Editor’s note: In this article originally published in the National Post, Barbara Kay rips the façade off Bill C-63 (https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/online-harms.html) to expose it for the totalitarian, freedom-crushing piece of legislation that it is. Increasingly, Western countries are using hate speech legislation to silence criticism of poorly thought-out government policies on matters such as immigration and multiculturalism and to prevent citizen reporting about their consequences. Canada is positioning itself as a leader in this censorial trend.
The wrapping to make the horror show that is Bill C-63 more palatable includes regulations against child pornography and online bullying, among other items already covered by the criminal code or that could easily be included as amendments. But the meat of the bill is in the proposed regulations that would crush free speech by empowering the federal cabinet to bypass Parliament in creating legislation and encourage grievance-mongers to make frivolous and malicious accusations without consequence, all while imposing draconian penalties on offenders, or people merely thought (by some anonymous person) to be likely to be an offender. Bill C-63 makes a mockery of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
We hope that readers of Barbara Kay’s article will sign our petition for Parliament to withdraw or (should it be passed) repeal this bill (it is now in second reading). We are currently seeking a member of Parliament to agree to authorize the online publication of our petition. We will notify our members when this has been done and also post the link to our petition on our website. We also invite you to write your member of Parliament and the prime minister to express your concerns. For Canadians who believe in freedom, now is the time to stand up.
Barbara Kay: Canadians can’t allow the online harms bill to snuff out free speechby Barbara Kay, National Post – September 8, 2024
Bill C-63 would punish mere expression and give draconian new powers to government. It’s unfit for a democracy
The sands of time were already running low for Justin Trudeau’s government. Jagmeet Singh’s just-announced withdrawal from their mutually supportive contract has widened the waist of the hourglass. Parliament resumes sitting on Sept. 16, and the Liberals will urgently seek to pass Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act, now in its second reading.
If passed in its present incarnation, this deeply flawed bill will drastically curtail freedom of speech in Canada (which, to be fair, is not an outlier on digital crackdowns in the West. Switzerland, of all places, just passed similar legislation).
We already have hate-crime laws in the Criminal Code that address advocacy for genocide, incitement of hatred and the wilful promotion of hatred. Apart from its laudatory intentions in removing online content that sexually victimizes children, Bill C-63 seeks to curb all online hate speech through unnecessary, inadvisable and draconian measures inappropriate to a democracy.
The law would create a new transgression: an “offence motivated by hated” which
would raise the maximum penalty for advocacy of genocide from five years to life
imprisonment. What kind of mindset considers the mere expression of hateful ideas as equivalent in moral depravity to rape and murder? Such instincts call to my mind the clever aperçu by anti-Marxist pundit David Horowitz that “Inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out.”
Another red flag: The law would give new powers to the federal cabinet to pass
regulations that have the same force as legislation passed by Parliament, and that
could, say, shut down a website. Unlike legislation, regulations created by cabinet do not require debate, votes or approval of Parliament. They can be decided in secrecy and come into force without public consultation or debate.
Yet another is the restoration of the “communication of hate speech” offence to the
Canadian Human Rights Act, a provision similar to the one repealed in 2012. Frivolous or malicious complaints could be made against persons or organizations, granting complainants significant potential for financial reward at no personal cost, win or lose. Moreover, under this law, a complainant’s sense of injury from published words would trump a defence of objective truth. This is an open invitation for myriad social malcontents and grievance-mongers to swarm the system, with no regard for the inevitable harm done to those who they target.
One group experiencing alarm for their survival under Bill C-63’s proposed strictures is the Canadian Citizens for Charter Rights and Freedoms (C3RF). C3RF educates Canadians about their Charter rights and freedoms, and proposes legislation and regulatory frameworks that guard freedom of expression. They have published numerous critical articles on topics such as gender ideology, critical race theory and vaccine mandates: hot-button issues that are sure to offend some person or group, and that a human rights tribunal might well deem hateful under the online harms law, worthy of punishment sufficient to shut them down altogether.
I’m a fan of C3RF’s founder and director, Royal Canadian Air Force Major (ret’d) Russ Cooper, a decorated CF-18 combat pilot, and an expert in the field of post-9/11 civil aviation security. Cooper came to my attention in 2017, when the House of Commons passed M-103, a non-binding motion, after some controversy. M-103 called for a “whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia.”
The government was eager to pass it quickly, but a significant number of concerned citizens balked at their unwillingness to define “Islamophobia.” Was it hatred of Muslims, or of Islam? If it was bigotry against Muslims, why wasn’t “anti-Muslim” good enough? The difference is existential.
As the Liberals’ stonewalling on the definition continued, it became clear to a significant swath of the population that if M-103’s wording was accepted in future legislation, the Trudeau government would effectively have facilitated an Islam entitlement, similar to others in Europe granted by the European Court of Human Rights to preserve “religious peace” (except it hasn’t). Cooper moved so swiftly and competently to harness their collective energy that Conservative MPs received upwards of 900,000 critical emails within a few days of the M-103 vote.
Since then, C3RF’s membership has swelled to tens of thousands embedded within a network of other like-minded freedom- and truth-seeking organizations. As Cooper told me in an email, “If there is one good thing you can say about the draconian measures foisted upon the regular folk of Canada in the days since M-103, it’s that these vexations have unified a whole new cadre of discerning citizens, tired of being pushed around and taken for granted.”
C3RF, in conjunction with allies like Veterans for Freedom and Act! for Canada, are
working on a House of Commons petition calling for the cancellation of Bill C-63. Once a parliamentary sponsor seizes that baton and sets it in motion, I will be sure to alert readers. It would be wonderful if it were signed by every one of the 32 per cent of Canadians a
Ethical doctors across Canada in recent years have been persecuted for telling the truth. Any doctor who went against the Covid narrative faced suspension or revocation of their license to practice, and their professional reputation was also attacked, making it unlikely they would ever work in their chosen field again.
Few in Canada have been more vocal in telling the truth than Dr. Mark Trozzi, who’s license was revoked last year.
Mark is represented before the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons by lawyer Michael Alexander, who has been working a very clever strategy since day one of the CPSO’s actions against Dr. Trozzi. A strategy that assumed that the CPSO would conduct a kangaroo court to punish Dr. Trozzi for speaking out against the narrative. Which they did. But it is a strategy that also backed the CPSO into a legal corner, in which justifying their persecution can only be done under violations of their own rules.
That strategy is about to come to fruition.
The CPSO, in the upcoming final hearing on the case of Dr. Mark Trozzi will either have to exonerate him and reinstate his license, or engage in an obvious gross miscarriage of justice in front of thousands of witnesses. With no justification whatsoever for their actions.
That hearing will take place on October 8th.
And this case carries far more significance than just Dr. Trozzi’s right to practice, and to do so in an ethical manner. With Bill C-293 before the Senate this fall, a bill which will pass into law the Pandemic Prevention and Preparedness Act, a draconian document that will enable our government to surveil, censor and control us all, to attack our food supply and our resources, our right to move freely, to dictate to us supposed health measures we must follow, and to do all of this at the behest of a foreign power, the World Health Organization, a loss for Dr. Trozzi will mean the end of our rights to freedom of speech in this country.
Michael, thanks so much for giving us your time today to give us this update on this very important case with Dr. Mark Trozy. We’ve discussed this several times in the past with yourself and Dr. Trozy. And of course, what we’re talking about is the CPSO, suspending or actually, I think, revoking at this point in time his license because he basically just pulled people the truth about vaccines, about COVID, as has happened with many doctors. And this is such an important case because, as you and I were discussing before the interview, with things like Bill C -293 coming, which is going to be the Pandemic Preparedness Act in Canada, which is just chock full of future violations of our rights. We have to protect the rights of people to be able to tell the truth. So I’d like to start by just, we have done this before. We’ve done a number of interviews on this, but for people who haven’t seen them, please give us a very short summary of what’s happened with Dr. Trozy from the beginning to now. Okay. So Mark Trosey was leading a private life in the fall of 2020. He was an ER physician in Bankrupt, Ontario. He ran the ER unit in the hospital, and he was a university professor. He’s taught at three medical schools in Ontario. And he was in charge of preparing his ER department for the pandemic. So masking protocols. He went beyond the call of due, I think, in terms of putting protocols in place. So he had everyone Fully prepared. Let’s fast forward to late fall 2020. There are news reports all over the country that hospitals have overwhelmed with COVID patients and ER departments in particular are heavy problems. Meanwhile, Marks Department is totally empty. Right. Nobody’s showing. As were many. As were many of them across the country, as has been proven over and over and over again, empty departments. And the when they were manufacturing, suppose it over -prouded emergency departments. They were shipping patients in from all over the place into a particular hospital so they could then show that that hospital was overflowing with patients while the rest of them were all empty. Yes. And Mark verified this because he started calling colleagues around Canada and the U .S. They all reported that their ER rooms went. Okay. So then he said, what is going on here? So the professor in him, you know, turned him to research and he started looking into the shots and the ingredients and said, oh, oh, these are not vaccines. This is gene therapy. It’s not, you know, if the shots are being misrepresented to the public, this could be dangerous. It’s very experimental. And he decided to go on sabbatical in January of 2021 to do a deep dive on COVID science. And he started publishing the results of his research on Dr. Trozy .org, which is a newsletter website that he’s created in early 2021. Well, of course, somebody at Sick Kids Hospital, a research scientist, complained to the college that Dr. Trozy was spreading misinformation. So they began to investigate him and was led to a prosecution. And it’s taken three years to get through the college process. but we finally got a decision from the college’s Discipline Tribunal, and they revoked his license because apparently he’s incompetent, unprofessional, has violated the standard of practice, and all this because he wrote a few medical exemptions for COVID -19 shots, but in their view, the real problem was he’s guilty of the crime of spreading misinformation. In other words, disagreeing with the narrative. And I think we have to make it very clear just how quickly they did this. As you said, he was on sabbatical. Lutschku, who had been, I also represented her. She had been suspended for totally spurious reasons. She was accused of writing one medical exemption, but they have absolutely no proof of that. And so, yeah, so, I mean, she had an elder care practice for the most part. So I suggested that Mark and Dr. Krishemaker come in and fill in for her. And yeah, they weren’t there but four hours and the college closed it. Right. But now you’ve come up with, I think, an extremely clever defense, and you’ve been planning this from the beginning with the CPSO, where you’re going after them on something called the standard correctness. Please explain exactly what that means. Okay. So why have we hung in there through this three -year process with the college to get to this point? Well, the Supreme Court made a decision in 2019 that has really changed the power relationship between the individual and the administrative state. And the Supreme Court said that if you are facing off against the tribunal and there is a statute -based right of appeal under the home legislation for the tribunal, in other words, a right of appeal into the court system, you go into the court system on the standard of correctness, which is the highest standard of review for a court. So that’s the same standard applied by an appeal court or the Supreme Court candidate itself. And this standard requires the court to look at the decision of a tribunal and test to see whether it got the right answer or the correct answer on every material issue of law. Now, under the old system, if you went on a statute -based appeal, you would go in on a low standard called reasonableness, where the court was just kind of looking for due process issues, where both sides heard, did everybody get a right to make written submissions, was there any bias on the part of the decision makers, that kind of thing. But there’s great deference shown under this old standard to the tribunal’s interpretation of the law. So the tribunal is allowed to come up with a number of reasonable outcomes on every legal issue. But those days are over it. Even though the Supreme Court changed the standard in 2019. We have not had a major case that challenges the administrative state on the standard of correctness in Ontario or other parts of the country. So this is a first, and we worked our way through this arduous three -year process at the college in order to get into the court system on the standard of correctness because I believe that the college will lose on that standard. And by the way, the CPSO has never been challenged on its core legal principles on the standard of correctness in its entire history. practice. The Ontario Court of Appeal has said that administrative bodies that establish policies, guidelines, statements cannot rely upon those things. Let’s just call them guidelines in general. Administrative bodies cannot use guidelines and enforce them as if they are the law. So they’re just recommendations. They’re just really a body saying, so in the case of the CPSO, the CPSO has COVID -19 guidelines. I mean, they would refer to them as restrictions, but they’re guidance. And one of those guidelines is that no doctor may say anything that calls into question, you know, public health policies and recommendations regarding COVID -19, or you’ll lose your license. So this is one of the so -called guidelines that were used against Dr. Trozen. So, you know, the Ontario courts have taken this very strong position, and yet the college and the tri – the administrative state in general and reaffirmed that it has fundamental limits on its power. Now, essentially what happened with the CPSO, with suspending licenses, revoking licenses, it is a basis form of censorship. But as you pointed out, under freedom of expression laws, the government can censor threats of assault, death threats, inciting violence, child pornography, and hate speech, And nothing that Mark said falls under any of those categories. Right. Those are all… They’re going after him for things that he said, as you said before, on his website, Dr .Trosy .org, but that’s not covered under any of this. That’s right. Those are the exceptions to the guarantee of freedom of expression. So their exceptions, because they don’t advance any of the fundamental purposes of free expression. They have nothing to do with the pursuit of the truth, for example, or the perfection of government. So those are exceptions. Mark obviously, as you pointed out, does not fall into any of those categories. So they have gone after him simply because he has expressed a minority or dissenting point of view on COVID issues. And so my reading of our constitutional law from 1939 onward is that minority or dissenting opinions deserve absolute protection, whether you’re under the Old British North America Act or whether you are under the charter. And we’ve got case law, even in the charter era, to establish that. It’s just on passing strange that no lawyer in the country has made this argument during the COVID period. We will be the first people to make this argument that it is absolutely wrong to shut anyone down, simply because they’re expressing a minority opinion on an issue of public importance. Now, if I’m understanding the notes that you sent me correctly, though, we do have a bit of a challenge in terms of the precedent that was set with the Jordan Peterson case in regards to minority opinions. And what’s that challenge? Let me tell you something. There’s a way to distinguish the Jordan Peterson case. So the court in Peterson said that the college wasn’t trying to, the College of Psychologists, was not trying to regulate Jordan Peterson, the substance of Jordan Peterson’s views, just the form in which he expressed them. His rhetoric was a little too inflammatory. And so, really, we’re just going to re -educate him about the use of the language and the appropriate use of language. We’re not really trying to shift down his views. So the court says, that’s fine. You know, that’s fine. You can regulate form because you’re not trying to regulate substance. That’s a very problematic decision because, of course, once you start regulating the form to the degree the College of Psychologists would like to, you are going to regulate substance because every Peterson will have to wonder, well, every second verb, am I using the right verb? Am I using the right adjective? Am I being too inflammatory today? This kind of decision will obviously have a chilling effect on the substance of speech. But anyway, this case in the eyes of the court is about form, not substance. The Trozy case is about substance. Because they are taking issue with the substance of his views. Their concern about some of his political rhetoric is a secondary concern. Okay. We want to win on the issue of substance. Now that gets into his tribunal hearings where he presented two very well -researched documents to support everything that he said and the CPSO brought in their supported three expert witnesses, none of whom were able to or even really tried to refute what he said. Yeah, so this is, let me take this in two parts, Will. So, you know, the purpose of the regulated Health Professions Act in Ontario is to prevent patient harm. So normally you have to proceed against a physician, you know, if you’re going to prosecute a physician or even investigating a physician, you have to have some reasonable belief that in all probability the physician has caused harm or will cause harm. There’s no proof here that Dr. Trosey has caused any harm. There’s no patient complaint. There’s no complaint from anyone about patient harm. So they’ve got a big problem here. They have not even met the most basic, you know, a standard for even investigating him. Okay. So they didn’t, during the tribunal hearing, they weren’t able to make the case that the actually caused patient harm. Okay. So that’s part one of that. light expert report. It was eight pages long. Only three pages were devoted to science. There were just a handful of scientific references there. And the expert took the position that, yeah, Mark had a minority view on COVID issues. He didn’t say that Mark had violated the scientific consensus. He just said he had a minority view and then said having a minority view violates the standard of practice. So that’s a big problem in there. But we had a right of reply to that initial report. So Mark provided a 30 -page report with 29 scientific and statistical references from mainstream scientific sources like the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association. He had stats there for public health Canada, statistics Canada, and so on. They’re no junk science. The college’s expert witness on science did not reply to Mark’s reply. He had a right to, under the rules to reply. He didn’t. He just sent us a one -page letter, essentially saying, oh, I’m right, you guys are wrong. So we provided a reply to that. We provided quite a lengthy reply. So we actually had two replies. That was never refuted. So Mark provided close to 200 scientific references from well -respected peer -reviewed journals and other legitimate sources. And we got their expert witness to admit on cross -examination that he did not address even one of those citations and did not attempt to refute Mark on any of his scientific conclusions. So here we have the college’s expert witness who’s supposed to, you know, who’s supposed to prove that Mark is wrong. He never even attempted to do it. the supposed harms from resulting from spreading misinformation about public health. So she testified about those harms in general. But she did not attempt to connect any of those harms, anything that Mark said or did. In fact, I got her to admit on cross -examination. She didn’t even really know anything about Mark. Okay. So this is wrong as a matter of law. You cannot take conclusions reach from an external source. unrefuted on COVID science. I believe that to be the case, and we’re seeking to have that vindicated on appeal. So we’ve got three supposed expert witnesses for the CPSO, none of whom came up with anything of any substance, one of whom admitted she didn’t even know who Mark Trosey was essentially. Now, at the same time, you brought in some expert witnesses, one of whom was Dr. Peter McCullough, and the CPSO tribunal refused to consider his testimony. Why was that? Well, that’s really amazing. I mean, you have something called a voir dire, which is a mini -hearing when you bring in an expert witness, because the expert witness has to be qualified as an expert. So the tribunal gets determined. Do we want to hear him? Is he or she truly an expert? So we got through that. They couldn’t deny, I mean, McCullough presented, like, you know, a thousand publications for them. Yes. We can’t deny The band’s an expert. Absolutely one of the most qualified heart and kidney specialists out there who’s co -authored, I don’t know, hundreds and hundreds of papers. There’s no denying he is absolutely an expert. Plus, he’s still running a practice where he is seeing patients and treating them for COVID and seeing the people who are being harmed by the vaccines. You’re not really probably going to find a much better expert witness than Dr. McCullough. And Yet, they refused to hear his testimony. Yes, well, they heard his testimony. I mean, they tried to disqualify him. We did get him in for about half an hour in the end after a two -day battle. I mean, he was very good with the college counsel assigned to the expert witness, Wardier, hearing. I mean, he just manhanded her, actually. So I didn’t have to do too much. But The point with his testimony is that the tribunal said that it, that Dr. McCullough, during his cross -examination by college counsel, indicated that he was not in complete agreement with all the secondary sources he cited in his expert report. So just think about that for a moment. They de legitimized his expert testimony on that basis. So if you’re a high school student, you learn that you can cite a passage from a book or an article on a point that you think is persuasive. That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with everything in the book or the article. I mean, anybody who’s written anything knows that you have to use your sources critically and you will pick and choose according to your own, you know, the argument that you want to make. So this is, you know, So they’re suggesting that this whole approach to putting a paper together is fundamentally wrong. So just think about the implication of this. The moment that you cite an article, if you do not agree with everything in the article, you can’t cite it. And this is where I have to stop you and ask what I think is an extremely important question. Because you’ve just made that clear that they’re going to ignore Dr. his testimony because he’s honestly said, of all of these references I’ve cited, I don’t necessarily 100 % agree with everything they said. But here’s the important stuff that I do agree with. And you’ve just made this point, very good point, that say you’re a high school student, you take a quote from a book or whatever. It doesn’t mean you agree with the entire book. So they’re disallowing on the basis that he does not agree 100 % with everything in the sources he cited. Is there anything in writing by the CPSO that makes that rule clear. Oh, that was the position they took in their closing arguments. And they tried to prove this on cross -examination. And it was very ham -handed, I would say, Jeune. And this is where McCullough really handed it to them. Because, you know, scientists like Dr. McCullough, they look They look at empirical articles with a lot of data in them. And they don’t necessarily accept the conclusions of the articles. They take the data out and they crunch their own numbers to see whether the conclusions hold. And if they don’t, then they use the data to reach different conclusions. This is very standard. This is what people do in the field of science. And so we explain to them. And in some cases, even just taking the data from the articles and, you know, rejigging the numbers, rethinking the data in order to reach his own conclusion. So this is decision. Right, but I’m driving to an important point here. I’m trying to, I kind of trying to play a lawyer if you’ll forgive me, because I am driving to a point. I’m going to ask that question again. Prior to this decision, is there anything in the CPSO’s guidelines, anything written down anywhere that says that you can’t accept someone’s evidence cited from whatever, a journal, whatever, unless you agree with everything in that article. Nothing whatsoever will. So my point is, they made it up on the spot because it suited them. They made it up on the spot because they were losing. Right. Thank you. That’s what I was looking for. So now, this gets back now to a conclusion that you drew of, and I’m not a very obvious one, of bias towards Mark Troese, please explain the elements of that bias. Okay. They will, our experts, you know, we’re more persuaded by them for various reasons. Even though they’ve only cited a few studies, we find them more persuasive than Trosey’s 200 studies. So it’s open to them to say them. But to do that, of course, they have to demonstrate that they grappled with Mark’s evidence, and they didn’t. They don’t even mention Mark’s two self -authored reports. So I think this whole decision falls on that very point because that’s something in law called a palpable and overriding error of fact. And if you have that in a decision, the decision goes away. Okay. Now, you have been fighting this war now for three years. And I have to say, I have so much respect for your approach, Michael, I think it’s extremely clever because you were expecting to end up here. This is where you’ve been driving towards. And to put them into this corner. They’re going to have to defend their standard of correctness, and from everything you’ve shown me, they can’t. So where are we at right now? We go to a hearing on October 8th. Both sides have submitted their factums, which are the legal briefs. Both sides have submitted the evidence they want to rely upon. And now it’s just up to the court to review that evidence and our briefs. And then we fight it out in court. And what, can you make any kind of projection on what you think is going to happen? Or maybe the fairer question would be this. If they decide in Mark’s favor, what happened as a result of that? If they still decide against him, how in the world do they justify it? Well, we’re going before the divisional court And the Divisional Court has heard a number of cases on this lower standard of reasonableness. So even if you don’t have a statutory right of appeal, you know, you can still go into the court system to challenge a tribunal. But if you do it without this statute -based right of appeal, you do it on this lower standard of reasonableness. And so cases so far by the Divisional Court have been decided in favor of the college of bodies, you know, because they showed a lot of deference to the way the bodies interpreted their case law and their home statutes. So it’s going to be an existential moment for this court, because we will probably get some of the same judges who have made those decisions on this lower standard. The issue here is, will the judges stand up and look at this case on the standard of correctness and forget about what they did under the old standard? okay this is this case is much more important than people realize, and I want to outline folks why. You will have recently seen my interview with lawyer Lisa Mira on Bill C -293, which has gone through the House, has passed the first reading of the Senate. If we don’t stop it, we’ll very likely get passed before the end of this year. This is the Canada’s Pandemic Preparedness Act, and it’s chock full of future violations of our rights, not just the stuff that happened during the pandemic, but more than that gets into surveillance and all. this case, that’s setting this country up for further tyranny and the silencing of any qualified voices that speak out against it. I don’t think the importance of this can be overstated. That’s absolutely right, Will. That is what is the state. I mean, if Mark is defeated on this, then really no professional, no academic, with expertise in a particular area, a particular area can just stand up and say, I disagree, and here are the reasons why, and take a look at my science, take a look at my thinking, whatever. It’s over. So this is what’s at stake here. And it’s something, too, that’s of importance to citizens across the country. I mean, if they can censor the Dr. Trozes of the world and the Jordan Peterson’s, they won’t think twice about censoring you. So we are trying to get the court to recognize that it is wrong. but it applies to everybody. So if we can’t win on this argument, I’m telling you freedom of expression is over in this country. Yes. Now, you and Mark are in a position where you need some financial assistance, some fundraising. Give us the details on that because folks, this is so important. And if you can help, please help because we ought to win this case. It’s so important. Well, we’ve been raising money over the past 18 months. The first year of my representation of Mark was funded by the Justice Center in Calgary, but in the past couple of years, we’ve had to rely almost exclusively on donations. I have not received any money for the hundreds of thousands of dollars of work I’ve put into the case. Any money that we have raised by way of donation has gone to pay third -party contractors. There are many, many expenses involved in carrying forward a case like this just to bring in production personnel for a virtual hearing costs about $3 ,000 a day. And we had seven days of a seven day hearing with money. So things get expensive pretty quickly. So we have got to bring other people on to assist for our hearing on October the 8th. And so we are trying to raise money with that aim and view. So if people would like to donate to this cause, they can go to our website, which is www .W .W. Justiceformedicine .com. Okay. So justice for medicine .com. And there’s a donate button there, and that will take you to a page where you can donate online or you can send us a check if that, if you’d prefer. Okay. And now the hearing, I guess, I’m using the right term is October the 8th? How, Is that likely to be a one -day thing or is it could a stretch out for a while? Yeah, it’s going to be a half -day. It’s going to be a half -day hearing. It could go into the early afternoon. So I think each side gets about an hour and a half to present its position. And it will be live. It will be, I mean, it’s going to be an in -person hearing. It’s not going to be virtual, okay? So, I mean, there’ll probably be some streaming available from the court and we’ll provide information about that at Justice for Medicine. But this is going to be an in -person hearing. And it will be at Osgood Hall, which is at the corner of Queen University in Toronto at 10 a .m. on August 8. So if you want to come out and hopefully see justice in action, you’re entitled as a member of the public to sit in and watch the perceivance. How many people will that room hold, Michael? I’m not sure right now. It varies from room to room, but I would guess about 200. All right. Well, as you know, and as many of my viewers know, I’m also the founder, Strong and Free Canada. We have some 30 ,000 people on our mailing list. I’m going to make it a personal mission to fill that room. Thanks. Well, I think it’s important that the public show up and that the college and the court be aware that people are deeply concerned about this case and we’re deeply concerned about the status of their basic rights. And because it’s much, much harder for the courts to get away with this kind of tyranny when they know they’re being watched. Yes. I’d like to see it that way. I Yeah. You know, the press, of course, will be there. So I think that’s important because, you know, we want to make sure that there’s no temptation to buy us on the part of anyone who might hear this. And we’re hoping for fair questions and fair comments. So we’re hoping that public exposure will ensure that that will be the way the hearing will be conducting. Fair questions, fair comments, in short, justice. Right. Michael, thank you so much for your efforts. And, of course, folks, we will keep you posted on this. I’m assuming by the evening of the 8th, by the British by the morning of the 9th, you’ll have an update for me to tell me what happened. Absolutely will. Thanks so much for having me on today. All right. Thank you, Michael.
Ex-Political Prisoner Brad Love Faces Death Threats; RCMP Do Nothing
This has not been an easy summer for political prisoner Brad Love. Even before the Fort McMurray man was released from prison on July 31, he received bad news. He was informed by the prison authorities that his car had been stolen. A former resident of the house he shares with several others, returned, broke into Brad’s room and stole his car keys and made off with his car. When he was released, the authorities made no effort to provide transportation from the Peace River across the province to his Fort McMurray home. Fortunately, a friend travelled to the prison and gave him a ride. On reaching Fort McMurray, he learned more bad news. The police reported that his car had been found, but it had been totally trashed. Mr. Love was not even allowed to examine HIS OWN property in the pound by the the local RCMP until he paid a fee for storage. He has still not paid and has yet to see his car. More bad news awaited Brad when he tried to access his bank account. The car thief had made off with Brad’s cheque book and written cheques for over $10,000 — until the account was emptied. Brad castigated the bank’s sloppy security. He seldom writes cheques and the signature bore no resemblance to Brad’s. The bank will eventually reimburse Brad as cashing this raft of cheques was their fault but they are taking their time. And the car thief, forger? You would think even Inspector Clouseau could solve this case, The RCMP know his name, they have copious evidence of his thefts and forgeries. Yet, they tell Mr. Love nothing! He calls the RCMP frequently. They don’t return calls. On August 20, a late model car with four men pulled up and confronted Mr. Love at his front door. “We’re going to fucking kill you, Love,” they threatened. Mr. Love describes them as shady truck pusher types. He got their licence plate number. A few minutes later, another car appeared. It stopped and its scruffy looking occupants repeated the same threat: “We’re going to fucking kill you, Love.” Brad immediately called the police on 911. It took 90 minutes for the Mounties to answer this “emergency call.” Their only excuse was: “We were waiting for backup.” The Mounties explained that the threats were, well, not really actionable threats. Mr. Love could only remember the numerous times and a phone call with persistent questioning of an MPP or newspaper editor resulted in a quick visit from the RCMP and, sometimes, charges of harassment. Three weeks have passed. No action has been taken by the RCMP against those who made threats whose licence number and address Mr. Love has provided. And, of course, they don’t return phone calls. “Those were death threats. Who’s going to protect me?” a frustrated Brad Love asks.
This hearing is brief and only to set a date for my appeal hearing, and to determine how it is to proceed.
I hope to proceed on the Jordan delay part of the appeal first. If I am successful the rest doesn’t matter and there is no use trying to raise funds for transcripts I may not yet need.
With thanks to everyone for all your previous help, I have all the transcripts required for the Jordan appeal. I have not ordered the actual trial transcripts, hoping I will not need them. Their cost is incredible and hopefully will not be required.
September 10, 2024 — 2:00 p.m.
Notice of Application to be released from jail until the appeal itself is fully heard
Crown Persecutor Grabavac will undoubtedly oppose this and the appeal on every technicality and falsified grounds he can find.
Sentencing Updates
I would like to just begin once again by thanking God and Jesus for their protection in court, so that I remain able to still write to you today!!! Everyone’s prayers once again, made a big difference against the evils we are up against.
Importantly, I also would like to once again thank all of you so very much for all your kind support, in and outside of the courthouse. Some of you came from far away and I know many are watching intensely across the country. Your ongoing moral support is what will keep me going to preserve our rights and freedoms as well. Surrender is not an option!
My appeal has now been filed to the Court of Appeal on the contempt conviction. My reading of the case law in this area at this Court, is supporting of my position, which is comforting.
This won’t be heard likely until early spring, but I will file my documents on our website as they are completed.
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City of Kelowna v David Lindsay et al
Petition to Stop Rallies
December 3, 4, 5, 2024 10:00 a.m.
1355 Water St.
Kelowna Courthouse
for hearing on my SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) application to strike the City’s Petition against us. (See the B.C. Protection of Public Participation Act)
In a proceeding, a person against whom the proceeding has been brought may apply for a dismissal order under subsection (2) on the basis that
the proceeding arises from an expression made by the applicant, and
the expression relates to a matter of public interest.
(2) If the applicant satisfies the court that the proceeding arises from an expression referred to in subsection (1), the court must make a dismissal order unless the respondent satisfies the court that
there are grounds to believe that
the proceeding has substantial merit, and
the applicant has no valid defence in the proceeding, and
the harm likely to have been or to be suffered by the respondent as a result of the applicant’s expression is serious enough that the public interest in continuing the proceeding outweighs the public interest in protecting that expression.
I must show we had expression at our rallies, which related to a matter of public interest. I have provided so much evidence, hundreds of pages, in addition to videos, that it is almost unfathomable to think the City will claim otherwise. The City is already admitted that our expressions were a matter of public interest but are claiming that the Petition did not arise from our expressions, but from our refusal to get a permit to have an event.
We had four days before the Hon. Justice Hardwick last week.
Justice Hardwick has shown herself to be at least, a diligent listener. She has read our materials and taken keen notice of various points being raised. She has been respectful at all times.
The City is claiming we are having an event at our protests/rallies, because we are using sound amplification equipment, our CLEAR Canopy (they call a tent), having signs, and selling merchandise. These factors were decided upon in a secret meeting with Bylaw Officer Short and his supervisor, Ken Hunter, and were never made public. Laws must be fixed and certain and this certainly fails to meet this test.
The first problem the City is facing, is that admittedly by the City in evidence, these factors also exist at all public protests. These are called hybrid facts as they can apply to either activity. So how is one to decide if an activity is an event regulated or prohibited under the Bylaws, or a Constitutionally protected freedom of assembly and protest upon just these hybrid factors?
Justice Hardwick did comment to the City that it was going to have a hard time convincing her that our CLEAR Canopy was a tent as alleged.
The problem the City also faces is that Kevin Mead for the City has admitted under oath that I / CLEAR are not selling anything. And I have not been deputized by the City to enforce its Bylaws on anyone who might be so doing.
As a result, already 2/4 factors the City was relying upon, do not exist. Having signs has been readily acknowledged by the SCC as being part of freedom of expression.
The issue really comes down to the use of sound equipment. The City wants to stop this because it is our most effective method of communication. Alternatively, in a worse case situation, this may be (which is strongly denied) a bylaw infraction, but this does not magically turn our protests into an event (which is undefined in the Bylaws.)
Further, the City is claiming that I have to obtain a permit under the Outdoor Events Bylaw for an event under the Parks Bylaw. This is absurd and there is no mention in either Bylaw that one applies to the other.
Both Bylaws require that the City must own or lease the land, ie: at Stuart Park. However, the BCSC ruled in 2008 that the Simpson Covenants imposed a trust upon the City over this land at Stuart Park. Consequently, the requirement to get permits for events/outdoor events does not apply because the City does not own or lease the property as required in the bylaws, it is a trustee in law. The Judge was aware of this, and so far, I have seen nothing from the City to counter this.
Moreover, the 2008 BCSC judgment, held that commercial activities cannot occur in Stuart Park. This immediately prohibits the City from issuing permits for events, because events by their nature, are generally if not exclusively, commercial in nature.
I had no choice but to express a concern to City counsel recently. They were upset that this was taking me a long time in court. There is a lot of evidence to go through, and it as if only lawyers can take days in court and if one is not a lawyer, their representations should not take long. That of course is legally incorrect, but lawyers do not like attention to detail – they thrive on generalities, because that is where fraud lurks.
I think I now know why. I filed my SLAPP application to strike the City’s Petition. I was very detailed with the cases, paragraphs and principles I was referencing. The City filed its Response, with only 11 cases, and no paragraphs being referenced, leaving me uncertain as to where to look in the cases.
On Friday afternoon, in addition to other definitions and evidence, I made reference to a BC statute that defines what a protest is, ie: a disapproval of something. Events of course do not have this essential requirement. Counsel advised that this was in their Book of Authorities, however this was never provided to myself or Lloyd and we knew nothing of it.
There were 34 cases in these Authorities, and only 11 in their Response, meaning that I would never have known of these remaining 23 cases if I hadn’t raised this statute in court. The City was planning on giving me a copy of their Authorities as soon as they started speaking. This means I would have had no way of knowing of these other 23 cases to permit me to research them and reply. In law, this is called, trial by ambush and it is contrary to natural justice and procedural fairness, which require that I am entitled to know their case prior to the hearing, not being surprised during the hearing itself.
Further, they included three cases about me personally from the long past. The problem is that these cases and what was decided in them were not pleaded by the City in its Response and cannot now be used at all. (and their findings were unsupported – but that is another issue.) They were inserted only to bias the Judge against me.
I have emailed counsel for the City and requested that they remove these three cases or I will apply on Dec. 3 to have them removed. Also, to provide me with the paragraphs and principles that they are relying upon in the other 23 cases.
I do not like being surprised like this. I have treated counsel with respect this entire proceeding and this type of action really makes me angry.
So, we’ll see what the City’s response is sometime this week. That is where we stand right now.
Our documents in this case are located on our website at:
The conventional wisdom, often echoed by mainstream media that Telegram is inherently unsafe, is unfounded and oversimplified, and amounts to shadow by conjecture and conspiracy theories in my view.
Server-Side Encryption & End-To-End Encryption
In this short-simplified explanation on how Telegram works, more specifically its encryption and its privacy focus, we’ll start with the two main types of encryptions that Telegram uses which is:
the server-side encryption (the default setting), and
its end-to-end encryption (secret chats).
While it’s true that Telegram’s default server-client encryption does not offer end-to-end encryption (which is highly regarded as the best type of encryption) for all chats, this does not mean the platform is insecure. Telegram’s server-side encryption ensures that all messages, files and voice calls are encrypted as they travel between your device and Telegram’s servers, as well as when they are stored on those servers. This means that while the data is in transit and at rest, it is protected from unauthorized access.
Why Does Telegram Not Default to End-To-End Encryption?
The strength of Telegram’s server-side encryption model lies in its ability to balance security with functionality. This model enables Telegram to offer features like cloud storage, cross-device synchronization, and instant access to chat history, all without sacrificing security. The server-side encryption allows users to enjoy a seamless, multi-device experience while keeping their messages protected from external threats.
As an example, Signal, a leading messaging app focused on end-to-end encryption introduces some functional limitations compared to services that utilize server-side encryption. For instance, Signal’s multi-device support is limited—users can link a desktop client but cannot easily synchronize messages across multiple mobile devices. This means that if you switch devices, you won’t have access to your chat history unless you manually transfer data, which can be cumbersome. Additionally, Signal doesn’t offer cloud storage for messages, making it harder to backup and restore chat histories seamlessly. These limitations highlight the trade-offs between maintaining strict end-to-end encryption and offering the kind of convenient, feature-rich experience that server-side encryption models, like Telegram’s, can provide. Signal has further been possibly compromised, evidenced from the use of encryption that the CIA approves of. Meanwhile, every government in the world is still unsuccessfully trying to obtain Telegram’s codes to crack it and impose back door access. The recent arrest of Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov in France is directly because he would not release the codes to the French authorities, continuing to protect your privacy. The fact that these governments continue to attempt to obtain these codes and arrest the founder of Telegram, provide conclusive evidence that your privacy is secure. Other apps and services, have all capitulated and provided codes and backdoor access to the CIA and other national and international bodies. Telegram has not.
Telegram is dedicated to privacy but also emphasizes multifunctional use and versatility, which is why it employs both server-side and end-to-end encryption. This dual approach enables Telegram to offer rich features while still providing users with the option for enhanced privacy through Secret Chats when needed.
Who Holds the Private Keys on a Server-Side Encryption?
In a server-side encryption model like Telegram’s, the private keys required to decrypt data are distributed across multiple data centers in different jurisdictions. This means that if a government or other entity wanted access to the private keys, they would face significant legal and logistical hurdles. Specifically, they would need to pursue litigation in multiple jurisdictions simultaneously to obtain all the necessary keys, making unauthorized access through legal means extremely complex and time-consuming. This multi-jurisdictional distribution not only strengthens the security of the data but also provides a robust defense against potential government overreach, ensuring that user privacy is highly protected.
Could the Owner Just Give up the Private Keys If Put under Enough Pressure?
While theoretically possible, it is highly unlikely that Telegram’s owner, Pavel Durov, would surrender the private keys, even under significant pressure. Durov has a well-documented history of prioritizing user privacy and resisting government demands for data access. For example, he famously refused to hand over encryption keys to the Russian government, even when it led to a temporary ban on Telegram in Russia. This stance is rooted in Durov’s strong personal and professional commitment to privacy and free speech, values that are deeply embedded in Telegram’s philosophy.
The value of Telegram lies fundamentally in its commitment to privacy, security, and user trust. If Telegram were ever forced to release its encryption keys, compromising user data, the very foundation of the app’s value would be destroyed. Users flock to Telegram because they trust it to keep their communications secure from prying eyes, whether they be hackers, corporations, or governments. If this trust were broken, the app would lose its core appeal, leading to a massive erosion of its user base of nearly 1 billion users worldwide.
Secret Chats
For users who require stronger encryption beyond the default server-side protection, Telegram offers Secret Chats. These chats provide end-to-end encryption, ensuring that only the sender and recipient can access the messages.
Secret Chats are specifically designed for users seeking maximum privacy, utilizing end-to-end encryption to ensure that only the sender and recipient can read the messages. These chats use the MTProto 2.0 protocol, which leverages AES-256 encryption in IGE mode for strong security, and Diffie-Hellman key exchange for establishing secure session keys. Messages in Secret Chats are never stored on Telegram’s servers—they exist only on the devices of the participants. This local-only storage ensures that even Telegram cannot access the content of these chats, providing an additional layer of privacy.
In addition, Secret Chats enhance security by generating a new encryption key for each session, ensuring that even if one key is compromised, past and future communications remain secure. Also, users can set messages to self-destruct after a specified time, providing an extra layer of protection by automatically deleting sensitive information from both devices.
Open-Source Code
Telegram has made its client-side code software open-source, it’s a significant commitment to transparency and user trust. By allowing independent security experts and the broader community to audit the code, Telegram ensures that its software is continuously scrutinized for potential vulnerabilities, backdoors, or other security flaws. This peer review process is invaluable because it allows experts from around the world to identify and report issues, which can then be rapidly addressed by Telegram’s development team or contributors from the open-source community. This level of transparency is crucial in building confidence, as users can trust that the security claims made by Telegram are verifiable and not just taken at face value.
Conclusion
In conclusion it’s my belief that Telegram provides a versatile approach to privacy and security, catering to different user needs. The platform offers both server-side encryption for features like cloud storage and cross-device synchronization, as well as end-to-end encryption through Secret Chats for those who require additional privacy. It’s open-source client-side code allows for independent audits, enhancing transparency and trustworthiness. While no platform is without its trade-offs, Telegram’s combination of privacy features, encryption protocols, and commitment to user security makes it a strong option for those concerned about protecting their communications.
Please remember other innocent people who have stood up for our rights and freedoms against our tyrannical governments during COVID-19 and to the present, who are now in the midst of their ongoing, oppressive trials:
Tamara Lich
Chris Barber
The Coutts prisoners: Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert
Pat King
Tommy Robinson
and many other real victims.
NOTE: Jury decision in the Coutts trial was rendered and the jury determined that they were innocent of the primary charge of conspiracy to commit murder against police officers.
Despite this, they remain in custody now for over 900 days.
Justice Labrenz unbelievably sentenced Carbert to 6 ½ years for possession of a restricted firearm and six months for mischief (to be served concurrently), and Olienick to six years possession of a restricted firearm and six months for mischief, as well as a six month sentence for possession of an explosive also served concurrently, for a similar total of 6 ½ years. Less 900 days (credited to equal about four years).
Make no mistake, no one goes to jail for this length of time on these types of criminal offences.
Counsel for these accused has admitted that an appeal will be filed on Tuesday of this week.
The Crown, Mr. Johnston, to no surprise has already appealed.
Counsel for the accused has submitted a sealed envelope that could implicate one of the prosecutors in criminality. No details have yet been provided, but it is said to be part of the appeals process.
An application will be made shortly to have the prisoners released pending the hearing of their appeal.
Defence counsel have already raised the issue of the jury being pressured into a rushed verdict so as to be released for the August long weekend. This would not be surprising. Other concerns about the jury have already been expressed by counsel that they were culturally biased in relation to a firearms possession charge.
Every Wednesday Action4Canada hosts the Empower Hour, an online zoom meeting open to everyone. We have a special guest each week, who will educate, inform and answer your burning questions. Also, watch the Weekly Updates HERE.
To be kept informed of these webinars sign up for our Email Updates so as to receive advance notification along with details on how to pre-register for each Empower Hour webinar
Next Empower Hour: Sept. 11, 2024 with Michelle Stirling- Carbon Tax Climate Costs: Tip of the Iceberg
It is starting – Use cash as much as possible – use credit cards or digital only if there is no other alternative.
The Bank of Canada is admittedly planning for digital currency. It claims that it will not replace cash – BUT – and here is the caveat, it will continue to use cash “notes for as long as Canadians want them.”
In other words, if you don’t use cash, you will lose it. Reading between the lines, it is clear that the Gov’t will simply issue press releases and polls showing most Canadians don’t use and/or don’t want cash, and then the Bank of Canada will claim it has to eliminate cash because few people are using it or want it, and it is, ironically, too costly to maintain printing the notes and coins.
Bill Still, the US Patriot and author of the incredible documentary, The Money Masters, outlines the results of recent polls showing that 86% of Canadians fear the digital dollar!!! Wow.
87% of Canadians have heard or are aware of the Bank of Canada’s CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency), and 82% are strongly opposed to it!!
Companies will not use digital currency if we are not using digital currency!
It will cost them too much in lost business.
Here is two awesome posters that you can distribute to all businesses to put on their entrance doors, advocating for the use of cash. Print on 8 1/2 x 11 glossy hard stock for best results.
For Business owners:
The dangers of digital gov’t ID and currencies are here… you need to use cash as much as possible. As recognized by Freedom Rising, there are many inherent dangers of using digital currency. What do you do, not if, but when:
The internet is down
There is a power outage
The card reader malfunctions
Your phone battery dies or doesn’t work for other reasons
WE SUGGEST YOU CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING AS WELL:
Your phone is stolen
Your passwords are co-opted
Your credit/debit card strip is damaged – needs replacing
There are errors in relation to the quantum of $$ on your card
Gov’t limits your purchases/CRA liens the balance on your card
AND MANY OTHER DANGERS
CLEAR has promoted the non-use of digital currencies and credit/debit cards as much as possible, for years.
Suggested Solution:
Withdraw money on Saturday/Sunday from the bank or bank machine, and then leave your money at home if you are scared to carry it with you, and just carry the amounts of cash for each day’s purchases for the week.
NO MORE CARDS!!!! NO EXCUSES!
USE CASH $$$$$$$$$
Do you want to be the next person to be “unbanked” because of your political beliefs????
Get these cards below at the CLEAR booth to give out everytime you use cash – or print your own to hand out!
Make Business sized cards to hand out at all your cash purchases!
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Kindness of the week
To all the kind people who have again, continued to support me in court for the past few weeks, both on the falsified criminal charges against me, as well as the City’s attempts to ban our lawful rallies.
And all those who continue to exercise their Constitutional freedom of expression at public protests against government corruption.
Thank you!!!
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Sunday Paper Deliveries
Next delivery day:
Summer Holidays
(Weather Permitting)
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CLEARBITS:
Is plastic recycling effective? Likely not.
Plastic recycling is a DIRTY LIE.
So why do so many green activists push it?
“I think they get a charge out of telling people what to do,” @JohnTierneyNYC tells me.
“It Ain’t Over”Freedom activists are critical thinkers!Our society is so dumbed down and indoctrinated that anyone who is a critical thinker is labeled as a Conspiracy TheoristDid you know: The term ‘conspiracy theorist’ was first coined and used by the CIA to ridicule anyone who opposed the gov’t narrative?————————————–————————————–
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Courts
City of Kelowna v David Lindsay et al
Petition to Stop Rallies
Tuesday, Wed., Thursday Sept. 3-5(6)
10:00 a.m. Courtroom #5
1355 Water St.
Kelowna Courthouse
Support your freedom of public protest!
For hearing on my SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) application to strike the City’s Petition against us. (See the B.C. Protection of Public Participation Act)
Myself and Lloyd will be present all week to present our case.
We had one day before the Hon. Justice Hardwick. The remaining two days were canceled apparently due to the judge either being ill or otherwise not available to appear.
There has now been a further three days set aside this week for the continuation of this hearing.
Our documents in this case are located on our website at:
Thank you for all your support and belief for freedom!!
Remember the Freedom Principle:
An attack against one is an attack against all.
An attack against all, is an attack against one.
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Next Supreme Court Appeal Hearing Date:
September 9, 2024 2:00 p.m.
Application for release from jail pending appeal
September 9, 2024 — 10:00 a.m.
Conviction Appeal Hearing
Crown Persecutor Grabavac will undoubtedly oppose this on every technicality he can find.
This hearing date was set on Monday, July 22. It was once again set over to Sept. 9 to set the agenda for the hearing of the appeal from the conviction and sentence of J. Heinrichs.
I am unsure why they have set two different times for each issue, but the Court did so. The 10:00 a.m. hearing will be set a date next week to hear my application for release pending appeal. The 2:00 p.m. hearing will be to set a date for the hearing of the actual appeal.
Freedom Rallies
“It ain’t over till it’s over”
David is still in jail – do not let them stop our public Freedom Rallies! Please show up
Next Kelowna Rally:
Saturday,
Sept. 7, 2024
Stuart Park!!
Join us for important announcements on the local, legal scene, and informative speakers!
September 7, 2024 12:00 noon
Vernon Freedom Rally
12:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. @ Polson Park
Join Darren for the Largest rally in the North Okanagan, and growing weekly!
Integrity Commissioner recommends North Kent councillor receive three-month salary suspension
By Pam Wright Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Integrity Commissioner for Chatham-Kent is recommending that North-Kent Coun. Rhonda Jubenville’s pay be docked for 90 days.
According to a 47-page report prepared by Mary Ellen Bench, the sanction relates to social media posts made by Jubenville’s, plus her behaviour. The commissioner said both at times are in violation of two sections of C-K Council’s Code of Conduct.
The councillor does not agree with the commissioner’s findings.
“I absolutely disagree with the report. It infringes on my Charter Rights and is filled with half-truths, untruths and subjective opinions,” Jubenville, who has retained counsel, said in an e-mail.
In the report, Bench explained she had received “many complaints” about Jubenville’s actions in the period from April to June 2023.
The document indicates the chain of events leading to the inquiry began with C-K council denying Life in Motion – the educational arm of Right to Life Kent – the opportunity to fly its flag at the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre.
Subsequently, at the April 24 council meeting, Jubenville brought forward a motion that would allow only three government flags to be flown at municipal sites – the Canadian flag, the Ontario flag and the C-K’s municipal flag.
However, council, in a 12-to-5 vote, defeated the motion.
Bench goes on to say she received an additional complaint May 2 in conjunction with comments made by Jubenville on social media relating to flying the Pride flag and the Canadian flag at Blenheim District High School. On her Facebook page, Jubenville stated it wasn’t an “accepted practice,” and advised those who felt “impassioned about this to please, respectfully” let high school officials know.
Days later, a man was cautioned by Chatham-Kent police after threats were made against the school about taking down the Pride flag.
In the report’s conclusion, Bench states that Jubenville breached the code by “engaging in behaviour that unduly used her influence as a public official and did so to be intimidating and use bully tactics to silence her critics.”
Bench noted that while not all of Jubenville’s posts violated the conduct code, some were concerning.
“The nature of certain complaints and the response of the councillor however, require me to complete a formal investigation and report to council,” said Bench in the report.
The report says the complainants – the commissioner is keeping their identities anonymous – cover a number of objections to Jubenville’s words, ranging from singling out other councillors, to targeting the 2SLGTBQ community, to creating a toxic work environment within council.
Bench also points out that somewhere along the way, media reports made the flag issue synonymous with the Pride flag, indicating Jubenville is opposed to the 2SLGTBQ community.
However, Jubenville has stated publicly she’s is not against anyone in the gay community and “loves” people within it.
In the report, Bench said she believes Jubenville “was aware of the power she wields through her use of social media and the influence she has on her supporters,” citing comments she made to the media as examples that demonstrates this, especially when Coun. Jubenville “exercises her voice to call others to action.”
Bench further stated Jubenville “used the influence of her office to promote causes that were important to her and in doing so failed to uphold the high standard of ethical behaviour” council members are required to adhere to under the current rules.
The code states that no member of council shall use the influence of her or his office for any purpose other than for the exercise of her or his official duties.
Bench said that she had reached out to Jubenville in April following the Life in Motion flag flap in an attempt to resolve the matter. The commissioner said the councillor was open to discussion and removed some of the posts in question, but refused to remove others.
Jubenville also made posts decrying a workshop for Lambton Kent District School Board teachers to learn how to facilitate a Drag Queen story time, tying such events to the “normalization of pedophilia,” the report said.
To that end, Jubenville received a number of online messages that wished her dead but did not threaten specific acts of violence against her. She has also received a great deal of support from online followers.
Some of those supporters even sent messages to Bench, despite the fact the probe was not made public and only Jubenville knew. The commissioner also received six phone calls.
One of the messages sent to Bench said the commissioner’s “harassment of Coun. Jubenville” was “disgusting and contemptible.”
Another stated that the “real violence will be incited if this investigation results in her being disciplined or shut down by this finding.”
In her conclusion, Bench has not prohibited Jubenville from using social media in the future, but she said the first-term councillor should use her social media presence “responsibly” to uphold the values laid out in the code of conduct rules.
Jubenville has repeatedly told media outlets that flag flying is a matter of fairness and that municipal sites should raise all special interest flags or none at all.
A response from Toronto lawyer Michael Alexander, who is acting as counsel for Jubenville on the matter, was also included in the report.
Alexander’s letter states that Jubenville’s comments are protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and censuring her is a “violation of the Charter and a betrayal of our democratic way of life, and it would enable the true enemies of freedom – the complainants and their supporters – to take control of public discourse.”
According to Alexander, the IC report’s recommendations will “violate Ms. Jubenville’s right to freedom of expression guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Currently, Chatham-Kent has no official flag flying policy and whatever flag flies is up to the discretion of the mayor’s office. However, a policy is in the works. A motion made by Chatham Coun. Marjorie Crew has asked administration to explore the issue and return a report to council this fall.
The matter of Jubenville’s pay suspension is expected to come before council at the Aug. 14 meeting as the first order of business. Council as a whole will vote on the Integrity Commissioner’s recommendations.
Jubenville disagreed with the proposed disciplinary action.
“The three month suspension of pay is absolutely not fair, nor justified,” she said. “If I actually committed the breaches of conduct that I am accused of, I would humbly concede. That is not the case.”
The Commissioner states it is “council’s role to set the policy, direction and vision for the Municipality of Chatham-Kent, and when a member of council does not agree with that direction, that member is expected to accept it.”
Homeless people have set up tents in Harris Green neighbourhood in Victoria on Wednesday Oct. 11, 2023. Photo by Dirk Meissner/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Article content
In July, Victoria firefighter Josh Montgomery wrote a letter to British Columbia Premier David Eby, imploring him to stop the city from relocating a homeless hub where people are expected to use drugs to a new space next to a senior’s residence — and only steps from his own home, where his young daughters play outside.
He drafted the letter after 60 homeless people swarmed local first responders as they tried to help a paramedic who’d been assaulted by a patient, frightening them so badly that they now refuse to go into that part of the city without police escorts. For speaking up, Montgomery was suspended for a day without pay.
There is strong legal precedent to suggest this violated Montgomery’s expression rights.
Many people believe that public sector employees leave their right to free speech at the door. That’s not correct. Although public sector employees must remain non-partisan, and, like all employees, have a “duty of loyalty” to their employers that prevents them from disparaging their organization, they aren’t required to keep their lips sealed.
In the 1985 Supreme Court of Canada decision of Fraser v. Public Service Staff Relations Board, Chief Justice Brian Dickson wrote that public employers must balance an employee’s duty of loyalty against his or her right to free expression. Our democratic system, he reasoned, is “deeply rooted in, and thrives on, free and robust public discussion of public issues” and as such, “all members of society should be permitted, indeed encouraged, to participate in that discussion.”
Dickson recognized that because so many people work for the public sector, we can’t have the robust public debates needed to self-govern unless public employees can also speak up in certain circumstances.
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He explained that although public servants cannot engage in “sustained and highly visible attacks on major Government policies,” public employees can still “actively and publicly express opposition to the policies of governments.” This is especially true when those policies jeopardize the “life, health or safety of the public servant or others, or if the public servant’s criticism had no impact on his or her ability to perform effectively the duties of a public servant or the public perception of that ability.”
In the case of senior federal public servant Neil Fraser, the court decided he could not repeatedly compare Pierre Trudeau’s government to the Nazi regime.
Dickson offered a number of examples of speech that public employees may engage in without violating their duty of loyalty. A city bus driver may attend a town council meeting to protest a zoning decision. A provincial clerk may join a weekend protest against the provincial government’s decision to cut funding from a daycare centre or women’s shelter. A federal commissioner may speak at a Legion meeting about a lack of support for veterans.
Dickson also gave an example of speech that would cross the line. Although a low-level government clerk could not be fired for protesting provincial daycare policies, a deputy minister could be fired for speaking “vigorously against the same policies at the same rally.” In other words, the balance may tip in favour of the public employer if the employee is more senior.
The Alberta Court of Appeal applied the Supreme Court’s guidance in Fraser to overturn the reprimand of a social services employee who sent a letter that was critical of provincial policy to a member of the opposition. The British Columbia Court of Appeal considered Fraser when overturning school board directives prohibiting teachers from discussing political issues such as class sizes during parent-teacher interviews.
Surely a firefighter wary of the dangers that come with moving hundreds of homeless and often drug-addicted people into a residential neighbourhood has a right to express his public safety concerns — without being suspended and losing a day’s pay.
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