makeup so really the only things you could buy uh was you know food and uh you know

00:25:32.860 feminine products that kind of thing and um it was just it was it was extremely bizarre because

00:25:41.580 if you think about it does does a virus know when someone's standing in the toy aisle at costco or

00:25:47.980 of someone standing in the food aisle it just didn't seem to make any sense so you know the

00:25:53.740 retailers were frustrated and and it just seemed like the tide was turning in public opinion around

00:25:59.500 that time because people really couldn't understand even the people that are most afraid of of covid

00:26:05.580 and are really really uh not not pushing back on on the lockdowns really at that point started to

00:26:13.100 ask what's going on this is this seems silly

00:26:16.140 so it was really quite bizarre i have to say

00:26:19.260 so you know eventually uh those items you know are for sale

00:26:25.180 again but it was just it was it was really bizarre and the other thing

00:26:28.380 too is in january i believe that we're the only province

00:26:33.900 uh outside of the atlantic bubble where if you come into the province

00:26:40.060 you have to quarantine for 14 days so if i was to go and visit a friend in bc and come home

00:26:46.620 i'd have to quarantine for 14 days just as though i'd left the country now we don't have to come to

00:26:51.420 an isolation center thank goodness for that but uh you know it's we're one of the only uh i believe

00:26:57.660 the only jurisdiction that that has that rule at the moment i know that they they have their

00:27:02.300 their reasons for doing so but uh you know we're sort of an island here give me another uh just a

00:27:07.580 a few more um ideas about how the restrictions are playing out because i think to jason canney's

00:27:13.360 credit in alberta i think he saw that it was turning into a bit of a fiasco to try to decide

00:27:19.260 between essential and non-essential retail so he allowed all retail to open up at lower uh levels

00:27:24.660 of restrictions you needed to have you could only have 15 of the fire code capacity come in uh come

00:27:31.360 indoors i think that's now been expanded to 25 percent uh we closed down restaurants completely

00:27:36.200 in Alberta for two months. They've now been allowed to reopen, but you can only have the

00:27:41.620 same family members, maximum six people to a table. And bizarrely, we still aren't allowed to

00:27:48.420 go and see our parents for coffee at their house or have anybody over for a glass of wine. So we've

00:27:53.480 still got some serious problems, as well as the gyms. The gyms here are still not able to get back

00:28:00.000 to full operation. So just give me a bit of an understanding of where you're at on the spectrum

00:28:04.520 on some of those other issues right so the restaurants uh they of course could do delivery

00:28:09.960 and curbside pickup uh throughout throughout the whole thing uh throughout the whole winter

00:28:13.800 but recently uh restaurants were allowed to open but uh they believe they started out at 25 capacity

00:28:20.440 but you could only have a meal with with someone who lived in your house and uh that still that

00:28:29.240 rule still applies that order still applies uh you either show your id at the door and and or you now

00:28:36.360 you sign a declaration that everyone coming into the restaurant uh to sit together um lives at that

00:28:42.040 same house now they've recently uh dr rusness has said if you want to sit outside in march in

00:28:48.920 winnipeg uh you can sit with up to six up to five other people from different households so you know

00:28:57.320 winnipeggers are pretty hardy so i understand that the patios are now all open and people are

00:29:02.200 flocking to them to sit outside with their friends and you know the daytime highs plus

00:29:07.240 seven then people are so desperate for human contact and to see friends that they're they're

00:29:11.720 making a go of it so you know we'll we'll take these little these little bones that they that

00:29:17.400 they throw and and uh i'm gonna go see my friends sitting by the sitting by the heater as well

00:29:24.760 because we're so anxious to get out so that's that's restaurants gyms uh gyms are allowed to

00:29:30.840 be open as well but the you know this is in my view it's unfortunate the province will say

00:29:40.920 otherwise but you have to wear a mask at all times at the gym at first in the fall before they closed

00:29:47.800 you you could take them you didn't have to wear a mask if you were doing cardio uh you didn't have

00:29:52.680 to wear a mask when you were sitting at a weight machine you had to put it on in between uh when

00:29:56.920 you walked to another machine but now you have to wear it all the time and you know it's very

00:30:02.040 difficult for many people we've heard from people you know emailing us and and complaining when

00:30:07.960 you're wearing a mask inside when you're doing cardio that's very difficult to breathe and so

00:30:14.520 and i know that gyms are can be losing business over over the indoor mask issue so

00:30:19.880 So that's an issue and I believe that that goes against the World Health Organization's advice is not to wear a mask when you're doing cardio exercises.

00:30:29.040 I'm glad you've gone through this.

00:30:30.460 Now I should also mention we're allowed to have 10 people meet outdoors and we've had some nice weather.

00:30:36.620 We've had some Chinook weather so that at least takes taking some of the pressure off.

00:30:39.940 But as you're talking about this and we've heard from Jay and we'll hear more as well from Lisa, it's the arbitrariness of these decisions that it's strict.

00:30:49.620 we can't do cardio on machines here.

00:30:52.500 And I gather that they are enforcing it.

00:30:54.000 I've spoken to gym owners that they do have AHS inspectors

00:30:57.600 going in to see if people are breathing too hard.

00:30:59.880 So this is what is so confusing for the public is,

00:31:03.740 why is it okay for people to go to a restaurant

00:31:06.240 in British Columbia,

00:31:07.240 which sounds like that's a lot more accepted.

00:31:10.380 And yet we have all of these other restrictions elsewhere.

00:31:12.520 That doesn't seem to be based on science.

00:31:14.880 And if this is what it comes down to

00:31:16.400 is that these are scientific decisions.

00:31:19.000 can take them to the bank they're so they're justifiable to the point where we where it

00:31:24.360 overrides the charter of rights and freedoms it's all of these differences that seem to make me

00:31:29.000 wonder if that's really true so give us an idea of the kind of litigation that you're taking

00:31:34.120 forward so that we understand how how you think you can challenge these lockdowns because i as i

00:31:38.360 gather your your litigation is a lot more of a general nature yes i mean we're uh we've brought

00:31:43.960 in a charter application we're representing a group of churches and a protester and the churches are

00:31:52.040 raising issues of violation of their right to worship right to assemble right to express

00:31:57.880 themselves through singing through listening to to sermons and also they're alleging a discriminatory

00:32:08.040 element because at the time that churches were closed the the size of the building of the church

00:32:14.200 is similar in size to a liquor store and liquor stores are still allowed to be open and our

00:32:19.160 argument is that a similar amount of people were allowed to be standing inside a liquor store at

00:32:27.000 the same time as as a church could be could accommodate the same amount of people and yet

00:32:33.080 you're allowed to do one and not the other and it's it's our argument that that's discrimination

00:32:37.640 against against uh christians and and against all uh you know christians are our clients but against

00:32:43.720 uh all people who want to worship so uh you know and we don't see that that's based on any science

00:32:49.960 so that's what we want to flesh out there are many issues uh scientific issues that we really want to

00:32:55.240 get to the heart of and we've got a wonderful expert uh you know we we believe he's one of the

00:33:01.160 world's top experts in the coronavirus and that is Dr. Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford University

00:33:08.280 and he's put together an amazing report for us which explains that you know there are studies

00:33:18.840 there's a one big study a meta-analysis of 54 studies around the world that found that

00:33:24.280 symptomatic people within a household spread the coronavirus 18 percent of the time where

00:33:32.760 asymptomatic people with coronavirus spread at 0.7 percent of the time and so that whole notion

00:33:41.160 that we've heard from various medical health officers around the country that including

00:33:46.760 Dr. Ruzin that well we have to lock down we can't just temperature check at the door symptom check

00:33:53.640 at the door because people can be you know carriers of this deadly disease and not know it

00:33:59.400 that's the reason why we have to bring in these these harsh measures is because you could be

00:34:04.680 seriously jeopardizing the health of an elderly person or an immunocompromised person and not

00:34:10.200 even know it that notion of asymptomatic spread while the science doesn't bear that out and so

00:34:16.120 that's that's our our position and you know we're going to flush it out at the hearing and uh on

00:34:20.440 cross-examination and we look forward to doing so let's let's talk a little bit more about some of

00:34:26.200 the the contrary medical evidence you're going to give because this is the the the question i have

00:34:32.840 is will it be admissible this is the remarkable thing that i've noticed about this this whole

00:34:39.160 pandemic is that once the consensus of the top doctors is in it doesn't seem like anyone is

00:34:46.280 allowed to question that or challenge it and that doesn't seem to me to be the way a court

00:34:50.040 process works a court process you bring forward expert testimony and then it's up to a a fair

00:34:57.080 minded judge to make the decision about what has the most credibility are they going to even hear

00:35:01.480 Dr. Bhattacharya's testimony? Well that's yeah we're scheduled to have cross-examinations of

00:35:08.200 course you know the the opposition which is the the province you know if they wanted to try to

00:35:15.160 challenge his expertise I suppose they could try that but we don't we haven't we don't have any

00:35:19.640 information or indication that they're going to do so but that's open to us to try with their

00:35:24.040 experts and that's open to for them to try as well but assuming that our experts go head to

00:35:30.040 ahead they have an expert as well who says something different so you know

00:35:34.940 we're going to hash that out and it's the it's the courts job to listen to

00:35:41.080 both experts and come to a decision as to which expert that judge prefers the

00:35:48.980 evidence of and to make to make findings based on that expertise and you know

00:35:54.040 we're very confident with dr. Bhattacharya he's amazing he appears on CNN

00:35:59.020 regularly he was invited to the White House in the fall to talk about the

00:36:03.100 coronavirus he actually met with Governor DeSantis in September and he

00:36:09.220 told him about the approach that he was advocating called focused protection

00:36:13.380 which is to protect the elderly and immunocompromised from the coronavirus

00:36:18.940 as opposed to locking down society as a whole and letting young people move about

00:36:24.040 society to build up herd immunity while protecting the elderly who are more at

00:36:28.600 risk from this disease and uh governor de santis uh my understanding is that he took that advice

00:36:35.080 florida's open florida was open from september on and they've come out remarkably well it's

00:36:40.840 remarkable you're quite right i've talked about dr jay bodichari i've been following him for some

00:36:45.800 time because he's one of the authors of the great barrington declaration which is what you're you're

00:36:50.280 discussing there and i saw the press conference that ron dissent governor de santis did with he

00:36:55.240 and two other experts where they were explaining their approach so it's quite amazing that you got

00:36:59.000 them one of the things that i found amazing about what you just said is that um if you can put this

00:37:04.600 testimony forward that the chance of asymptomatic transmission is minuscule less than one percent

00:37:11.880 but even more so even symptomatic individuals in a household the the transmission did i hear you

00:37:18.440 right is only 18 meaning the vast majority of people even in a household don't end up getting

00:37:22.840 it from the from others and that it's it's a very fascinating study that was a meta analysis of a

00:37:28.920 bunch a bunch of other studies that's what a meta analysis does is it takes a look at what other

00:37:33.240 studies have found and so of course in a household you don't have the checks that you would have at

00:37:38.680 a restaurant or a theater where checking temperature wearing masks social distancing

00:37:43.960 and so uh our argument is that you know if you impose these these uh you know if you at the

00:37:50.360 least have churches do a temperature check at the door or you know um have have masks and

00:37:55.800 distancing which are is already required uh for people attending church then why do you need to

00:38:01.640 shut the whole church down for months at a time so really in our it's our view and and our experts

00:38:08.200 view that we should be able to open up society and just protect those who need it the most and

00:38:13.160 that's that's what uh the great barrington declaration advocates for and it's got the

00:38:17.000 signatures of i believe it's 50 000 scientists and doctors from around the world okay so it's

00:38:23.960 not it's not a a fringe theory when you have that many medical professionals in total agreement so

00:38:31.080 it might be fringe according to what what the media wants to wants to have us believe but

00:38:36.360 certainly there's there's a lot of support and there is more support than you think it's just

00:38:41.960 that a lot of doctors uh their voices are not being heard yes and i'll talk to jay cameron

00:38:48.680 about that in just one moment there's one more thing i wanted to raise with you was the issue

00:38:52.600 of the the pcr tests i know that there have been uh there's been some litigation i believe it was

00:38:58.360 in portugal where there are some serious problems with looking at the pcr test i've talked i talked

00:39:05.240 about it when i was on radio that if i understand it it's it's a tool that is normally used in

00:39:10.360 forensics if you have a tiny bit of dna you want to amplify it multiple times

00:39:14.520 so that you can catch the bad guys so maybe great application in forensics

00:39:18.280 but the problem when you're trying to use it in medicine is it can't tell the

00:39:21.080 difference after a certain number of amplification cycles between a live

00:39:24.760 virus and dead viral particles that your body is already destroyed and so i've

00:39:29.080 been following that issue for some time but i want to i want to get your take on

00:39:33.240 whether i'm interpreting it right and if you've got an expert who might give that

00:39:36.520 same testimony yes well you know i i'm not i'm not a doctor or a microbiologist and this this area

00:39:43.480 is very complicated but i can tell you uh what dr bhattacharya has stated and he's taken a hard

00:39:49.880 look at the the latest science on the pcr tests and basically they the pcr test is known as the

00:39:57.480 gold standard for diagnosing covet but according to dr bhattacharya it's not the gold standard for

00:40:04.040 diagnosing whether someone is infectious and that's because when a sample is taken from

00:40:11.560 from somebody's nose from the swab and then it's it's amplified it's spun around in the lab

00:40:19.800 it depends how many times it's spun before it results in a positive result so if it's spun a

00:40:26.760 low number of times say you know 20 to 25 times there's a greater chance that that positive result

00:40:35.000 will actually have a infectious virus so that person would actually be infectious and capable

00:40:42.840 of infecting someone else but the problem is when there's no positive result after the 25th time

00:40:50.760 it the if if the if the lab is has been told or has decided or whoever's made the decision to keep

00:40:58.380 spinning it if it's spun all the way up to 40 times 40 cycles it's called a cycle threshold

00:41:04.800 at 40 cycles or more the chances that that positive result is coming from someone who's

00:41:12.840 infectious and capable of spreading COVID is 100% false positive after 40

00:41:22.220 cycles that's according to the peer-reviewed science so we're going to

00:41:26.700 be hashing that out with with the court as well and I can tell you that it's not

00:41:31.860 just our expert who says that as a result of his peer-reviewed studies it's

00:41:36.340 the World Health Organization put out two warnings

00:41:40.120 about the PCR tests and the cycle thresholds,

00:41:44.820 one in December and another warning in January.

00:41:48.680 And it's giving a warning to the world

00:41:51.220 that there have been issues with false positives

00:41:53.980 with these tests.

00:41:55.780 So it's something that we're looking at

00:41:57.480 and it's something that we want the court to be aware of

00:42:01.440 and how many of these tests and these cases

00:42:04.060 actually cases of people who, while the test was positive, they're not actually infectious

00:42:10.740 because they had COVID up to 70 days ago.

00:42:15.460 That is the science says that a positive result can mean at that high cycle threshold that

00:42:22.160 someone has the virus is dead now, but they had it up to 70 days ago.

00:42:28.280 therefore you could be catching people with these cases that are not sick and they they were sick

00:42:35.360 you know two months ago that's the remarkable thing is because um you would have the medical

00:42:41.240 professional say well better safe than sorry it's better for us to have a high cycle threshold so

00:42:46.200 we can catch everyone but the implications on an individual about how disruptive that is to their

00:42:51.720 life they have to potentially stop working for two weeks that is in alberta if there are others in

00:42:57.240 household their two-week quarantine begins after the 10 days that somebody in the household is

00:43:02.680 infectious you can end up if you've got multiple people in the household having a month or longer

00:43:07.720 before it works its way through and especially if it's a case no one's in no one's symptomatic

00:43:12.840 and it could be that they all already have had it and recovered from it it strikes me that that

00:43:17.960 that should matter to the court the huge imposition that it's creating on people's lives yeah it sure

00:43:24.520 matter to the Portuguese Court of Appeal in that case I mean it's it's written

00:43:29.680 in Portuguese I've got the translation but it was involving people who were

00:43:34.540 being quarantined and as a result of a positive PCR test and the government in

00:43:41.260 that case couldn't produce the data as to I believe the the CT threshold that

00:43:48.340 they were using and that the court found based on the studies that we've

00:43:52.400 submitted that we filed in this in this application that because the false

00:43:57.740 positive can be as high as 97% and that's what the courts found according to

00:44:03.980 one of the studies that the quarantine was unlawful so it's a very interesting

00:44:10.880 case and you know it's it's just people need the public needs to be aware of of

00:44:19.460 of these of this what a pcr test does and and and the potential faults that lie with it

00:44:29.300 and what it means when you know these chief public health officers come on the news and they talk

00:44:34.820 about new cases but you know we don't know when they say that how many of these cases are people

00:44:41.220 who are actually infectious and contagious or not let me just underscore what you said

00:44:45.860 potential as high as 97 false positive now we've talked about two pretty significant pieces of

00:44:53.300 medical testimony that dr buddhacharya is going to put forward before i ask you kind of the

00:44:57.700 implications of some of this if the court accepts it um are there any other big big pieces of

00:45:03.860 medical testimony that you want to tell us about um are those the two main ones well those are the

00:45:10.740 two big ones but i mean you know we've got studies basically showing and there's a a new study from

00:45:20.180 the nature magazine very recently that talk about the efficacy of of lockdowns do they actually work

00:45:29.140 and it's our position and our experts position according to the studies that we've produced

00:45:34.020 and this nature study which is huge and probably the best study out there is that lockdowns aren't

00:45:40.660 effective what they do is sure they isolate people but they they just prolong the misery

00:45:48.180 because they affect the development of herd immunity which could be which could come through

00:45:54.740 the population more quickly if if the young and healthy people are out and about and and certainly

00:46:02.180 as i've said you know our experts and you know we are not advocating for everybody to be like

00:46:09.620 a let it rip kind of strategy that's not what we're advocating for it's it's the young and

00:46:13.540 healthy people who should live their lives and and build up that herd immunity um and and protect

00:46:20.260 the elderly and you know part of part of the analysis as well and that we haven't talked

00:46:25.700 about yet is the the harms of the lockdowns and that's part of the balancing that the court's

00:46:30.580 going to have to look at is what what harms come from lockdowns and i mean all you have to do is

00:46:38.420 is watch the news on a day-to-day basis to see that suicide rates have increased uh you know

00:46:44.580 people are are having issues with domestic abuse at home and substance abuse problems and

00:46:52.340 you know we've got charts from uh from manitoba that that show the increase in suicidal thoughts

00:46:58.580 there was a study out of bc a mental health study from ubc actually uh that showed the increase in

00:47:05.700 and drug abuse and overdoses and so it's really it's really tragic and you know we all feel we

00:47:13.460 can all feel the devastation and the isolation and it really affects some people more than others

00:47:21.060 so you know you have the court's gonna have to we say balance those harms and those deleterious

00:47:28.980 effects as part of the illegal test against the measures and the the reasonableness of 1.00

00:47:35.220 these measures and you know also from closing down countries in the west you've got africans 1.00

00:47:42.260 starving to death for various reasons and of course they're not affected by closing churches

00:47:47.780 but the broader implication of lockdowns and in the west is you've got people starving to

00:47:52.820 death around the world and doctor uh there's a dr nabarro from the who came out in october

00:48:00.020 and he actually made a public statement saying we shouldn't be locking down this should be a

00:48:04.580 last resort because of the devastation and significant harms that this has uh for people

00:48:10.740 around the world so you know there's it's it's not uh it's not one-sided uh this is a very important

00:48:18.580 issue obviously it affects all of us and we need to really go through the um the the costs uh of

00:48:27.780 these measures and and so you know we're really really looking forward to doing that with the

00:48:32.820 court that's excellent okay so what do you hope will come of this because i can see a number of

00:48:38.660 things coming from it seems like the the way in which it's characterized is it's all or nothing

00:48:43.380 it's you described it there where the the public health officials and the politicians accuse those

00:48:48.740 who want to strike down some of the restrictions is just let her rip and as you said that's not

00:48:53.700 what you're aiming for but what would a reasonable balance be is is there something that you have to

00:48:59.860 proactively put forward to say we are prepared to see these kinds of restrictions but not those or

00:49:05.060 is it up to the court to decide that balance well no the nature of the legal test is that you know

00:49:10.980 we've we've alleged charter infringements and uh the the government here in manitoba has agreed

00:49:20.020 that they have infringed certain infringements not all but they've agreed that they've infringed

00:49:24.900 our clients um you know freedom to worship right to worship a right to assemble and uh freedom of

00:49:32.500 conscience and expression uh they've not conceded the discrimination element but uh once those in

00:49:40.900 if those all those infringements are proven and conceded then the onus shifts to the government

00:49:47.380 and dr ruzin to show that these measures these public health orders are reasonably justified

00:49:55.540 and there's a you know legal tests but basically they have to show that uh the impairment has been

00:50:02.100 minimal uh they've impaired our clients rights as minimally as possible that the the their objective

00:50:11.140 is pressing and substantial as the legal language and that the deleterious effects are proportional

00:50:17.860 to the objective here which is to protect health so it's it's a real analysis but that's where some

00:50:23.620 of the science comes in and the lockdown harm evidence comes in so it's a real balancing but

00:50:29.700 the onus is on the government to show that in a nutshell that their their orders are are

00:50:37.380 have been reasonably justified. And so, you know, the onus is on them to provide a lot of the

00:50:42.340 evidence as to why they had to shut churches and, you know, why outdoor events of more than five

00:50:50.660 people had to be restricted. And so, you know, we're going to be getting into that with Dr.

00:50:58.020 Rousin on his cross-examination and going through the evidence that they've provided to justify

00:51:04.340 these measures are they able to say look at this hysterical computer model oh you don't like that

00:51:08.820 one here's another hysterical computer model because that does seem to me to be a lot of what

00:51:13.540 their case rests on is that they get someone to model up the worst case scenario and then they

00:51:18.340 argue well if we don't do these lockdowns and these restricted measures then this is what's

00:51:23.780 going to happen does that pass the the legal test or is that what we have to see well we yeah we

00:51:29.380 have to see what what a court says about the modeling but certainly we know that modeling

00:51:36.020 in in the uk the main model that was used to get the world to sign on to the lockdowns was

00:51:41.540 found to be extreme exaggeration and completely false and but you know once the world gets on

00:51:48.180 that path and governments get on that path it's sort of hard to stop the freight train as it's

00:51:53.060 going but of course the modeling is we didn't have millions and millions and millions of people

00:52:00.100 uh falling over from from covet i mean certainly it's very tragic every death is tragic but those

00:52:05.940 models were wildly inaccurate no kidding when is what should we expect the timing on your case

00:52:12.900 well the case is going to be heard uh starting on april 19th and it should wrap up april 30th and

00:52:18.820 then of course we don't know how long the judge will take to make a decision okay i'll come back

00:52:23.060 to uh to jay to give us some idea of how that's going to be balanced thanks for the update on

00:52:26.580 that one alison appreciate it now on to ontario now you heard jay cameron say that toronto may

00:52:32.100 have the strictest lockdown of any major center in the world so what does that look like lisa

00:52:38.820 bildi is uh fighting that case she's also going to be talking about the case with long-term care

00:52:43.220 facilities which i'm really interested in hearing about so so lisa just tell us what life's like in

00:52:47.060 toronto well i'm actually fortunate that i live in london which is two hours southwest of toronto

00:52:52.020 and so i haven't had the worst of it uh but for those in toronto it's been a it's been a long

00:52:56.900 haul they have been under some form of severe lockdown since the fall um i'm not sure exactly

00:53:02.660 when it started anymore but i think november uh sometime the rest of us had a hard lockdown that

00:53:08.500 began on boxing day and lasted for about six weeks um the whole province was put into the

00:53:13.780 same lockdown and then some of us have come out of it a bit and uh toronto and peel region which

00:53:19.140 is the the large sort of um greater toronto area um there's they're still under a fairly

00:53:25.780 heavy lockdown it's not a complete stay-at-home order right now but they're in what's called the

00:53:30.180 gray zone we've got all these lovely colors um and in gray you know they still can't go inside

00:53:35.140 a restaurant they are supposed to stay you know um not have social gatherings in their home and

00:53:40.820 that kind of thing so uh it's it's been a long haul for for folks in toronto and uh i'm sure

00:53:47.300 many of them are getting agitated but at the same time you know if you watch social media you see

00:53:51.540 that a lot of people are clamoring for more and um it's astonishing uh you know the some people

00:53:59.460 don't you know they uh they're suckers for punishment i guess they want to have they want

00:54:04.820 to have a full hard lockdown and i believe our premier is considering doing another one because

00:54:09.540 we're allegedly in a third wave now although it you know if you look at the models it's uh

00:54:14.500 you don't see that the hospitalization rates are are shooting up that dramatically um and in some

00:54:19.700 hospitals it's still extremely low so anyway that's the environment that we're in it's not um

00:54:25.620 you know we it's very hard to know what we're what we're allowed to do and not allowed to do it in

00:54:29.940 any part of the province it's different everywhere right now which is interesting too because in the

00:54:34.660 first part of the pandemic the premier said well you know we can't have different regions doing

00:54:38.660 different things because people will just drive from you know you go get your hair cut uh which

00:54:43.620 i desperately need um people will go get their hair cut in another city and then they'll just

00:54:48.980 take their you know their germs there um and yet through this last part like through the second

00:54:55.940 wave if you want to call it that uh we've done exactly that we've got we've got all these

00:54:59.620 different regions so then you have public health officials say for example in kingston where my son

00:55:04.820 goes to university um you know basically said after christmas don't come back like we don't want

00:55:09.780 we don't want this back um they were going into green they were quite happy about that they didn't 1.00

00:55:13.780 want those germy students returning so um so they're yeah it's it's it's uh it's it's oppressive 1.00

00:55:21.380 uh it you know it's for a lot of people it's very confusing because you don't know what you're 1.00

00:55:24.980 allowed to do or not allowed to do and of course the way it's enforced can often be very draconian

00:55:28.900 too so you can get yourself in a lot of trouble when you don't really know what you're allowed

00:55:32.740 not allowed to do and i do want to talk to you about that but tell me what a stay at home order

00:55:37.780 is because i think that part of why the premier of alberta says oh i haven't locked anyone down

00:55:43.220 is because he hasn't done anything as far as what toronto has done but what is a stay-at-home order

00:55:47.860 what does that mean well it was uh it it was sort of a uh wasn't as much as a stay-at-home order as

00:55:56.820 you may have heard happening in certainly china but even in some european cities where you literally

00:56:01.700 like could not leave your house for you know for any reason or for very very narrow reasons we

00:56:06.740 actually did have quite a few exceptions built into it and there was no curfew like there was

00:56:10.740 in Quebec so although it was called a stay-at-home order you know you could you could go out for

00:56:15.860 essential services of different kinds you could obviously get your groceries go for walks i mean

00:56:22.420 we continued to go for our daily walks and that sort of thing but it had to be with a with for

00:56:27.300 the purpose of exercise there was one couple in windsor who uh you know they're staying they're

00:56:34.180 stuck at home with their kids they finally got all their kids working on something on their

00:56:37.780 computers and so they decided to grab some mental health time and they got in their car and drove to

00:56:42.980 a church parking lot which was a mistake because you know the churches are particularly targeted

00:56:47.220 right now so if you're gonna pick a parking lot you know go to walmart but they wanted to go and

00:56:50.980 do a little bit of pokemon go with their with their phones and they just were parked in their

00:56:55.460 vehicle and they got an eight hundred dollar or whatever it was uh ticket for for being out and

00:57:01.140 about but not for the purposes of exercise so but they weren't they weren't interacting with anyone

00:57:06.740 other than each other they were sitting in their own car you know and they didn't get out of their 0.98

00:57:10.420 vehicle um so so there's a lot of stupid stuff like that and you know frankly uh we're seeing 0.93

00:57:15.940 and right around that time we were seeing reports coming out of like the hospital in ottawa was 0.99

00:57:20.420 the Sick Children's Hospital was saying they had like a doubling of traumatic injuries to children

00:57:27.140 this year over last year, like over the year of the pandemic compared to the prior year,

00:57:32.900 because people are at home and they're stressed and frustrated and unable to access

00:57:40.980 support from family that might give them a break. You know, my kids are grown now,

00:57:44.900 but i i can't imagine um you know being home with toddlers or you know and trying to work and um

00:57:53.300 not that that justifies anything but my goodness if a couple of parents the parents are out trying

00:57:58.100 to have a little bit of a mental health break show some compassion talk to me a little bit

00:58:03.060 about what you mentioned that it is remarkable to me as well i'm i love freedom i i figured

00:58:08.100 that most people did and i've been i've been astonished at the number of people who say

00:58:13.460 not only do i want you to hit me i want you to hit me harder and i'm wondering from your perspective

00:58:19.060 how does the court judge that if there's sort of a a general desire for more authoritarian

00:58:25.220 policies just because people are terrified and don't have information maybe that's not an excuse

00:58:29.140 but is that enough to override some of the charter arguments that you're making i always thought that

00:58:34.580 the charter was supposed to be immune from those kind of things it doesn't matter how many people

00:58:40.260 think that a person should have their rights taken from them the reason why

00:58:43.620 they are called rights is that there are certain things that are inalienable

00:58:46.740 that they're not subject to mob rule they're not subject to a vote

00:58:50.420 so so how do you think the court balances that the fact that that there

00:58:53.620 does seem to be a lot of popular support for these measures

00:58:57.460 well i'm not sure that the court is has weighed in on

00:59:00.820 that question and nor should it really consider

00:59:04.660 whether something is popular or not popular i don't think that should be the

00:59:07.940 consideration but on a political level it certainly is um you know we are i i personally

00:59:14.920 think we're sort of in a new era with our with our charter um over this last year it's uh it's

00:59:19.880 been an eye-opening period um i think we are seeing a bit of tyranny of the majority here

00:59:26.100 when our individual rights are being uh just absolutely throttled um and you're actually

00:59:32.080 made to feel as though you are selfish and a horrible person for wanting to have them and

00:59:37.480 to exercise them. That is astonishing to me. Once people lose the desire for freedom,

00:59:44.960 you do pave the way for that tyranny of the majority and for only certain rights and freedoms

00:59:50.380 that are acceptable to that majority to be protected. And so, you know, maybe this is a

00:59:56.020 little controversial, but I suspect your audience will see where I'm coming from. But I think the

01:00:02.100 churches have been targeted largely because they are a soft target and they're they're a group now

01:00:07.880 that the majority doesn't necessarily feel is worth protecting and so um the media like i i've

01:00:15.600 been focused in the last few months on church in ontario and you know the media has never been more

01:00:22.840 interested in anything we've done than when there's a church getting in trouble and suddenly

01:00:26.560 then you're getting three or four media calls a day when something's happening so you know they

01:00:31.040 want to know oh did they get found in contempt and how much do they have to pay and are they

01:00:35.120 being charged and what's happening with your and i and i feel like saying look and this is the

01:00:38.980 mainstream media i'm talking about um who you don't normally hear from otherwise on on most

01:00:44.340 things but um you know you say i feel like saying well why don't you go and investigate those pcr

01:00:50.860 cycle thresholds for example and and do a little investigative reporting there's an opportunity

01:00:55.140 here for for you to make your name um but no they just want to talk about churches breaking the

01:01:00.160 rules. And so, you know, we have one church that has, the pastor has been very vocal about exercising

01:01:08.840 his charter rights. He's been, he flew out to Edmonton from Ontario to support Pastor Coates.

01:01:13.840 He's led a number of rallies in Ontario. Pastor Hildebrandt is his name. And his church is

01:01:22.280 actually targeted every Sunday by anti-freedom people. Believe it or not, like their anti-freedom

01:01:28.740 rally I think is what they say on their stickers but they actually actually advertise it that way

01:01:32.820 that there's an anti-freedom rally yeah because he's been running these freedom rallies and they

01:01:36.840 don't like it it brings their their town into disrepute to have you know people doing marching

01:01:42.220 and then coming into their town and just you know they find it very unsavory so they protest

01:01:47.500 against the exercise of freedom and so they will line the road by this church on a Sunday morning

01:01:54.660 and monitor to make sure that the churchgoers are sitting in their cars and this is a church by the

01:01:59.620 way that back in the spring we got drive-in services for we launched that was the first

01:02:03.620 charter challenge in Ontario because at that time you couldn't even sit in your car for worship and

01:02:09.240 so they had done so they were in battle with the local police and we sued the government and they

01:02:15.980 walked back the restriction and changed the regulations to allow for drive-in services

01:02:20.260 and they have mostly had those drive-in services during periods of time when they've not been

01:02:24.160 allowed into their building um but you know the odd time that they they've gone into the building

01:02:29.680 of course there's there's all these watchers there to to check on them and yeah it's it's

01:02:35.840 uh i i'm not when you look back through historical periods and then compare to today you can sort of

01:02:42.160 see how a lot of things happen that you maybe didn't understand when you read the history book

01:02:45.520 the first time for example you know the stasi had no trouble getting people to inform on their 0.85

01:02:51.440 neighbors we can sort of see why and there's a lot of ugly human nature that's coming out right now 0.95

01:02:55.920 and it's it's a little bit distressing so to come back to the question about about the charter um

01:03:01.760 yeah i i'm not sure we haven't had a fulsome argument yet on on the charter well bc was the

01:03:07.920 first first real substantive argument about the charter uh so we're not entirely sure how the

01:03:12.400 courts are going to be uh treating this but i it would appear that they're being fairly cautious

01:03:16.960 and certainly in any indication we've seen in in cases that where they've touched on covid issues

01:03:22.960 they they're giving the government a very wide berth yeah so let's then talk about the because

01:03:28.240 i will i'll go back to jay on that one as well because i guess here's the danger is that if the

01:03:33.600 courts affirm these kind of actions in this circumstance then it would give the government

01:03:39.440 carte blanche to keep on doing this to us regardless of how big a threat it is they're

01:03:44.480 They're not even going to analyze whether there is a significant enough threat to

01:03:48.020 warrant it. That's what I'm a bit alarmed by. I expected more from our courts,

01:03:52.620 quite frankly. But let's talk, Lisa, if we could,

01:03:55.080 about the case that you're taking forward on long-term care.

01:03:58.220 And I want to pose something to you that I find really troubling.

01:04:02.060 And this is, again,

01:04:02.860 why I'm convinced that doctors and health services should not be

01:04:07.580 responsible for these kinds of pandemic management

01:04:12.320 exercises because it appears to me and you see that i think you see it play out the worst

01:04:16.400 in new york as well as in in quebec it's like they panicked because they worried they were

01:04:22.660 not going to have hospital capacity they pushed out those who were who who were of senior age

01:04:29.080 into long-term care facilities without testing whether they were covid positive or not

01:04:33.200 and that sold the seeds for a lot of the infections in quebec and in and in new york which

01:04:39.040 of course, it's the exact opposite of what Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is suggesting that we do. Rather

01:04:44.780 than protect the most vulnerable and make sure that the virus doesn't get into those facilities,

01:04:49.840 government actions actually push the virus into them. And I have to wonder, I mean, that goes

01:04:54.700 beyond charter. That almost seems like a criminal violation to me. And so I want to see how you're

01:04:59.360 arguing this case. How do you see it? Yeah. So actually, that was a fairly limited case that we

01:05:05.060 launched in terms of long-term care. And it is on hold at the moment because basically the

01:05:09.680 government backed down on the thing that we were pushing for, which was to get essential family

01:05:13.560 caregivers back in. So just to back up a little bit, the Justice Centre hasn't just been launching

01:05:19.040 court cases throughout. We've been doing a lot of other things too. And of course, we've been

01:05:23.200 trying to educate people and we've been doing publications and writing articles and podcasts

01:05:26.940 and just dealing with people writing to us. Our staff has been just absolutely inundated and

01:05:34.500 overwhelmed over the last year. And many of the lawyers are trying to answer as many legal

01:05:38.700 questions and just, and sometimes they're not even legal questions, but just people reaching out

01:05:43.920 because they don't know who else to turn to. So back in the spring, we started putting up on our

01:05:50.400 website, some lockdown harms stories. And that really became quickly overwhelmed by long-term

01:05:55.340 care stories. People were being kept out from seeing those, their loved ones. And, you know,

01:06:01.160 these were people, by the way, many of whom actually provided care on a regular basis to

01:06:06.400 elderly relative. And that care, I think the number I was told one time, if you were to pay

01:06:12.620 for the level of care that family members provide to their loved ones, you know, across Canada,

01:06:18.040 it totals like $7 billion or something. It's a massive amount of investment of personal time

01:06:23.360 and care into these residents that they don't otherwise get. And so if the family members are

01:06:28.900 kept out that care doesn't typically happen you know there's it's a stopgap to because most of

01:06:34.580 these facilities are understaffed chronically understaffed and then of course when you've got

01:06:38.260 a situation where you're now having to quarantine people who may have been exposed your staffing

01:06:43.740 levels drop even further because you've got part staff because somebody has to sit home for 14 days

01:06:50.260 even though they're they may be feeling well so there have been all kinds of issues but keeping

01:06:54.920 the family caregivers out was uh over six months at least was um in ontario i mean it's still

01:07:01.800 actually happening in bc to some degree and i'm not sure about other provinces but it was a

01:07:06.600 carte blanche decision to keep everybody out and um anyway we we started a judicial review because

01:07:13.640 what happened was there was a lot of finger pointing back and forth between the government

01:07:16.920 and the long-term care homes the long-term care homes would say well uh the government

01:07:22.520 you know is the one that's telling us we can't we can't let anybody in and then the government

01:07:26.920 was saying well the long it's up to the long-term care homes they can decide

01:07:30.200 um so the families were caught in the middle you know i'm curious to ask you what you what you your

01:07:36.840 conclusion might be out of out of what we observe because it's it's interesting to me no one really

01:07:42.600 asked the seniors in care what they wanted and i i think they probably broke down in the same way

01:07:48.040 the general public did i bet that there were some who had felt they'd lived a good long life they

01:07:52.520 were having serious health issues and the most important thing for them was to be able to see

01:07:56.600 their loved ones so that they could maintain that zest for life in their final days and maybe they

01:08:00.840 weren't that worried about getting covet but then there were others who wanted to lock down and it

01:08:06.040 doesn't seem to me that we had a very nimble way of of responding to the the care needs and desires

01:08:12.840 of the of the people that the government was making decisions over is there is there anything

01:08:16.760 that you would suggest that needs to change in future based on what we saw because when you talk

01:08:22.500 about the long-term implications i suspect that there's and i've heard it from lots of people

01:08:28.140 i suspect some of the old dears who died of loneliness who died of heartbreak and whose

01:08:33.320 dementia got worse because they weren't getting the the ongoing stimulation of having family

01:08:37.880 around them that surely has got to count for something yes it should and and that is exactly

01:08:42.160 what was happening uh we we certainly uh had not just anecdotal evidence but there were experts who

01:08:47.920 were preparing reports on this too and and and advising the government telling the government

01:08:52.720 look you've got to let people in they are actually deteriorating in in these conditions and you know

01:08:58.480 they only have so many months or years left uh usually you know 12 to 18 months i think is about

01:09:03.840 the the average when people go into long-term care and uh and they're and they're wasting away

01:09:08.800 And there was actually, in some of the most egregious circumstances, actually starvation

01:09:13.440 and choking and, you know, there just wasn't the staff levels there to look after people

01:09:19.600 and the families couldn't find out what was going on.

01:09:21.920 Of course, families also were another pair of eyes on the operation, right?

01:09:27.600 So, you know, a lot of long-term care homes maybe were, if they were struggling or not

01:09:32.560 coping very well, were probably happy not to have the family members observing all of this

01:09:37.280 and and taking them to task so um but yeah we we launched a judicial review of the decisions that

01:09:46.640 the chief medical officer of health had made through a series of directives in which he

01:09:52.720 basically um kept out the essential family caregivers and while he would say at a news

01:09:59.600 conference well yes we think that's important they should get in it was never confirmed into

01:10:04.080 a directive um and so we challenged that we also raised the charter rights of the elderly people

01:10:11.840 and their their children as well as having been infringed we had two clients that that we put

01:10:16.480 forward by the way a lot of people did not want to actually sue sue on this or be appear to be

01:10:23.600 fighting the long-term care home because they worried there'd be some retribution against their

01:10:27.040 elderly relatives so you'd have a lot of people reaching out to us but they didn't actually really

01:10:31.040 want us to do anything with their name on it just because it was nerve-wracking for them.

01:10:36.000 So shortly after we filed our judicial review in August and we news released it, we had to wait

01:10:44.640 because the courts were actually still closed at that time, which was also quite a galling thing

01:10:48.960 to have all these infringements of our fundamental freedoms and not have access to the courts without

01:10:55.040 getting permission right so no you couldn't just walk down to the to the um court clerk and get

01:11:00.800 your application stamped and and just go you had to go to a judge who would assess whether it was

01:11:06.240 sufficiently urgent to be allowed to proceed so there's this whole other layer of you know

01:11:11.440 discretion which is which is not great for the rule of law either right um so the a judge did

01:11:19.040 decide on september the 11th that we had that we could go ahead but in the meantime the government

01:11:25.600 had had put out policy directives that explicitly allowed essential caregivers back in suddenly

01:11:32.080 everybody was in and we just put things on hold for a bit because you you run into the risk you're

01:11:37.600 going to get a mootness argument you know you get to the court and the court's going to say well

01:11:40.720 issue you they're all they're all in they're not with many of the things that the government has

01:11:45.600 done when we have sued or threatened to sue they have backed off behind the line a little bit uh

01:11:51.920 they've corrected the worst most egregious overreach but it's never been enough that you

01:11:56.320 know a lot of essential caregivers are still still having a lot of problems it's not perfect some of

01:12:01.840 them are getting uh those tests up their nose every single day every day you can imagine that

01:12:07.040 to be able to see their elderly loved ones um and the staff don't have that you know so there's an

01:12:12.400 arbitrariness there too that's that's quite appalling but

01:12:15.680 but at least they're in and at least you know they are providing that care

01:12:19.600 again in most cases so so you know we'll bring

01:12:22.880 it back if we need to and we may need to but at the moment

01:12:26.480 things are sort of okay on that front well less than

01:12:31.520 before before i move back to jay tell me a little more about

01:12:35.600 um i gather there's a hundred cases that you've taken on of people who

01:12:39.760 receive fines you gave the example of the pokemon couple

01:12:42.880 and i wonder if there are any other examples you want to give because

01:12:46.160 one of the things that i often get asked especially by people who

01:12:49.280 are i i live in a town where we've got a lot of snowbirds

01:12:53.360 and they left before any of the restrictions came in and they leave for

01:12:56.640 an extended period of time but now that we're getting into spring

01:12:59.680 that they normally come back and they're saying do i have to

01:13:02.880 accept that thing shoved up my nose uh do i have to can't don't i have a

01:13:07.760 charter right to come back into my country

01:13:09.920 and so chris sky is kind of a bit of an instagram

01:13:13.120 phenom he filmed himself coming into the airport

01:13:16.960 saying uh section 14 one of the quarantine act

01:13:20.640 you cannot put anything invasive in me to take a test to determine if i'm sick

01:13:24.800 section 6.1 of the charter i have a right to come into my country

01:13:29.120 uh he took the 1200 fine and he said this is going to be thrown out

01:13:33.440 So come in, express your rights, know the law, accept the fine, and then challenge the fine.

01:13:39.780 I don't want to give people incorrect information if that's too risky, but heck, you know, I'd take a $1,200 fine over a $2,000 COVID jail coming in at a mandatory stay at one of the hotels.

01:13:52.220 So what's your assessment of whether some of these fines are actually going to hold up in the end?

01:13:58.260 A lot of them will not.

01:13:59.420 A lot of them won't be prosecuted. 0.99

01:14:01.360 You know, there were some really dumb ones at the beginning. 0.90

01:14:03.440 uh there was a kid that played basketball all by himself in a park in uh ottawa um and was charged 0.96

01:14:09.440 because he was off the path you know and has i don't think well they said they sent in their

01:14:14.480 their ticket is not guilty we said we'd represent them and that was back in i don't know when may

01:14:19.680 and we've never heard so chances are that one won't see the light of day and there'll be a lot

01:14:23.920 like that um already i suspect that some of the um even the ones for churches and so on will

01:14:31.040 will get thrown out. We don't know for sure. And if they're not, we'll challenge the,

01:14:35.360 we'll raise the constitutional arguments and challenge them. And same thing with these,

01:14:39.440 with these Snowbirds or whoever's coming back in and, you know, we are taking a lot of them.

01:14:46.400 A couple of our colleagues have a criminal law background, two new lawyers at the Justice Center,

01:14:51.840 and so they've been kept quite busy with all of these, with these tickets. But, you know,

01:14:57.280 know the capacity of the of the provincial offenses offices is not unlimited they uh you know they're

01:15:04.640 gonna have to call through a lot of these because the backlog is massive bearing in mind that the

01:15:08.960 courts were closed for at least six months in ontario the backlog for everything is just going

01:15:16.720 to be just massive i mean it's just it's it's hard to even get your head around it the idea that we

01:15:22.560 could just flick a switch and turn off a highly complex tightly wound society and then flick it

01:15:28.720 back on with no consequences i don't know what people were thinking we're seeing now of course

01:15:33.880 that cancer surgeries and and uh other types of surgeries were were all put on hold and and now

01:15:39.960 we're going to have a new crisis um with with cancer diagnoses that were missed or that people

01:15:46.060 couldn't get treatment for that they should have so the ctv needs to have a little breaking news

01:15:51.100 tally at the top of its screen uh indicating how many lockdown deaths there are and then i think

01:15:56.060 maybe people would get a bit of perspective but at the moment you know we're now we're now keeping

01:16:00.780 track of cases over two uh respiratory seasons and and and just keeping that fear porn going

01:16:08.060 with the with the daily case counts and people just can't calm down and look rationally and and

01:16:12.940 and understand uh relative risk and the fact that uh you know this is a virus that primarily

01:16:20.060 attacks people who are extremely elderly and extremely frail and near death and not always

01:16:27.580 but there's always a risk right even flu can sometimes take down a healthy young person

01:16:32.300 um so anyway i digress but we know it's a great point i'm glad you raised that point as well

01:16:38.460 that when we do flu watch it resets every year you're not just accumulating all the flu cases

01:16:45.660 that have existed since the time of the spanish flu there's sort of a recognition that we have

01:16:49.900 a respiratory virus season and that sounds like it's been completely thrown out the window with

01:16:53.980 the way they report the coven stuff so i'm glad you raised that point anything else you're working

01:16:58.140 on lisa before i go back to you i don't want to miss out on any of the the cases that you've taken

01:17:01.980 on because you you've given us some great context and great stories yeah so so as i said i've mainly

01:17:07.820 been working with the religious some of the religious communities um partly with their tickets

01:17:13.420 although our colleagues are now handling those um but a couple of them did get into some trouble

01:17:18.940 by having services when they were not supposed to and so we had some contempt

01:17:22.700 proceedings we had to deal with with one church

01:17:24.940 and uh so in two cases the church of god and in trinity bible chapel

01:17:29.340 in waterloo um the government actually got an enforcement order against them

01:17:33.660 telling them basically you know like they must have concluded that the tickets

01:17:37.900 weren't during the job so this was to to tell them you have to

01:17:40.780 follow the rules and uh it's very easy for them to get such

01:17:44.380 an order and they did and then breaching it then puts you in the

01:17:47.340 position where you may be found in contempt and so that did happen with one with one of the churches

01:17:52.300 and they had an eighty three thousand dollar uh fine for their one service um that included the

01:17:58.700 court costs of the of the church and that's on top of the potential fines that they may have

01:18:03.180 which could and this won't happen they're not going to they're not going to end up paying the

01:18:07.340 full fine but the the potential on the books for these fines for the elders and for the church

01:18:13.420 itself are into like the tens of millions of dollars of potential fines for having three

01:18:19.260 services okay so it's uh it's outrageous and draconian now the enforcement orders both uh

01:18:26.380 have a clause that allow you to um allow us to bring a motion to set them aside and we're doing

01:18:32.700 that on constitutional grounds so we're challenging restrictions in both of those cases

01:18:38.460 uh as being arbitrary and unconstitutional so for the one church there was a a 10 person cap

01:18:45.180 this was when we were in the gray or um shut down zones and which the whole province was under for

01:18:51.500 about six weeks over the after after christmas um so that regulation the the church has to abide by

01:19:00.380 and the government just as of monday has changed that 10 person cap now in the law to be a 15

01:19:07.260 capacity limit so it changes all the time like there wasn't really any science to say it should 0.61

01:19:11.660 be and if your church holds a thousand people you know it's a stupid thing to say you can only have

01:19:16.540 10 people um they should have in capacity limits all along but 15 is still very arbitrary uh and

01:19:23.980 even in our most open zone um which is not very open really it's still a 30 cap so so with both

01:19:33.980 of those will be challenging the the constitutionality of this arbitrary

01:19:38.220 um limit on churches which is not applied to other organizations or

01:19:42.540 businesses or you know it's it's it's um

01:19:47.180 the churches other businesses do have limits and small businesses have been

01:19:51.420 treated quite badly in all of this but uh they don't have the constitutional

01:19:56.060 arguments that the churches do so that's well you're so right you know i

01:19:59.100 often i have to shop quite a bit at costco and my husband and i have both

01:20:02.540 said have you ever been stopped do you do they do a counter are we sure that they're below their 15

01:20:08.140 and it doesn't look like it's being enforced at quite the same level in retail shops as it is in

01:20:13.260 churches so so i think it's such a great point why are they being treated so differently lisa thanks

01:20:18.300 so much for that let's let's go back to jay cameron for a couple of questions a bunch that have come

01:20:22.860 in online and a ton of comments and thank you all for for commenting but but jay i'm feeling more

01:20:28.220 and more unease as i'm hearing from allison and i'm hearing from lisa and i'm hearing from you

01:20:33.420 it feels like anarchy it feels like we don't actually know who's in charge we don't know

01:20:40.060 who or how decisions are being made and there's no level of accountability or oversight the

01:20:45.740 politicians aren't overseeing and holding their health officials to account the courts aren't

01:20:50.780 holding the politicians to account and if you don't even have a standard of how serious a virus

01:20:58.380 needs to be before you do these kinds of measures every single flu season they could do this to us

01:21:04.140 i mean i'm going to quote dr dina hinshaw because she when she was at a moment where she was i think

01:21:09.820 talking about balancing lives and livelihoods she said that covet carries a risk that is much

01:21:15.580 much greater if you're over the age of 70 with pre-existing conditions it's about the same risk

01:21:23.100 as flu if you're between 40 and 70 and it's vanishingly small is what she said the risk of

01:21:29.420 death is vanishingly small if you're below the age of 40. and so for them to justify taking this

01:21:36.060 these kinds of measures with this kind of virus i don't see a pathway out of this jay i'm so feeling

01:21:42.780 i'm feeling very uneasy with this conversation what put me at ease if you would you should feel

01:21:48.700 uneasy the answer is is that uh what is occurring is an overturning of democratic checks and

01:21:56.140 balances it is rule of uh by dictatorship by medical dictatorship and not by constitution

01:22:03.900 and i i want to i want to give you a couple of quotes here uh one of them is from uh baron de

01:22:10.300 montesquieu who in his 1748 treaties called the spirit of laws said that where the executive is

01:22:17.500 combined with the legislature there can be no liberty and uh in in canadian uh governance

01:22:24.900 you have three powers you have the legislature they make laws you have the executive they 0.75

01:22:29.940 implement laws and you have the judiciary who kicks their butt if they if they do it uh in

01:22:34.580 outside of the Constitution. And with COVID, you see a breaking down of the separation between the

01:22:44.600 legislature and the executive because you have that power vested in one individual. And as Montesquieu

01:22:51.520 said, there can be no liberty because you have rule by authoritarianism. The other thing that

01:22:58.440 I would point out that ought to cause alarm to all Canadians is the observation and the finding

01:23:06.000 by the Supreme Court of Canada that the governance model in Canada rests on the premise that there

01:23:12.420 is consent of the government. And so, you know, some people will say, well, that's an American

01:23:16.920 concept. It's not. The Supreme Court of Canada has said that the government derives its legitimacy

01:23:22.880 through the ongoing process of debate, through the ongoing process of checks and balances,

01:23:29.100 whereby the citizens see themselves represented in the laws that are being passed. If you lose

01:23:33.560 that debate, if you lose that dialogue, government itself loses its legitimacy. That's what the

01:23:39.480 Supreme Court of Canada has said. Can you talk a little more about freedom? Because I've got

01:23:45.580 someone who clearly is not persuaded by our arguments. They're asking the question,

01:23:49.880 what freedoms have you lost i mean i can speak personally i had a business that i had to close

01:23:54.760 down for two periods of two months i was supposed to go away for my 50th birthday and my 15th wedding

01:24:00.680 anniversary my husband's 56th birthday to mexico and the government cancelled my flight for me

01:24:05.880 i'm still not legally allowed to see my parents um otherwise they or i will face a 1200 fine

01:24:15.400 I'm still not allowed to see friends. Otherwise, we face a $1,200 fine

01:24:21.640 My like these are these are my yoga class was cancelled and I suppose people are saying oh, this is all trivial

01:24:28.480 But you know what?

01:24:29.460 This is kind of the essence of life is being able to see friends and family to be able to travel to be able to

01:24:36.940 Enjoy going out with the essence of life in a free society is not to have the right to just sit and do zoom calls and be

01:24:44.640 cloistered in your own home and only see your husband and your dogs. And so I just don't know

01:24:50.800 that people think that freedom matters anymore. It matters viscerally to me. But how would you

01:24:56.300 answer that person who says, ah, pasha, freedom, what freedoms have you really lost?

01:25:01.580 I think it's, you know, the individual who says that has a sad life, with all due respect.

01:25:07.560 You know, if you want to sit home and not do anything and not interact with people,

01:25:11.880 not see your loved ones and watch state propaganda um you know there's been a big media bailout to

01:25:17.880 the tune of 600 million dollars and you want to and you want to be constantly bombarded with

01:25:22.260 with the fear of cases um and you're okay with being told that you can't gather and that you

01:25:28.240 can't worship and you can't speak your protest when you lose your job at the legislature and

01:25:33.480 if that's the society you want to live in then i guess you're perfectly content um you're basically

01:25:38.960 a boiled frog in the pot, and you don't realize what you've lost and what you've traded.

01:25:45.000 You've traded something very precious, which is liberty for the illusion of security.

01:25:50.340 And like Benjamin Franklin said, people who are willing to trade liberty for a little

01:25:55.760 bit of safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

01:25:59.680 So, I mean, that's what I would say to that.

01:26:02.100 I mean, if you think about what people have lost, these aren't abstract things.

01:26:07.620 And this goes back to the fact that we recognize individual rights for a reason.

01:26:13.240 If you're an individual who had a parent or a loved one, a spouse dying in hospital, and you are deprived from sharing that person's last moments, you've learned you've lost a whole heck of a lot.

01:26:25.440 And so I don't think that we should trivialize the loss of people's jobs and the loss of their businesses and their retirement and the deaths of their children by suicide.

01:26:33.720 And, you know, the loss of their domestic tranquility is nothing.

01:26:36.980 um wake up and smell the oppression that's what i would say let me see if allison and lisa want 0.53

01:26:43.120 to add to that because you're making this argument in the court about why freedom matters

01:26:47.440 in an environment where we've got people questioning about why does freedom matter

01:26:52.460 well absolutely i mean i i know someone recently who called me out of the blue uh in tears saying

01:27:02.940 that a parent had a very serious medical episode and was in the hospital in Manitoba and the

01:27:12.480 family was not allowed to go in and and see her at the hospital and this this person was very

01:27:19.820 distraught not knowing if if her loved one was going to survive his loved one was confused and

01:27:26.180 alone in the hospital and there are these policies well you can't go in because of COVID well

01:27:32.140 Well, I mean, that's devastating to family members and to the person who wakes up in

01:27:37.400 the hospital not knowing what happened.

01:27:39.600 And now they're alone and they don't know if they're going to go home again.

01:27:43.300 And it's just, we hear stories like this all the time.

01:27:46.520 I have people calling us and I take these calls and it's heartbreaking.

01:27:51.520 I have grown adults, men and women crying to me on the phone about situations in long-term

01:27:58.860 care homes and not being able to visit and that kind of thing and then you have uh you have these

01:28:04.780 these restrictions on on protesting and you know we're not advocating for people to riot at the

01:28:11.100 legislature but it's it's fundamental to our canadian society and to democracy to be able to

01:28:17.980 to stand there with other like-minded people who are who are want to express their their

01:28:25.020 frustration and anger in a in a peaceful manner as to what is what is happening and how their

01:28:30.220 freedoms are being taken away and that's something that that you know people historically are doing

01:28:36.300 in in democracy you you take to the streets and you you protest and that's something that we

01:28:41.740 treasure as canadians and and these orders that say you can't have more than five people standing

01:28:46.940 together outside completely restricts that ability and that is completely undemocratic

01:28:52.220 Lisa, let me get you in on sort of the last word on this topic of freedom and why it matters.

01:29:01.340 Because it's remarkable to me that just prior to COVID, we were all expressing outrage at China

01:29:07.500 clamping down on the Hong Kong democracy protesters. We were covering that daily. We were

01:29:14.860 saying how outrageous it was that people didn't have a right to stand up and talk about their

01:29:19.340 democratic freedoms and then whoops we've all kind of gone and done the same thing how are we 0.52

01:29:24.380 now supposed to hold china to account if everybody else has followed the exact same approach that

01:29:28.780 they've taken in the face of of this threat and so what i what i wonder is have we seen sort of a

01:29:35.660 fundamental turning away of the desire for freedom and can we get it back i mean if we want to get

01:29:44.060 it back what are the arguments to get it back well just um i'm probably not going to make your

01:29:51.180 uh your audience feel very encouraged by what i'm about to say but i think this is this whole

01:29:58.780 um experience over the last year is overlaid on a society that was already rejecting freedom

01:30:04.860 very dramatically i mean i've been following the culture war uh for the last number of years um

01:30:11.660 getting on close to a decade and just watching the uh increasing requirement that everybody be

01:30:20.060 have a consensus viewpoint that anybody who had a different view had to be shut down canceled you

01:30:26.540 know this is the kind of stuff we were busy with before covet we already were in a society where

01:30:31.740 we were stopping we were no longer valuing the the freedom to be able to to have a conversation

01:30:38.060 to say you know what i don't agree with what you say but you know i respect the right for you to

01:30:43.420 have your own opinion or i mean how long has it been since you've heard canada is a free country

01:30:47.820 or um yeah i don't agree with you but that's okay like we don't if somebody doesn't agree with us

01:30:55.200 now we have to make sure that they never work again you know we were already in a society that

01:31:01.380 was throwing away the idea of individual rights and freedom for certain people by the way i mean

01:31:06.600 And it's increasingly people who are more sort of centrist or to the right are being curtailed and not allowed to have perspectives and viewpoints that differ from the consensus viewpoint, which is typically more on the left.

01:31:23.060 And so, again, not to get overly political, but I think what we were primed for was when this pandemic came along, we were already primed for a society that is functioning on narrative rather than facts and evidence.

01:31:37.820 on a media that has lost the ability to do investigative reporting because they have grown

01:31:44.860 up in and been produced in a culture at university and in their you know early stages of their career

01:31:52.320 in an environment that does not encourage you know free thinking or they've learned to be activists

01:31:59.700 and the whole COVID thing became something to be activistic about and so

01:32:07.800 this isn't really just about a disease and an inappropriate we think reaction

01:32:14.340 to that disease we have superimposed this onto an already sick society and

01:32:20.160 unfortunately we are now in a new era and I think it will be a

01:32:26.100 generation before we see freedom again in the way that we think we should um but it isn't just

01:32:32.500 covid covid is just exacerbating it and pushing it along a little bit further holy cow lisa you

01:32:38.020 have depressed me a generation before we go back to the kind of freedom that i used to enjoy i'm not

01:32:43.540 sure if my colleagues share that view i tend to view the world darkly but um i'm not terribly

01:32:48.580 optimistic right now well when you go to when you turn away from freedom and you go into darkness

01:32:52.900 it can last centuries or in the case of communism it lasted over 50 years and so it's not unreasonable

01:32:57.940 to think that it could last a long period of time let me go back to jay because i suppose the next

01:33:03.060 battle to be fought is on this issue of whether they're going to create vaccine passports and

01:33:09.540 they're going to make having a vaccine and proof of vaccine a right of entry to go into public

01:33:16.260 spaces and go to concerts and travel and i'm i'm just wondering about the legality of that i mean

01:33:22.660 did we forget what the nuremberg code was supposed to be about did we forget that one of the i looked

01:33:28.020 it up today because i was writing my column on it and it was american a jurist sitting in judgment

01:33:35.220 of the nazi medical officers who performed experiments on people against their will and

01:33:40.740 the first principle is that a person has a right to voluntarily refuse to participate in a medical

01:33:47.860 experiment and so look i'm no anti-vaxxer i'm interested in the technology we've done a segment

01:33:53.300 on health but it makes me uneasy that um because i know that there's probably at least a third of

01:33:59.300 people out there who are hesitant based on the surveys that i've seen how how is it up to me or

01:34:04.740 government or a health official or the court to force somebody to take a jab in their arm of a

01:34:11.300 brand new experimental type of vaccine approach that we've never seen before i just i'm i'm sort

01:34:16.260 of baffled that we've forgotten the history and we've forgotten the precedent does that not even

01:34:21.940 matter anymore jay where do you think that one's going yeah i i think that it's the uh vaccine

01:34:28.820 passports establish a two-tier society you have second-class citizens uh you have people around

01:34:37.140 the world who are very well informed nurses and doctors and other health professionals scientists

01:34:42.820 And they're saying, you know what, we've been in the health context, we've been in the hospitals

01:34:46.920 for 12 months. We either had COVID and recovered, or we never got COVID, or we were asymptomatic,

01:34:53.580 and it never mattered to us, we just kept on trucking. We don't want the vaccine.

01:34:58.400 Statistically, the data shows that 99.7% of people who contract COVID recover. And so they're saying

01:35:05.180 these nurses and doctors, and these are nurses and doctors, okay, these aren't fringe people,

01:35:08.620 these aren't conspiracy theorists, these are people working in the medical profession,

01:35:11.720 they're saying, why would we take this? That's a good question. And how can you impose it on us?

01:35:18.060 Yeah. And in a constitutional fashion, I know that the Israeli Supreme Court

01:35:22.780 excoriated the judgment, the Israeli government in a judgment that was handed down either yesterday

01:35:29.320 or today, and basically said, you cannot do this, you cannot have these restrictions without

01:35:35.400 demonstrable scientific evidence. And that's part of the problem with what's been going on here,

01:35:40.580 Danielle. You have no requirement for these public health officials to justify their decisions to

01:35:46.720 the legislature, to provide a report, to provide updates. The legislature is not comprised of

01:35:51.620 doctors. You know, if you go to a doctor and the doctor says, we need to amputate your left leg,

01:35:56.180 and while we're in there, we're probably going to take your right leg too, you would go get a second

01:35:59.640 opinion, and that would be your right. But these doctors, they're not being provided with the basis

01:36:05.800 for these decisions that are being made.

01:36:09.040 There's no requirement for any report to be given.

01:36:11.440 There's no requirement for them to take up that report

01:36:14.280 and consider it and debate it

01:36:15.620 or hold it open for public consultation.

01:36:18.680 And so we see the same type of thing

01:36:21.100 with the unilateral exercise of the federal government,

01:36:24.360 of the federal cabinet,

01:36:25.840 with respect to some of these entrance requirements

01:36:30.280 into Canada.

01:36:31.100 By the way, the Justice Centre has challenged

01:36:33.480 the constitutionality of the hotel of the federal facility requirement. But the idea that the

01:36:41.720 federal government would impose this restriction of this requirement to have a vaccine passport

01:36:48.280 would violate a host of charter provisions. And the Justice Center is absolutely committed

01:36:54.760 to fighting such a measure. That is not going to happen unchallenged on our watch.

01:37:00.840 Allison do you do you know if Dr. Jay Bhattacharya has anything to say about

01:37:05.960 that is that going to form any basis of his discussion it seems it's a bit of a

01:37:10.560 sidebar but he's done a lot of a lot of writing is there is there any

01:37:13.680 additional medical observations that you can share with us that he's made on the

01:37:19.400 vaccine issue I know that you know himself and his and his the other two

01:37:26.240 physicians that signed the that wrote the Great Barrington Declaration you know they're they've

01:37:32.000 come out and said they encourage the elderly and the immunocompromised to get vaccinated but they

01:37:39.440 also on the other hand don't believe in mandatory and forced vaccination as well so they they see

01:37:46.320 vaccines as a way to end the lockdowns and end the pandemic but certainly would agree that it

01:37:53.840 shouldn't be forced upon people so yeah that's that's his that's their their position as they

01:37:58.960 publicly stated it lisa just an observation from you what happens if we do go there how is there

01:38:05.920 what would be the the method of of being able to say no thank you because i'll tell you the way i

01:38:10.320 think it's going to come in at first i think it's going to be employers requiring their staff to get

01:38:17.920 it as a condition of employment because i've already seen employment lawyers weigh in on this

01:38:22.560 and I think we've already seen it in the medical profession that there's sort of a requirement

01:38:28.220 that you get vaccinated and I don't know that there's a method for people to get exemptions

01:38:34.400 are you are you able to are you hearing any of those cases yet just as a bit of a preview to

01:38:39.340 what we might be facing and is there anything that you would recommend people do if they're

01:38:44.600 finding that their employer is putting that kind of pressure on them well because the justice

01:38:49.480 center deals with infringements by the government we don't usually get into the employment situation

01:38:54.040 but you're absolutely right i think that's what's going to be what's going to usher it in is is that

01:38:58.520 there will be a lot of demand in the in the private sector and that'll um there'll be apps

01:39:03.320 that will be developed that already are where you can keep track of these kinds of things too so

01:39:07.960 it'll it'll also extend other things that are not necessarily government but you know um to go into

01:39:13.240 a a concert or um to get on an airplane or whatever you'll have to probably show your your

01:39:18.600 covid passport and of course given that uh the evidence well i mean what we've heard is that

01:39:25.480 this doesn't necessarily end the problem of transmissibility of the virus and that's why

01:39:30.760 we have to keep wearing our masks and all this afterwards it makes absolutely no sense it's

01:39:35.080 almost like um it's almost like like the vaccine is is like a tamiflu or something it helps alleviate

01:39:41.000 the symptoms that you personally experience but doesn't necessarily i mean i think there's evidence

01:39:46.200 that, you know, it does cut down on transmission to some degree, but it isn't the primary purpose

01:39:51.520 of this. And so to then force everybody to have it is, it doesn't seem to me, and I'm not a

01:39:58.300 scientist, and I haven't studied this thoroughly. So I'll throw that caveat out. But it just seems

01:40:04.180 to me that the evidence for it isn't that strong. But again, it's this consensus view, and there's

01:40:10.620 a certain morality that is associated with it now. And so that's why everybody has to get on

01:40:16.040 this bandwagon or you're a bad person. So I'm worried that if we, and again, you know me now

01:40:23.540 well enough to know I'm going to take you someplace dark, but if we have these passports

01:40:27.980 now for something like a vaccine, how many steps away from the social credit score

01:40:36.040 in China are we? Really, not very far. No, you can't get on this airplane because you don't have

01:40:44.100 the vaccine passport oh no you can't go to that bank and do business because you said something

01:40:51.040 that we think was inappropriate and your credit score is is very low um you know we're just it's

01:40:58.200 a path right it's a progression and as soon as you infuse a decision a policy decision like this

01:41:03.060 with a morality which is i really think is is what's driving this uh you just open the door

01:41:08.440 to all other kinds of things being snuck in under the same guys down the line so we have to be

01:41:14.300 vigilant about this you might say well it's just you know it's just it's just this one thing it

01:41:19.180 isn't just going to be one thing well and this is where I'm worried about Jay about where this goes

01:41:23.780 I mean as a business owner I have to have certain privacy rules that I ascribe to if I collect

01:41:30.020 people's data if they make a reservation in my system that's how seriously the government takes

01:41:35.180 the issue of privacy and now i'm supposed to ask them if they've been vaccinated and if they haven't

01:41:41.020 been vaccinated i'm supposed to find out what medical condition that they have that uh precludes

01:41:46.220 them from getting vaccinated this seems like an enormous invasion of privacy i just i don't even

01:41:52.460 know why we're actively entertaining this conversation how how how would how would you be

01:41:57.740 able to mesh that approach with what we've developed uh this this massive amount of privacy

01:42:03.900 legislation we have even remember it was uh not that long ago but they were taking the names off

01:42:09.260 school pictures and school trophies because they wanted to protect the privacy of kids

01:42:13.820 now we're actually we're going to have any business owner able to access medical records

01:42:19.740 of their patrons this seems to be like a complete 180 and i'm i'm not sure how how the government

01:42:25.100 reconciles that well you know privacy laws are very strict if you've ever called the hospital

01:42:31.260 and asked about your buddy coming out of surgery and been told, well, sorry, we can't tell you

01:42:36.940 anything about his surgery or his information. That's private. So the health records are very,

01:42:43.960 very strict, those privacy requirements. However, during COVID, a lot of that went out the window.

01:42:50.100 And, you know, for example, Minister Shandro unilaterally passed this order, issued this

01:42:59.700 order, pursuant to the power that he received under Bill 10, giving the RCMP access to all of

01:43:05.200 your health records. And, you know, that wasn't debated. It overrode countless legislative

01:43:11.600 schemes in the province of Alberta, and it was done instantaneously with no debate,

01:43:16.740 no consideration. And so, I mean, if you're a 78-year-old woman, for example, and you live with

01:43:21.380 your kids, and maybe you had COVID, well, why do the police need to know that? You've already

01:43:26.620 recovered from covid um you know why why should they why should they be aware um and don't you

01:43:33.020 have a say in it and so i i think that there's a real slippery slope that has developed here and

01:43:38.780 it's just sort of snowballed and picked up speed and um where it stops i think to a significant

01:43:45.820 extent danielle is up to the citizens of canada i think you're right okay i'm going to see if we can

01:43:51.020 uh start with the the gloomiest most pessimistic person on the panel and then work our way

01:43:55.500 backwards so lisa you know i'm talking about you now

01:43:58.460 let's let's try to paint kind of the um the worst case scenario about

01:44:04.460 where this ends up because i guess what i'm

01:44:08.140 fearing based on what you're saying is that the courts are being very

01:44:12.220 deferential because somebody wears a doctor's gown and has the

01:44:16.220 the the initials behind their name and i'm

01:44:19.580 worried that they're not going to be the the bulwark against

01:44:23.340 this advancement that I had expected them to be. So what does that look like? If you don't win

01:44:30.060 these cases, what does that mean for the regime that is now in place and what it would look like

01:44:36.260 when another virus, when SARS-CoV-3 or SARS-CoV-4 ends up coming up in the future years?

01:44:45.300 Well, it doesn't bode well, but remember that if we get a couple of bad decisions,

01:44:50.220 we don't have to stop there. We can work our way up to the appeal process. You know, I think that

01:44:55.000 at some point, the Supreme Court of Canada will have to rule on some of these things. But that

01:44:59.940 will take time, you know, we won't get there for a little while. And I also think that once the,

01:45:05.660 so I'm going to actually say something positive, because I don't want to jinx, I really don't want

01:45:09.740 to jinx our cases. I'm, you know, I'm in it to win it, right? So we all are. And we're doing what

01:45:15.420 we can, but we don't have a control over the situation. I think that it may take a little

01:45:22.820 while. It may take a few years even, but at some point, you know, people will kind of look back on

01:45:29.780 this with a bit more objectivity, I'm hoping, and maybe there'll be an inquiry. I think there should

01:45:35.060 be at some sort of a public inquiry as to how all of this was handled, why we threw all of our

01:45:40.580 pandemic plans out the window the minute we got scared and um and did everything completely wrong

01:45:46.920 and did not apply the precautionary principle to the thing that was totally different about what

01:45:51.480 we'd ever thought we would do in the face of a pandemic but we applied it to everything else

01:45:56.000 um and so there's going to be a lot of reckoning it just takes a little while you know i think

01:46:03.500 i don't want to people have legitimate reasons for thinking about this the way that they do

01:46:09.820 And so I don't mean to condemn those who have been kind of caught up in the media or have a different opinion from the way I look at things, because I think all of our views kind of crystallized at a certain point early on in this.

01:46:22.680 And we're all kind of stuck in the views that we had at that point.

01:46:27.040 It's hard to get out of that.

01:46:28.580 So I'm not saying that everybody is mad, but I will say that there is a madness of the crowd that has enveloped us a little bit.

01:46:38.020 and as the saying goes men become mad as a group but um you know we gain their sanity one by one

01:46:44.720 and so it will happen that we start to gain a little bit more objectivity and perspective on

01:46:50.120 all this it just may not be for a little a little while so i'm actually i want to leave a little bit

01:46:54.260 of a hopeful note that that um you know just because things are dark right now doesn't mean

01:47:00.200 they have to stay that way but but i think we have to work at it and i think we have to um not

01:47:04.220 just be accepting of everything and think through you know if we don't put the brakes on certain

01:47:09.720 things where they can lead so it is thank you thanks so much for that Lisa I'm landing on

01:47:15.100 an unoptimistic note I want to ask Allison a sort of a take on that question but maybe a little bit

01:47:21.900 of a different approach I'm getting the sense that there needs to potentially be

01:47:27.660 some revision in the legislation and I'll ask Jay this too I'm trying to figure out what would

01:47:34.200 make your case easier if politicians have come to the conclusion they've handed way too much power

01:47:39.560 over to their medical health officers how do you build in the protections i've interviewed

01:47:45.080 lieutenant colonel um david redmond and one of the things that he said is that in emergency

01:47:50.520 management and in military you're always very aware that the charter of rights and freedoms

01:47:55.880 exists and everything that you do has to has to be brought through that lens of minimal impairment

01:48:02.920 and so it seems to me like there are certain emergency management teams that have received

01:48:07.560 that training but i don't get the sense that doctors have it all and the people who are in

01:48:11.880 charge have it all and i wonder if maybe we need a legislative change to reassert that the charter

01:48:18.440 doesn't just disappear when we're in this in a health emergency do you have some thoughts on that

01:48:23.800 well yes in in manitoba you know we we brought a legal challenge to certain sections of the public

01:48:30.200 health act that grant what we say is extreme power to the chief medical health officer the public

01:48:36.440 health act of manitoba does contain a provision at the very start section three and what it says in

01:48:42.040 essence is that the the public health officer can only take measures that in that um that infringe

01:48:51.080 rights and freedoms uh as long in an emergency situation as long as doing so is reasonably

01:48:57.160 justified and when you look at the section 67 of the Public Health Act of

01:49:02.600 Manitoba you will see that extreme power is given to Dr. Rousin in this case

01:49:10.520 without any checks and balances and what we got into a sort of a debate with

01:49:15.100 our with our judge when we argued this issue and you know we were suggesting

01:49:20.620 that there should be some reporting requirement that the chief public health

01:49:25.920 officer be required in the legislation there's no provision there at the moment to provide the

01:49:32.160 science and the studies and the peer-reviewed studies that that he or she is relying on in

01:49:37.440 order to justify making these orders and right now there's there's absolutely nothing so you

01:49:43.040 know that was what we we got into it with with the judge and then and opposing counsel as to

01:49:48.320 there should be a reporting requirement that dr ruzin has to show uh the science to the

01:49:55.120 health minister who then will take that back to the legislature and there can be informed debate

01:50:00.960 and as you know jay cameron was speaking about earlier um the foundation of of democracy one of

01:50:06.800 foundations of democracy is is uh the discussion of dissenting opinions and the supreme court of

01:50:13.360 canada has said in the secession reference there cannot be a monopoly on the truth and that's what

01:50:18.800 we're saying that that is occurring here with these health officers is they've got a monopoly

01:50:23.840 on the truth and we say that because they're the ones who know what science they are or not relying

01:50:30.000 upon to justify these orders and the public is kept in the dark so that's what we asked for we

01:50:36.000 asked for uh the court to find that there that there should have been more checks and balances

01:50:41.520 that the public should be kept aware and kept abreast of the latest science and certainly if

01:50:47.520 if you think about it i mean wouldn't there be fewer clashes with with law enforcement

01:50:52.640 if people actually understood that there's science supporting, say, masks, what science is being

01:50:59.680 relied upon. We have tons of people emailing us saying they've got tickets because they are not

01:51:04.800 wearing masks and people are getting arrested at grocery stores for not wearing masks. But I think

01:51:09.200 part of that is that, you know, people, this is not normal. When in history have we ever had to

01:51:14.480 cover our faces in the face of a virus? And certainly if there was the stunning evidence

01:51:20.080 and science uh coming from uh these health officers uh to justify that you think that

01:51:26.480 people would be more willing uh to to accept that and and and go along with it and certainly there

01:51:33.200 will always be those who who want to rebel against authority but the the issue here is that the the

01:51:39.440 orders that are being placed on people are orders that uh say the way that we've been living our

01:51:45.600 lives is somehow unlawful now that's visiting family visiting friends um you know going going

01:51:53.120 to certain stores going to church all those basic activities uh having our faces free and

01:51:58.400 unencumbered to breathe are all of a sudden unlawful and people need to to understand the

01:52:04.400 basis for that and so you know we would say that these this act and at least in manitoba i know

01:52:10.000 similar challenges are happening in Alberta, that the act is deficient and that it doesn't

01:52:17.440 have that check and balance when you're going to give such extreme power to one person.

01:52:22.880 Completely. Now let's get Jada to sort of round it out on that because Bill 10 is the

01:52:28.320 one that you mentioned in Alberta as granting these kind of extreme powers to the health minister.

01:52:33.680 I'm sort of struck by some of the pieces of the health act that people have highlighted

01:52:39.280 and it seems like we always gave these kinds of extreme powers to health authorities in the past

01:52:45.680 and if you look back at the fact that they can order that immunization that they they can impose

01:52:53.680 health orders and quarantine i think a lot of this came from the smallpox era and the polio era

01:53:00.320 but this isn't smallpox or polio and so i guess this is the the question is that was someone

01:53:06.320 asleep at the switch did they just think that well let's put this on the books knowing that we

01:53:11.040 probably won't ever use it and then all of a sudden we were all taken by surprise because gosh

01:53:16.800 they did intend to use it so i'm trying to figure out if the court is being properly deferential to

01:53:23.280 the politicians and throwing it back into their court saying if you're going to change this you've

01:53:27.600 got to change it through legislation and what that would look like if they did can you comment on

01:53:32.160 that jay so much to say danielle uh i as the last stop uh and protector of the constitution we need

01:53:44.080 courts to question um you know unfortunately uh courts shut down during some of the worst of this

01:53:53.200 but they're open now and uh you know whereas some of this stuff made its way in front of us courts

01:53:59.040 earlier because they were open. It's just arriving at Canadian courts now. And we need our courts

01:54:03.720 to say, this far shall you go and no further. Canada is a free and democratic society.

01:54:11.540 You know, the idea that safety is the paramount priority and that safety is

01:54:16.080 the jurisdiction of the government is foreign to the constitution of this country. We're a long

01:54:23.300 ways in the public consciousness from Patrick Henry's statement about give me liberty or give

01:54:27.300 death. And yet that was the priority. And there were people who went to war, you know, 17, 18,

01:54:35.720 19 years old, a whole generation, they went to war and they sacrificed their lives because there

01:54:40.260 was something that was more important than safety. And, you know, complacency and the illusion of

01:54:46.440 safety and, you know, you make that the paramount concern and you lose everything. I mean, there's

01:54:52.300 this old saying, you may have heard it, when they cried, peace and safety, then sudden destruction

01:54:56.660 comes, and they will not escape. And so the idea that the government can protect you and can make

01:55:02.520 you safe, you know, and that that is more important than freedom, is a very, very dangerous and

01:55:08.000 slippery deception, in my view. And I would say that that is also the view espoused in the Canadian

01:55:14.980 Constitution, because it prizes freedom, and democracy, and liberty. And it makes those

01:55:21.280 things paramount and and uh unless you protect those principles from generation to generation

01:55:26.880 we are always just one generation away from losing them and so you know it's on us it's on it's on us

01:55:33.360 to decide i agree with you so tell me what you think the legislation should be if if they were

01:55:39.520 to realize that if if the courts let us down and they don't do as as you describe um when and we

01:55:46.080 do need to change legislation there's a few things popping out to me that we need to change one one

01:55:51.680 again comes from lieutenant colonel redmond is that the public health orders were always and

01:55:58.560 declaring a public health emergency was always intended for it to be localized that if you had

01:56:03.120 a local outbreak that you might need to manage locally then perhaps that's when you would put

01:56:08.320 the public health authority in charge there was never an intention to have them manage

01:56:13.360 a system-wide province-wide multifaceted emergency response that would take place for over a year

01:56:20.640 and so do we need to assert in law that when an emergency is declared it is the emergency

01:56:28.320 management that is responsible as opposed to the doctors do we need to curtail the doctors

01:56:34.560 do we need to add provisions into the act about reasonableness or an avenue for appeal or an

01:56:41.280 avenue to get expert evidence across the board from a multitude of perspectives. I'm trying to

01:56:46.860 see where we need to go with this to be more directive because I've been gravely disappointed

01:56:52.160 that doctors who have tried to speak up have been deplatformed or censored or threatened by their

01:56:58.140 colleges. And so we're not getting the full range of public discussion that we need to have. I've

01:57:03.240 been gravely disappointed that the courts are closed and so you guys aren't able to argue the

01:57:06.980 cases. And so it seems to me that there's a deficiency in law that needs to be corrected.

01:57:11.480 And what would that look like? A few things. And these are some of the submissions we made to the

01:57:17.040 Chief Justice of the Court in Manitoba in our delegation case, which was heard a few weeks ago.

01:57:23.000 First of all, you're right. Emergency circumstances need to be dealt with in a narrow and localized

01:57:28.080 fashion because they are unique. You have, even still, you have communities in Alberta that have

01:57:35.440 never seen a case of COVID. And yet they are laboring under the same type of oppressive

01:57:40.840 restrictions as the rest of the province. That's nonsensical. And incidentally, it is within the

01:57:47.260 power of the premier and his cabinet to bring a review of these measures, and they have not done

01:57:52.500 that. So the argument that the government makes and the argument that their lawyers are making

01:58:01.220 in court is, hey, this is a quickly evolving situation. We have to be able to act with speed.

01:58:07.040 Okay, so you act with speed in a localized fashion, maybe in a broad fashion if necessary,

01:58:11.980 but then you have to have review. If you want to pass an order that broadly infringes constitutional

01:58:18.340 rights and freedoms, you have to have a mechanism by which within a two-week period or a four-week

01:58:23.660 period, a report is tendered to the legislature outlining the basis for that decision, outlining

01:58:30.140 the latest data from international organizations and other scientific communities and bodies who

01:58:38.380 are saying maybe something different and how you took that into consideration, the impact of those

01:58:44.220 orders on the community, and then a requirement for the legislature to not only review that report,

01:58:49.820 but also to study and debate it. There is no requirement for the legislature to take up a

01:58:54.700 review of Dr. Hinshaw's orders. Just indefinitely, she has become the authority figure in the

01:59:00.400 province of Alberta, and that's the circumstance in other provinces. And so, you know, the timely

01:59:06.420 review is a mandatory thing that must occur. And then if there are changes that need to be made,

01:59:14.900 there has to be a requirement for the legislature to have a mechanism to implement those changes,

01:59:20.580 either by handing it back to the public health official or by implementing changes themselves,

01:59:24.540 which is their democratic obligation as the representatives of the people.

01:59:29.160 And lastly, Danielle, I would say that there cannot be an orthodoxy which is imposed by the government on the populace.

01:59:37.000 That has led to some of the most monstrous injustices in history.

01:59:41.340 And you have courageous people who are speaking up about what's going on, and they're saying, hey, hold on a second, we have questions.

01:59:47.640 the marketplace of ideas is predicated on the ability to question and the

01:59:52.800 legitimacy of government is is predicated on that debate occurring well

01:59:58.200 I'm so glad we had so much time to talk with all of you that was Jay Cameron

02:00:02.500 Alison Pachovic and Lisa Bildy of the Justice Center for constitutional

02:00:07.720 freedom I think we'll put up one more I'm gonna get Corey to come back and say

02:00:11.340 a quick goodbye to everybody but I think we're going to put one last note on the

02:00:15.820 on the board about how you can contribute it we we didn't even get to all of the cases that

02:00:20.480 they're covering as i mentioned i think they've got 11 staff lawyers now so jccf.ca donate they're

02:00:26.300 doing incredible work and they're one of the few organizations out there that are so if you've got

02:00:31.040 the means do support them because some of these things need to be argued eventually people will

02:00:36.140 come around to realizing that freedom matters and we might be able to to get to roll back some more

02:00:41.220 these restrictions that being said i think we also have um international freedom rallies taking

02:00:46.740 place i keep seeing different um postings for them so march the 20th it sounds like there are

02:00:52.260 a number of different uh activities going on rob anderson my former colleague in the legislature

02:00:59.220 he's going to be speaking at the one in car stairs so you can go online and check some of those out

02:01:03.460 if you've got the the interest it sounds to me like there's more and more activism taking place

02:01:07.700 so thank you all so much for the conversation tonight sure appreciate it thanks so much you

02:01:12.340 dania yeah and i think we've got corey morgan back and let me pass it back i should mention

02:01:18.980 corey we've got two more sessions that we're going to do on mond on tuesday we're going to be talking

02:01:24.020 to d platform doctors there's i think three that we've got lined up maybe four so we'll be doing

02:01:30.180 that on tuesday same place same time and then on thursday we've got members of the liberty caucus

02:01:35.220 so we can finish round things out by talking to the politicians about what they think needs to

02:01:39.460 change let me hand it back to you corey thanks once again for allowing me to host this event tonight

02:01:45.140 oh you bet and it was excellent so that's been another fantastic special and so informative and

02:01:49.940 thank you lisa and allison and jay for coming on dedicating this time there's just nowhere else you

02:01:55.620 can get such a long form platform to be able to lay out what is kind of a larger discussion issue

02:02:01.060 you know it's hard to do in conventional media this gives it such a great means to really dig

02:02:06.500 down deeper and to everybody who tuned in i mean some great commentary uh we have 20 to 30 times

02:02:13.220 more people watch these presentations after the fact than we do live so be sure to share this

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02:02:29.880 As Danielle said, there's more coming.

02:02:32.240 And subscribe to the Western Standard.

02:02:34.220 You know, we don't get those tax bucks.

02:02:36.780 So we do rely on you guys to be able to keep bringing these presentations to you.

02:02:41.320 And we'll let you back on with your evening tonight.

02:02:45.140 It's been a fantastic and productive one so far.

02:02:47.900 So thanks again.

02:02:48.720 And we'll see you next time.

02:02:49.920 See you next time.

02:02:51.180 Thanks.

02:02:58.100 Thank you.

Western Standard - March 19, 2021

UNCENSORED： Danielle Smith & the lawyers fighting the lockdown

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