Freedom Events in the Okanagan, September 30 – October 7, 2023 http://cafe.nfshost.com/?p=9090

Please forward

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 Theorist

Did 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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For the most complete evidence that was intentionally and conveniently omitted from all Federal Gov’t studies/reports/committees.

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Falsified assault charge

Kelowna Courthouse

R v David Lindsay s. 266 Criminal Code Assault

Court trial update:

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023

I have always been a stickler for details. I hope you appreciate the details set out below to give you a clear picture of what is happening in this case, especially as it has been a while since I have had the time to send out an email with these updates.

At the previous trial dates in May, 2023, dates were reserved for Dec. 13, 14 for final submissions. Judge Heinrichs apparently wasn’t all too happy with that, and in June, arranged to set one further date for Sept. 12.

I was required to begin submissions. The first issue was judicial bias. The Crown and even its own witnesses controlled this Judge from the very beginning of the trial. I would ask questions, and the Crown would answer instead of the Judge. Witnesses would refuse to answer legitimate questions, and the Judge would refuse to compel them to do so. The Crown, Mr. Grabavac, repeatedly insisted to the Judge that there were only four (4) defences to an assault charge. The Judge then would keep repeated this to me and my questions if not relating to one of these defences were not allowed.

The Crown repeatedly questioned its witnesses, especially Interior Health (IH) chief security officer Greg Smith, to confirm that I was issued a No Trespass order the week prior to the date (Aug. 19, 2021) of the alleged offence and was not allowed into the IH building in Kelowna.

Despite this, I was prohibited from questioning the witness on this very point, and I was prohibited from introducing video evidence to show that I had done nothing to justify being banned. I lost 20 pages of questions to the witnesses on this legitimate issue that was put into evidence by the Crown. Remember, this was a gov’t building, or gov’t leased part of the building that I had a right of access to, and my Charter and common law rights and freedoms applied, including to Greg Smith, as these cases below illustrate and confirm that I cannot be banned from this government-controlled area without a legitimate reason for so doing. They knew that they had no such reason so the only thing that could be done, was to keep my questions and evidence off the record.

I observe that where a government issues a trespass notice relying on the common law power to expel persons from property, it is exercising a power that is subject to implied limitsIn a free and democratic society, it is no small matter to exclude a person from public property.

Bracken v Fort Erie (Town) 2017 ONCA 668

CanLII para. 75-77, 79, 80

Although the expressive activity took place on government property, the government cannot have complete discretion to treat its property as would a private citizen….Under the Civil Code of Quebec (or the common law of other provinces) the Crown as property owner is entitled to withdraw permission from an invitee to be present on its property, subject always to the Charter. “

Committee for the Commonwealth of Canada v Canada

1991 CanLII 119 SCC McLachlin J.

So, I requested a mistrial and that the Judge recuse herself for bias. This of course was reserved for later decision meaning on this issue, the Judge is not going to agree. That’s fine – there are appeal courts to go to if the Judge screws me in this court.

Then trial defences followed. The Judge walked into court and without notice to me, suddenly informed me that I had only one (1) hour to present my submissions. This was wrong…I required a full morning to so do. As it turned out, her demands did in fact cut off my submissions and force me to rush my entire submissions to her, as she intended to do.

I began by informing the Judge that the Crown lied to her when he stated that there were only four defences and her mindless repetition of same. I had spent weeks researching this issue and there was not only another defence available, there was another essential element required as well.

For anyone who has seen the video in this case, you can see that the ‘touching’ took about one second. Further, it can be seen that all three (3) security guards pushed forward into me to stop me from entering the building, thereby showing an intention to assault me, not the other way around.

Even if this was an assault, which is denied, this was so trivial it should never have been brought to court, and could not have happened unless the Crown Grabavac was politically motivated. There was simply no assault by me at all.

I provided dozens of case law from B.C. and all over Canada confirming that this defence of di minimus applied. Finally, half way through my submissions, the Judge finally had to admit that yes, this defence did apply, thereby admitted she gave me false information about available defences.

The next issue was whether it applied in the facts of this case. I then began to provide case law where people were actually injured, in a minor way from an assault yet the judges in those cases, still found the accused innocent because it was so trivial the charges should never have been brought to court.

Greg Smith, the poor he-man security guard, complained he had a small scratch on his fat abdomen. Ahhhhhh. And the sympathy in the courtroom was visibly absent! Mr. Smith admits he has been in court many times over 30 years. He knows that he is required to give evidence and to support his claims. He knows he is required to preserve evidence, and keep records. In this context, Mr. Smith, inter alia:

  1. filed no incident report with his superiors, Worker’s Compensation, or anyone else;
  2. did not tell anyone else of any alleged injuries he sustained, including other security guards;
  3. took no pictures of his abdomen as documentation, despite knowing he told the police to criminally charge me and this was likely to happen;
  4. could not say or describe how this alleged surface scratch occurred, it just happened;
  5. did not describe just what this scratch looked like and there is no evidence of bleeding;
  6. showed no display of pain on Mr. Smith’s face from the alleged scratch, as the videos confirm;
  7. did not at any time, pull his abdomen back as would be expected from any injury or scratch;
  8. lost no time from work as a result of any alleged incident and continued to work on that day; and,
  9. did not tell or show this alleged scratch to any police officer despite the fact that there were at least three of them in attendance at that time.

In short, it was pure fabricated, bald-faced and unsupported lies.

No one sustained any injuries, nor as I pointed out to the Judge, could anyone. I was standing less then three (3) feet away from these guards. I could not have mustered up enough speed in that little distance to injure anyone, especially as both my hands were holding a sheet of paper in front of me.

This case, with no injuries, was much less severe than many other cases where there were injuries and the charges were still thrown out as being too trivial. Even if Greg the Deceiver had a scratch, which is denied, it was less severe than some of the cases I put forward to the Judge.

The last point, was the essential elements of the offence. Assault under s. 265 of the Criminal Code is extremely broad and encompasses virtually any unwanted touching. Now clearly this could not have been the case or every parent disciplining their children would be up on assault charges, as would every push in a subway station.

I found a large number of cases ruling that there had to be “…anger, revengefulness, rudeness, or insolence, or at least some like behaviour to the touching performed before it can be said that there is the ‘force’ which completes the legal definition of assault”. “That offence is broadly constructed but also needs an element of aggressiveness to be complete.”There are many more cases out there than just these ones that I provided to the Judge.

Again, the Crown lied to the Judge who then just parroted the Crown and misrepresented the law to me. The Crown has to prove more than just unwanted touching, he has to prove some form of anger or hostility on my part, at the time of the incident. All the Crown could do was allege that I said something an hour after the incident that I hoped to see one security guard (not Greg Smith with the alleged abdomen cut) the following week. This of course, shows no anger or hostility on my part when the incident occurred, which fortunately thanks to Leo our cameraman, I have video evidence to confirm I was polite and respectful at all times.

We are back in court on Nov. 14 for ongoing final submissions on two other issues.

In May, I advanced a Charter challenge that banning me from the IH offices violated my s. 2 Charter freedoms. I agreed at that time to waive all Jordan (delay) rights, so that I would not raise any delay arguments to have the charges dismissed on that basis, to permit my Challenge to be heard. The Crown was visibly happy but still opposed my Challenge. The Judge to no surprise, said I should have filed it earlier and dismissed it without hearing it.

Now I have filed a Jordan application for delay as it is now 22 months since the charges were laid, and the SCC ruled 18 months is the max. The 18 month limit occurred about June 7, 2023. The Crown is going to falsely allege that I caused some of this delay to try and reduce the time of course.

Shortly after my submissions on Sept. 12, the Crown informed the Judge that he was now also applying to have me cited for contempt of court for allegedly failing to comply with a court order to file my submissions with the Crown prior to me receiving his submissions for final arguments.

This will also be argued on the 14th of Nov. I cannot at this time release my position of course, but I will after this hearing takes place. Some interesting surprises are going to happen at this hearing for sure.

That folks is where the falsified assault charges stand at present. This almost seems like something out of an American court case, where Conrad Black’s former lawyer Ed Greenspan once said about the U.S. court system, to paraphrase: They’re crazy down there. Well, to unfortunate surprise, they are crazy up here too…just in a more respectful manner.

Thank you for all your support, despite having two enemies in the courtroom – the Crown and the Judge!

See you November 14, 9:30 a.m. at the Kelowna Courthouse

Kelowna Petition to ban rallies

And the legal stupidity does not end there.

The City is trying to rush its case to be heard in the courts here in Kelowna. The original hearing was set for the week of August 28. But once the B.C. Supreme Court agreed that I had an arguable case with merit, the City’s council agreed to put this over to the week of October 10, 2023, at 9:45 a.m.

As part of my defence, I have filed a Constitutional Challenge, advancing that the RCMP have no jurisdiction in B.C. as only the provinces have jurisdiction over policing, and that the impugned Kelowna Bylaws that the City relies upon are unconstitutional as well, for a variety of reasons.

In addition, I have advanced the SLAPP defence (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.) This legislation was first passed in Ontario and is now here in B.C. Basically, it is designed to permit defendants (like me) to challenge claims made that are trying to shut down our freedom of expression, from wealthy or powerful people, corporations or governments, as is the situation in this case.

Once I file the actual Notice of Application to dismiss the Petition based on this SLAPP defence, all proceedings in the case come to an immediate halt. The City will have an opportunity to file its defence and supporting affidavits, which I have no doubt that they are presently working on. Then we are each allowed up to seven (7) hours to cross examine each other’s witnesses. At this time, I do not know who the City’s proposed witness(es) will be.

I expect to file my Application shortly and once filed, I will immediately post it on our website for everyone to keep updated on what is actually happening.

I have warned everyone of the dangers of this case if the City were to succeed. They will be used by every City in B.C. to stop all protest rallies, and using amplified sound. Try talking to 500-10 000 people without a sound system. It is not possible and it is an indirect way of the Governments to shut down public assemblies and protests.

This is the biggest attempt to control our freedom of speech and assembly in history.

Already, this past Thursday at the Vernon B.C. protest, Vernon Bylaw Officers were instructing organizers that they could not use sound equipment in the park and to take it down. You can see the dangers already as I predicted.

This is a massively important case that we need to be successful upon.

I will have more to report on this case once my Application is filed, which I continue to work on daily. Legal research is extremely time consuming, especially upon such important issues that involve so many areas of law, Constitutional, statutory, bylaws, and municipal law.

David’s Documents now up on the website! The document titled “Response” is the legal argument David has filed.

https://clearbc.org/david/

All City of Kelowna documents and pleadings are now placed on our website for public viewing: https://clearbc.org/city-of-kelowna/

The media has already confirmed to me that they were instructed by the Gov’t not to print anything contrary to the Gov’t COVID-19 narrative. If they deny us our freedom to protest where it is most effective, then other cities will follow likewise by banning our protests, and without any media assistance, the Gov’t will be free to do whatever it wants with no public exposure. Pure Communism. This is the most critical time in our struggle for freedom….right now.

NOTE:

The Crown has argued that the courts have required on this s. 11(b) Charter/Jordan hearing, that I am required to provide all transcripts of our hearings in support of it. Initial transcripts estimates were an amazing $12 000.00 for all hearing and trial dates, and about $4-5 000.00 if I can get by without the trial dates.

Putting aside the pure theft and selling of justice at this time, I am hoping that I can continue to lower these costs significantly. Fortunately, there are significantly less legal costs in this case then if I was required to have a lawyer, as is the case with the rallies. But there are costs for sure and we would be much grateful for any financial donations and assistance you can provide.

There will also be upcoming costs for production of transcripts from cross examinations in the Kelowna Rally case, and other legal costs as well.

Unfortunately, this case will have significant repercussions for every protest rally in British Columbia, and indeed, in Canada, as it is being heard in a superior court in this Province. This will be an incredibly complex case.

Donations would be very much appreciated as costs are now starting to come in.

E-transfers can be done to: clear2012@pm.me or cash donations can be mailed to: PO Box 21113 Cherry Lane Mall, Penticton BC V2A 8K8.

In freedom


David

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The Kelowna and Alberta Courts of Injustice

Pastor Artur Pawlowski

Recently on Sept. 18 Pastor Artur was required to face sentencing from a mischief charge for having a sermon in the Coutts area of Alberta.

The Crown was seeking 8-10 months in jail.

Judge Gordon Krinke in Lethbridge, determined that probation would not do any good because Pastor Artur does not believe he did anything wrong. Which is correct – he did not. Good for Pastor Artur for sticking to his beliefs.

What surprised me however, is that his lawyer also made a recommendation for incarceration in the sentence. Defence counsel sought time served. The Judge agreed to this and Pastor Artur was released the same day. I would have argued for no jail at all, and that the time served should never have happened. Had Pastor Artur been released on arrest, I doubt jail would have been ordered in this past sentencing hearing.

Everyone’s prayers were successfully answered that he did not have to spend any further time in jail for a crime he did not commit.

Fortunately, an appeal has already been filed in this case and let’s hope and pray he is successful in the Court of Queen’s Bench on his appeal. He should never have been convicted for simply giving a sermon and the Judge’s findings that because of the tone of his voice etc., that he intended to commit mischief, are pure political infestation into the judiciary. As is the case here in B.C.

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A class action lawsuit has been filed in Alta recently by Rebecca Ingram and Chris Scott, both small business owners. You will remember Rebecca Ingram was the person who just had the judge declare all COVID-19 orders in Alta unlawful simply because the Gov’t was telling the Health Minister what to do, contrary to statute.

Now she is part of a class action on behalf of small business owners against the Alta Gov’t for their losses during the COVID-19 false crisis.

https://www.westernstandard.news/business/updated-alberta-business-owners-file-lawsuit-over-covid-restrictions/article_32e87834-5665-11ee-a5ec-13b8cb9505f5.html

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Our next protest/rally is set for:

Saturday

October 7, 2023

12:00 pm Stuart Park, Kelowna

Update:

We are planning to spend highway time again! October 21 2023, at Hwy 97 & Cooper St. If you have any sign or banner ideas, please send them immediately to:

Clear2012@pm.me

To give us time to make up some signs on new issues such as digital ID and currencies, Gov’t control over supplements, and 15 min prison cities.

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As we warned in the past: It Ain’t Over

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/440733/Group-warns-of-tripledemic-repeat-without-B-C-government-action-to-combat-COVID-19-in-schools

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See Cash is King Poster for businesses below!!

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Action4Canada

Empower Hour

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.

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.

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rq64R52WQdyAsRbd0CAi0g#/registration

Learn more HERE.
4.45pm PST/7.45pm EST

Pre-Register Now for this Webinar |

Join us! Share this page and link with your friends and social media!

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Know Your Rights: 

Guidelines for Peaceful Protesting/Gathering/Rallies and/or Attending Events (eg. Council Meetings, School Boards, Handing out Flyers)

Check out A4C for some of the most successful actions and strategies available to us!

And a big thank you to Tanya for all her hard work and dedication and support for the Christian principles that founded our nation!

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Thank you to Bettina for all her dedication

and hard work on this vital topic

Contact us:

Geoengineeringfreecanada@proton.me

DONATIONS:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/geoengineering

EVENT PAYMENT OPTION LINKS:

Etransfer:

GFCEvents@proton.me

Buy me a coffee:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/geoengineering/e/138734

Event Brite:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-truth-about-geoengineering-tickets-633683854467?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

JOIN THE COALITION FOR A GEOENGINEERING FREE CANADA

Contact Bettina

Email: geonegineeringfreecanada@proton.me

Geoengineering Free Canada | Facebook

This group is to educate people and try to put a stop to the geoengineering and poisonous chemtrails they spray in our skies.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1780830142282917/?mibextid=6NoCDW

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Scientist admits the ‘overwhelming consensus’ on the climate change crisis is ‘manufactured’

https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/climate-scientist-admits-the-overwhelming-consensus-is-manufactured/

Thank you, Nadia for all your hard work and dedication to freedom!!!

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Subscribe now for freedom activities in the Kootenays!

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/hi9DDOX?source_id=8d23b5e5-9f8f-412b-9edc-5476092b28ca&source_type=em&c=ZR2zd1Uii9eUmGBcCz9UVzW04iNZm5w-l6E4w5AYIZxkwvJ91mhCTA==

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The original reason CLEAR was founded was to expose the fraudulent usury (interest) based banking system. You should obtain a copy of the short book, USURY by Hilaire Belloc, as was as Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People by Joe Thaughberger. Understanding the fraudulent banking system is the fundamental key to opening up the knowledge of freedom.

Every single problem in societies the world over, is traceable back to the fraudulent money system.

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An incredible examination into the basis for our law.

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

  • Frederick Bastiat

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.sjsu.edu/people/john.estill/courses/158-s15/The%20Law%20-%20Bastiat.pdf

This short 60 page book is a must read for anyone who truly believes in freedom.

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chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.jccf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Digital-ID-Surveillance-and-the-Value-of-Privacy_Justice-Centre-for-Constitutional-Freedoms.pdf

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Welcome to the

BC 15 Minute/Smart City Coalition

August 27, 2023

NEW! BC 15-Minute/Smart City Coalition

Click Subscribe Nowto receive our
NEW weekly newsletter which includes zoom mtg links, latest news & local actions

Don’t Miss Out On The Next BC -Wide 15-Minute/Smart City Coalition Online Meeting, 

Open our newsletter to get the latest on BC Fires and 15 Min. Cites:

https://conta.cc/3QT3u8H

If you have difficulty opening the newsletter link, pause your VPN and try again.

Prepare for the meetings by watching 3 pre-requisite informational videos on 15-Minute cities. 

15 Minute Smart Cities – The Pig Problem –Watch

Investigating Smart Cities –Part 1

Investigating Smart Cities –Part 2

Support CLEAR by putting more pressure on the City. Join Kelowna online meetings starting Monday Sept. 11th at 7:30-8:30 PM

Email:  Kelowna15min@proton.meto join the Kelowna 15 Min. meetings or open the newsletter and scroll down to the zoom link in the Kelowna group section.

For more info. or to add your group to the BC 15-Min./Smart City Coalition, contact:BC15Min@proton.me

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Fundraising and

Donations

In the absence of rallies every Saturday, we don’t get the funding we used to that allowed us to print all the resources we provide at the CLEAR booth, as well as the inserts that go into the Druthers newspapers for our Sunday paper deliveries. Thanks to your past donations, we have delivered over 8000 copies of Druthers, plus various inserts, in Kelowna and W. Kelowna, with lots more to go!

Future protests are being strategically planned right now for City Hall, the courthouse, and other locations.

Many people believe that the COVID-19 issue is over – and it is not. Freedom is a multi-generational struggle, where we hope to leave a better place for our children. Other serious issues are lurking ominously in the near future that we will need to focus on: 15 min cities; legal actions; digital ID and digital currencies to start. These will require ongoing research and production of signs and materials for public education. The digital ID and currency issues are two of the most critical and going to involve significant amounts of education for people.

Please give generously by etransfer to: clear2012@pm.me or our endeavours

to educate the public we will not be able to educate people as effective as we are doing now. You can also mail cash (this remains safe) by Expresspost to: P.O. Box 21113 Cherry Lane Mall, Penticton, BC, V2A 8K8. Cash of course, would be the preferred method to protect everyone’s privacy.

These are unfortunately the only methods available right now to accept donations outside of the monthly rallies. Everything we do is on a volunteer basis and if you are not able to volunteer, your cash donation is what keeps the freedom wheel turning.

We do need volunteers to join our Fundraising Focus Group. If you are good at event planning and have some time to devote to organize regular fundraising occasions, please come see Linda at the CLEAR booth this Saturday or contact CLEAR.Linda@proton.me.

We need volunteers who are:

Proactive

Can work independently

Able to collaborate with others

Responsible and Dependable

Trustworthy

Enthusiastic

Result-Oriented

Committed

Motivated

If you possess these qualities and want to make a difference right now as a Freedom Activist, please add your name to the Volunteer List at the CLEAR booth this Saturday or contact CLEAR.Linda@proton.me to get more information.

Freedom requires time, energy or money. Thank you all for your help, in any form you are able to assist with. Everything you do for the sake of freedom is a seed planted. And although you may not see where it lands, trust that it will grow and bear fruit! Otherwise, why have the City, Province and Feds continually tried to shut us down?!! We are effective with one of the lowest vaccination rates in BC and Canada – thanks to YOU!

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Sunday Paper Deliveries

Next delivery day:
Oct 1, 2023

(Weather Permitting)

Add your name to the delivery list and make sure to check your email on Sunday mornings for confirmation that our paper delivery will take place that day

Make sure you arrive before the designated time so we can all get going ASAP!

Every Sunday at 11:30 am

Oct 1, 2023

Sign-up on the Newspaper Delivery list so that you get an email confirming the deliveries for each Sunday. With winter in mind, we will only do this if roads are bare and it’s not snowing. The advantage of delivering this time of year is that nobody is hanging out in their front yards except for the odd snowman.

We meet at the Capri parking lot between A&W and De Dutch Pannekoek House

Bring a large bag for carrying the papers if you want

Grab a free small Kelowna mapbook that can help you get situated. Your cell phone will be tracking and tracing you. Learn how to read maps again

You will be provided with a printed google map of the area you will be delivering to. Bring a yellow marker to indicate which streets you completed. You may run out of papers or you may end up with extra

We ask that with every paper you deliver, you remove the inserts and place them in the mailbox in front or behind the paper. That way, someone who may hastily throw out the paper will still be forced to see each individual flyer

Please deliver only one paper per mailbox, regardless if you have different papers (we usually have a combination of different papers and editions). Some houses may have up to 4 mailboxes; put one paper in each as they are for different tenants

Sign up as a Volunteer to participate in one of the many focus groups we are working to organize. Most people are too busy to commit to fighting for freedom. I guarantee you will have plenty of extra time after Canada becomes a full-fledged communist country and your jobs & businesses are gone. Time to add freedom-fighting to your list of priorities. Much of the help needed can be done at home and even one hour per week will be helpful. Even if you don’t want to join a specific group, maybe you have something you can offer to help out. Let us know!

Contact Linda at CLEAR.Linda@proton.me


3 Simple Things Freedom Activists can do to WIN this War:

Spread the Word by delivering papers and flyers everywhere:

1 Knowledge is power!

2. Replace your cell phone with a flip phone:

Think of your apps as TRAPS!

3. Use CASH:

Hand out the “Use cash cards” and “pay cash” business posters

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REMINDER

New Credit Card Fees & Lack of Privacy

It is starting – Use cash as much a

C.L.E.A.R. Updates, David Lindsay Legal News & Other Freedom Issues for the Okanagan

🔴 CLEAR Updates, Legal news and Events

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Please forward

It Ain’t Over”

Where have all the men gone?

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”

Plato

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Falsified assault charge

Kelowna Courthouse

R v David Lindsay s. 266 Criminal Code Assault

Court trial update:

Two days for final submissions were originally set for Dec. 13, 14, 2023. Apparently, the judge was not happy with this and forced a short hearing two weeks ago. At this hearing, she insisted upon a hearing date before then. This date has now been set for Sept. 12, 2023.

Further, she demanded that I provide all my submissions in writing to the Crown prior to that date. That is not going to happen.

Had a hearing taken place as schedule on Dec. 13, I would have simply showed up with my submissions.

I am not going to give my defence to the Crown months or even weeks in advance for Mr. Grabavac to start e-mailing every prosecutor in the country for Crown responses and help. That is neither fair nor just to me.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General filed her Motion to Strike my RCMP challenge and served me on Friday morning with it. Her claim is that it is moot (ie: the reason for it no longer exists) or would have no impact on the trial.

The Crown is dependent in my case upon all law enforcement by the RCMP, including investigation, interrogation of witnesses, and Crown Report. If the RCMP have no jurisdiction, because policing is a Provincial matter under s. 92 of the Constitution Act 1867, then all evidence obtained was obtained without jurisdiction to so do, and must be thrown out. Once that happens, the Crown has no evidence to rely upon, not that it has any to begin with.

The informant was an RCMP officer. The Crown is trying to claim that under s. 504 of the Criminal Code anyone can lay an information. That is true…but the informant did not lay the Information as a member of the public or ‘anyone’, he laid it in the capacity or as the person of an RCMP officer. Being so, again, once determined that the RCMP have no jurisdiction in B.C. then the Informant also had no power to lay the Information against me in that capacity.

Although a Provincial Court cannot strike down legislation, if the judge finds it to be unconstitutional, they simply cannot apply it pursuant to s. 52 of the Constitution Act 1982.

Thank you for all your support, despite having two enemies in the courtroom – the Crown and the Judge!

See you Sept. 12 9:30 a.m.!

In freedom


David

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Update — Petition to ban Kelowna Protest/Rallies

David’s Documents now up on the website! The document titled “Response” is the legal argument David has filed.

The Response or legal argument, to the Petition is now up as well as all supporting affidavits. One affidavit needs to be corrected however as it is not appearing properly formatted for some reason on the site. That will be corrected shortly.

The City is attempting to rush this into a hearing the week of August 28, however as I told the City’s counsel, it is likely to take 5-8 days for hearing of my Constitutional Challenge and other defences. It is simply not possible for me to be ready in this time period in any event.

This has now been adjourned to the week of Oct. 10 (no specific date is given until Friday the week before). Shortly, I will be filing my SLAPP application. This is done under the Protection of Public Participation Act of B.C. Essentially, it was passed to prevent governments like the City of Kelowna, from trying to stop people exercising freedom of expression and criticizing these governments, exactly what is happening here.

Once I have filed this Application, I will let everyone know and post it online as well. It will likely take a full day to be heard, and I believe that this Oct. 10 date will also be adjourned as the legislation requires that no other steps in the case can take place until this is heard.

This is the biggest attempt to control our freedom of speech and assembly in history.

The media has already confirmed to me that they were instructed by the Gov’t not to print anything contrary to the Gov’t COVID-19 narrative. If they deny us our freedom to protest where it is most effective, then other cities will follow likewise by banning our protests, and without any media assistance, the Gov’t will be free to do whatever it wants with no public exposure. Pure Communism. This is the most critical time in our struggle for freedom….right now.

All City of Kelowna documents and pleadings are now placed on our website for public viewing: https://clearbc.org/city-of-kelowna/

Unfortunately, this case will have significant repercussions for every protest rally in British Columbia, and indeed, in Canada, as it is being heard in a superior court in this Province. This will be an incredibly complex case.

Donations would be very much appreciated as costs are now starting to come in.

E-transfers can be done to: clear2012@pm.me or cash donations can be mailed to: PO Box 21113 Cherry Lane Mall, Penticton BC V2A 8K8

Please stay tuned for more updates.

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The Kelowna and Alberta Courts of Injustice

Pastor Artur Pawlowski

Pastor Artur Pawlowski Court change: Sept. 18

https://www.facebook.com/100000518381352/videos/722122166341098/

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Our next protest/rally is set for:

Saturday

September 2, 2023

Labour Day long weekend

12:00 pm Stuart Park, Kelowna

Update:

We are planning to spend time again on Hwy 97. If you have any sign ideas, please send them immediately to:

Clear2012@pm.me

To give us time to make up some signs on new issues such as digital ID and currencies, and 15 min prison cities.

As we warned in the past: It Ain’t Over

https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/440733/Group-warns-of-tripledemic-repeat-without-B-C-government-action-to-combat-COVID-19-in-schools

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Bring your signs on Freedom Issues and Concerns:

15 min prison cities

Digital ID

Digital Currency

Gov’t control over supplements

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See Cash is King Poster for businesses below!!

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Listen to Sarah deliver her urgent message here:

https://rumble.com/v3687ij-sos-2-sarahs-cno-case.html

To follow my court case as a public member, you may email the CNO at HearingsAdministrationGroup@cnomail.org Reference my case: Sarah Anahid Choujounian Abulu and ask them for the links

Reminder this case is no longer under CFLN therefore the e-mail and links to donate are different. There are a few ways to donate, and I want to specify that this is more of an investment in the future of our children than just a simple donation. 

You can also help by connecting me with people who can interview me or host a fundraiser at which I can may be able to attend…and please share, share, share

As always, I am so grateful for all of you🙌🙌🙌

#canada #healthcare #nursing #freedomofspeech #freedom

Two Ways to Donate

Online at: https://www.givesendgo.com/sos_for_Sarah

Email: sarahscnocase@hotmail.com

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Action4Canada

Empower Hour

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.

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.

https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/1816444442374/WN_rq64R52WQdyAsRbd0CAi0g#/registration

Tanya Gaw will be showing on the Empower Hour on Aug. 23, 2023
Learn more 
HERE.
4.45pm PST/7.45pm EST

Pre-Register Now for this Webinar |
Join us! Share this page and link with your friends and social media!

————-

Know Your Rights: 

Guidelines for Peaceful Protesting/Gathering/Rallies and/or Attending Events (eg. Council Meetings, School Boards, Handing out Flyers)

Check out A4C for some of the most successful actions and strategies available to us!

And a big thank you to Tanya for all her hard work and dedication and support for the Christian principles that founded our nation!

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Thank you to Bettina for all her dedication and hard work on this vital topic

Contact us:

Geoengineeringfreecanada@proton.me

DONATIONS:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/geoengineering

EVENT PAYMENT OPTION LINKS:

Etransfer:

GFCEvents@proton.me

Buy me a coffee:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/geoengineering/e/138734

Event Brite:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-truth-about-geoengineering-tickets-633683854467?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=escb

JOIN THE COALITION FOR A GEOENGINEERING FREE CANADA

Contact Bettina

Email: geonegineeringfreecanada@proton.me

Geoengineering Free Canada | Facebook

This group is to educate people and try to put a stop to the geoengineering and poisonous chemtrails they spray in our skies.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1780830142282917/?mibextid=6NoCDW

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https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/climate-scientist-admits-the-overwhelming-consensus-is-manufactured/

Scientist admits the ‘overwhelming consensus’ on the climate change crisis is ‘manufactured’

Thank you, Nadia for all your hard work and dedication to freedom!!!

Subscribe now for freedom activities in the Kootenays!

https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/su/hi9DDOX?source_id=8d23b5e5-9f8f-412b-9edc-5476092b28ca&source_type=em&c=ZR2zd1Uii9eUmGBcCz9UVzW04iNZm5w-l6E4w5AYIZxkwvJ91mhCTA==

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B.C. Fire Update

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/a-climate-connection-to-alberta-wildfires-smith-says-most-in-province-caused-by-humans-1.6519201#:~:text=Smith%3A%20%22All%20I%20know%20is,happens%2C%20it%20can%20have%20devastating

Alta Premier Danielle Smith:

All I know is in my province we have 650 fires and 500 of them were human caused, so we have to make sure that when people know that when it’s dry out there and we get into forest fire season, that they’re being a lot more careful because anytime you end up with an ignition that happens, it can have devastating consequences. And so, that’s what I would hope that we can educate the public on, on that front as well.”

Combined with geoengineering issues detailed by Bettina and Nadia and others, it is readily clear that there is no climate change causing fires. The graph below shows that, if true, this year’s fires are man made – figures do not change to this extent in less than one year – especially after a year with record snowfalls!!!

Directed energy weapons?

https://www.bitchute.com/video/iHnLJFg7ciNe/

Learn the truth on the false “97%” of scientists agree humans are driving climate change:

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Direct from the BC Interior:

We need to get the story out about what’s happening in the Shuswap. Can you guys please post this everywhere. Send it to everyone you know. Please help us.

My name is Stef and my husband Jorne and I own a home at the end of Meadow Creek road in Celista BC. The fire department and forestry lit a back burn around 4pm on Thursday Aug 17th knowing there were 30km winds coming. No news outlet is talking out this. My husband has been monitoring the winds and the Adams creek fire for weeks. On Tuesday Aug 15th we knew the winds were coming. The fire was approx 15km away from us. We don’t know who decided to light a back burn knowing the wind forecast. They lit a 14km back burn right to our back door and never notified us. My dad who lives in Kelowna knew about a “out of control back burn” before we did. They didn’t even come to tell us. They notified the locals by posting it on a piece of paper at the gas station.

At 845 pm we saw the fire just over the ridge. And by 12pm it had reached meadow creek road and was in back yard. Without the back burn we could have had a whole day to prepare. We did have sprinklers up, water tanks loaded and generators ready to go. We knew we were pretty much on our own and would not receive much help. The fire department did come down the road and were there briefly. Once they deemed the fire out of control they left. When the fire came into the valley we watched it burn up the sides of the mountain due to the humidity dome created with all the sprinkler and water. The fire department abandoned us. About 2 hours had passed when some locals came down our valley with resources and help. I was notified the fire department was sitting in a field having coffee so I went t to get them. When I got there I asked them to come help us, told them the situation.

One of the firemen told me they wanted to help but had orders to sit. I yelled at them to get in their trucks and come help us. They said they would. I went back down the road to notify our crew they were coming. I sat and waited but no one came. About 15 minutes had gone by so I went back up the road and found them sitting about 1km away. They told me they were assessing the situation. I asked how they could assess if they couldn’t see it? I again asked them to come help and they finally did. Everyone ran around putting hot spots out. We wore water packs and half masks with headlamps for the next 3 days making sure our houses made it through.

In the initial days after the “superfire” the locals were able to get water, gas and supplies but now there is a heavy police presence. They have the roads blocked off saying they are preventing looting. The locals are being told to return to their homes. They are not allowed to be helping at all. There are spike strips on the roads. Police blocks everywhere. There are people trying to get essential supplies in such as water, gas and food by boat. They are being turned away. Police are patrolling the roads and water. They have the gas stations blocked off.

We need the real story to get out so we can get help.

We are more than equipped to help put this fire out but are being stopped. We need resources such as gas, diesel to keep us going. They’re trying to starve us out so they can let it burn.

My number is 250-509-0400 Please feel free to post my number. I’m willing to talk to anyone who can help us.

NOTE: Similar incidents occurred in the 2003 Okanagan fire. It appears that the management prefer to let these fires get out of control rather than stop them at source, in the hopes they will burn out. They rarely do and get out of control, then they all pat themselves on the back for all the dedication to put them out.

Now no doubt there are tons of committed firefighters doing their best – it appears this is a top management and financial issue.


The original reason CLEAR was founded was to expose the fraudulent usury (interest) based banking system. You should obtain a copy of the short book, USURY by Hilaire Belloc, as was as Billions for the Bankers, Debts for the People by Joe Thaughberger. Understanding the fraudulent banking system is the fundamental key to opening up the knowledge of freedom.

Every single problem in societies the world over, is traceable back to the fraudulent money system.

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An incredible examination into the reasons people blindly obey even tyrants. A must read for everyone who believes in peaceful civil disobedience.

https://odysee.com/@hallofbooks:8/the-politics-of-obedience-the-discourse-of-voluntary-servitude-etienne-de-la-boetie-ebook-pdf:a

Thanks Kim – Civil disobedience is the answer the de la Boetie discussed centuries ago

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Smart Cities

First, they will promote them as being convenient.

Then they will promote them as supporting the environment.

Then they will promote them as being voluntary.

Then they will become mandatory with fines.

Then you will be prohibited from traveling unless you comply with gov’t legislation and orders.

Then you’ll be prohibited from traveling unless you are part of the gov’t.

Even your dogs will not be allowed more than 15 min from home

https://madmaxworld.tv/watch?id=643260a279a0486afc3f5ac6

Samantha Edwards Report –

Unmasking the Smart City Agenda

https://t.me/thetrutherist/639

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Fundraising and

Donations

In the absence of rallies every Saturday, we don’t get the funding we used to that allowed us to print all the resources we provide at the CLEAR booth, as well as the inserts that go into the Druthers newspapers for our Sunday paper deliveries. Thanks to your past donations, we have delivered over 8000 copies of Druthers, plus various inserts, in Kelowna and W. Kelowna, with lots more to go!

Future protests are being strategically planned right now for City Hall, the courthouse, and other locations.

Many people believe that the COVID-19 issue is over – and it is not. Freedom is a multi-generational struggle, where we hope to leave a better place for our children. Other serious issues are lurking ominously in the near future that we will need to focus on: 15 min cities; legal actions; digital ID and digital currencies to start. These will require ongoing research and production of signs and materials for public education. The digital ID and currency issues are two of the most critical and going to involve significant amounts of education for people.

Please give generously by e-transfer to: clear2012@pm.me or our endeavours

to educate the public we will not be able to educate people as effective as we are doing now. You can also mail cash (this remains safe) by Expresspost to: P.O. Box 21113 Cherry Lane Mall, Penticton, BC, V2A 8K8. Cash of course, would be the preferred method to protect everyone’s privacy.

These are unfortunately the only methods available right now to accept donations outside of the monthly rallies. Everything we do is on a volunteer basis and if you are not able to volunteer, your cash donation is what keeps the freedom wheel turning.

We do need volunteers to join our Fundraising Focus Group. If you are good at event planning and have some time to devote to organize regular fundraising occasions, please come see Linda at the CLEAR booth this Saturday or contact CLEAR.Linda@proton.me.

We need volunteers who are:

Proactive

Can work independently

Able to collaborate with others

Responsible and Dependable

Trustworthy

Enthusiastic

Result-Oriented

Committed

Motivated

If you possess these qualities and want to make a difference right now as a Freedom Activist, please add your name to the Volunteer List at the CLEAR booth this Saturday or contact CLEAR.Linda@proton.me to get more information.

Freedom requires time, energy or money. Thank you all for your help, in any form you are able to assist with. Everything you do for the sake of freedom is a seed planted. And although you may not see where it lands, trust that it will grow and bear fruit! Otherwise, why have the City, Province and Feds continually tried to shut us down?!! We are effective with one of the lowest vaccination rates in BC and Canada – thanks to YOU!


Sunday Paper Deliveries

Next delivery day:
August 27, 2023

(Weather Permitting)

Add your name to the delivery list and make sure to check your email on Sunday mornings for confirmation that our paper delivery will take place that day

Make sure you arrive before the designated time so we can all get going ASAP!

Every Sunday at 11:30 am

August 27, 2023

Sign-up on the Newspaper Delivery list so that you get an email confirming the deliveries for each Sunday. With winter in mind, we will only do this if roads are bare and it’s not snowing. The advantage of delivering this time of year is that nobody is hanging out in their front yards except for the odd snowman.

We meet at the Capri parking lot between A&W and De Dutch Pannekoek House

Bring a large bag for carrying the papers if you want

Grab a free small Kelowna mapbook that can help you get situated. Your cell phone will be tracking and tracing you. Learn how to read maps again

You will be provided with a printed google map of the area you will be delivering to. Bring a yellow marker to indicate which streets you completed. You may run out of papers or you may end up with extra

We ask that with every paper you deliver, you remove the inserts and place them in the mailbox in front or behind the paper. That way, someone who may hastily throw out the paper will still be forced to see each individual flyer

Please deliver only one paper per mailbox, regardless if you have different papers (we usually have a combination of different papers and editions). Some houses may have up to 4 mailboxes; put one paper in each as they are for different tenants

Sign up as a Volunteer to participate in one of the many focus groups we are working to organize. Most people are too busy to commit to fighting for freedom. I guarantee you will have plenty of extra time after Canada becomes a full-fledged communist country and your jobs & businesses are gone. Time to add freedom-fighting to your list of priorities. Much of the help needed can be done at home and even one hour per week will be helpful. Even if you don’t want to join a specific group, maybe you have something you can offer to help out. Let us know!

Contact Linda at CLEAR.Linda@proton.me


3 Simple Things Freedom Activists can do to WIN this War:

Spread the Word by delivering papers and flyers everywhere:

1 Knowledge is power!

2. Replace your cell phone with a flip phone:

Think of your apps as TRAPS!

3. Use CASH:

Hand out the “Use cash cards” and “pay cash” business posters

————————————–

REMINDER

New Credit Card Fees & Lack of Privacy

It is starting – Use cash as much as possible – use credit cards or digital only if there is no other alternative.

Companies will not use digital currency if we are not using digital currency! It will cost them too much in lost business.

Here is an awesome poster 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.

Suggestion:

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!

Thanks Nadia for this link:

Find out which
institutions near you
Support Digital ID

The Digital ID System is being
supported by a rapidly growing number
of provincial and federal governments,
financial institutions, networks for
payments and for identity verification,
technology service providers, strategy
and integration experts to name a few…

https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/switzerland-about-become-first-country-outlaw-cashless-society

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New signs???

Even though COVID-19 restrictions are, for the most part, no longer in effect, other freedom issues have arisen as gov’ts use the cover of COVID-19 to introduce other more formidable liberty restrictions, including privacy violations.

Freedom is a multi-generational struggle – our legacy is to leave a better place for our children, not simply to quit after an issue appears to be over and anger diminishes; and of course, it rarely is truly over.

We urge you to provide designs (clear2012@pm.me) and/or your own signs for upcoming threats, including Digital ID

Digital currency and no cash

Climate change fraud

Further health, property, rights and freedoms restrictions

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Ed Kallio

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CLEARBITS:

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Christians Defending Bat Flu Tyranny and Oppression are Deluded and Deceived

Throne, Altar, Liberty

The Canadian Red Ensign

The Canadian Red Ensign

Friday, June 4, 2021

Christians Defending Bat Flu Tyranny and Oppression are Deluded and Deceived

The last Anglican priests that I spoke to in person were those of my own parish in March of last year, the day before the bishop’s order shutting down the diocese went into effect.   Since then, I have spoken to one of the priests by phone once, and communicated with the others through e-mail.   Oh, I could have seen them in person again, had I started attending services when the parish partially re-opened last summer.   That would have meant a compromise of conviction however.   I will not darken my parish door again as long as I am told to register in advance to do so, to impede my breathing in that hot, stuffy, building for the hour and a half that I am there by covering my nose and mouth with a stupid diaper that has reminded me of nothing so much as a the Mark of the Beast since it was first introduced, and to “socially distance” while there.   As far as I am concerned telling people to pre-register to book a place in Church because only a limited few will be admitted constitutes turning people away from the Ministry of Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament and is an act of blasphemy crying out to heaven for vengeance.   To be fair to my parish – and the entire Anglican Church of Canada – I did not include the practice of Communion in one kind in the above list of deal-breakers, since I think they are using pre-intinction as a means of distributing the Sacrament in both kinds and thus are not in technical violation of the Thirtieth Article of Religion (and the basic principles of the English Reformation).   I watch their services on Youtube but I refuse to regard this as “participating in an online service” or anything more than watching a broadcast of somebody else performing a service.   This is because I have taken to heart Aleksandr Soltzhenitsyn’s instructions on the day of his arrest in 1974 to those oppressed by Communist tyranny.   Those instructions were to “live not by lies”.   When the government refuses to respect the constitution’s limits on its powers and claims for itself the right to completely suspend our basic freedoms of assembly, association, religion, and, increasingly, speech, in its self-delusion that a respiratory virus can be stopped by government action, subjects the entire population to the absolute rule of medical technocrats, and goes out of its way to demonstrate its contempt for religion, classifying Churches and synagogues and mosques as “non-essential” while liquor and cannabis stores and abortion clinics are classified as “essential”, it comes disgustingly close to the Soviet-style Communist tyranny that Soltzhenitsyn suffered under and about which he warned the West.   While it is true that rights and freedoms are not absolute, as our governments have been saying in response to challenges to their actions, this is not at all at issue.   It deflects from the fact that they have been acting like their authority to limit our rights and freedoms is absolute – this is what “nothing is off the table” means – and this is the essence of totalitarian tyranny.

My purpose here is not to knock the clergy of my parish.   I have explained why I haven’t seen any of them in person since last March to lead in to the fact that apart from them, the last Anglican clergyman that I had spoken to in person, earlier the same month, was the Right Reverend Donald Phillips.    Donald Phillips was consecrated Bishop of the Diocese of Rupert’s Land in 2000, the year after I had left what is now Providence University College in Otterburne and moved to Winnipeg.   He served the diocese in this capacity until his retirement upon the consecration of his successor, the current incumbent, the Right Reverend Geoffrey Woodcroft, in November 2018.   When I was confirmed in the Anglican Church as an adult, he was the bishop to do it.

It was at the Centennial Concert Hall that I ran into him and his wife Nancy about a week or so prior to the lockdown.  2020 was the 250th year since the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven.   As part of its celebration of this anniversary, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra performed all five of his Piano Concertos and his Choral Fantasy over the course of the two evenings of the 6th and 7th of March.   The performances, conducted by WSO Music Director Daniel Raiskin, featured Russian pianist Alexei Volodin.   The vocals were provided by the University of Manitoba Singers and the Canadian Mennonite University Chorus.    The 2019/2020 season was the first time in several years where I had opted to buy tickets for only a handful of concerts rather than the “Ultimate Classics” package that comes with one performance each for all the shows in both of the Masterworks series.   I lost my usual seat doing it this way, but was able to take in both of evenings of “Back to Beethoven” as the Piano Concerto marathon was called.    These were the last WSO performances that I attended.   They are likely to be the last WSO performances that I shall ever hear because the lake of fire will freeze into a solid block of ice before I ever pay concert admission to watch a livestreamed performance and am certainly not going to be bullied into taking an experimental new kind of vaccine that took less than a year to develop about which the long term side effects cannot possibly be known just to regain as “privileges” the rights that were stolen from me by power-mad paranoid hypochondriacs shortly after the concerts I have just described.

I have seldom attended a symphony, opera, or anything else at the Centennial Concert Hall without encountering at least one, and usually several, people whom I know, and this was no exception.   Indeed, I was seated right next to one old acquaintance for the Friday evening performance.   It was also in the Friday evening performance – some people went to both concerts, others showed up only for the one or the other – that I ran into Don and Nancy.  They were seated in the row behind me, a few seats down – very close to where my subscription seat had been, actually.  I chatted with them briefly in the intermission and after the concert.   Did any of us suspect at the time that shortly thereafter the diocese would be essentially closed and everyone forced into social isolation for over a year by public health orders?

All of the above is a very long introduction to the real purpose of this essay.   On the 9th of last month the diocesan newspaper, the Rupert’s Land News, posted an article to its website by the bishop emeritus, entitled “Christians Protesting COVID-19 Health Orders are Misguided and Missing the Greater Call”.     This article also appeared on the website of the Winnipeg Free Press on May 12th.   If it was not already obvious that I am of a very different opinion, the fact that the Winnipeg Free Press carried the article should confirm it.    It is almost a matter of principle for me to disagree with whatever they publish, especially on matters of religion.   I read it, nevertheless, for while I have disagreed with our previous bishop on other issues in the past, I have always found what he has to say, whether as a homilist or in the Rupert’s Land News, very interesting.   

Towards the end of his article, he raised the following hypothetical objections to his article:

Some might call into question the whole nature of what I am saying.  Should a Christian publicly challenge the actions of other Christians?   Is that not being judgmental?

His answer was “Not when the integrity of the proclamation of the Gospel is at stake”.  

Very well then.   Since nothing in recent memory has threatened the integrity of the proclamation of the Gospel more than the quisling behaviour of the Church leaders who collaborated with totalitarianism in the Third Reich and behind the Iron Curtain,  I claim our retired bishop’s justification for his remarks as my own for my rebuttal.

He begins by saying that one of the pastors with whom he disagrees – he does not mention any names but it was Tobias Tissen of the Church of God Restoration, just outside Steinbach – had been quoted as having said “We have no authority, scripturally-based and based on Christian convictions, to limit anyone from coming to hear the word of God.   We have no authority to tell people you can’t come to church.  That’s in God’s jurisdiction.”

Retired Bishop Don answers this by saying “the New Testament presents quite a different picture of the responsibility of the Church for itself”.

He proceeds to justify this statement by making reference, first to the bestowing of the “keys of the kingdom” in St. Matthew’s Gospel, and second to the Pauline epistles in which the Apostle “constantly confronts and admonishes churches to teach, direct, and sometimes even discipline their members so as not to hinder or distort the mission of the Gospel in the world and Christ’s command to his Church”.

This is an interestingly novel way of interpreting these passages.   Yes, the “keys of the kingdom”, regardless of whether they are understood as having been given to St. Peter and his successors alone, all of the Apostles and their successors collectively, or the entire assembly of Christian disciples (the Church) collectively, have traditionally been understood to include the authority  to exclude from the fellowship of the Church.   In most Christian communions the technical term for the exercise of this authority is excommunication.    Some more radical sects use the word “shunning” with the same basic meaning but often with additional connotations of a more complete social ostracism.     This is not where the novelty lies.   What is novel in this interpretation is the suggestion that this authority can be legitimately exercised other than as corrective discipline in cases where someone refuses to repent of open sin or is found to be teaching serious doctrinal error.   Had our retired bishop not intended to suggest this it would have made no sense to bring the keys up in this context.   It is rather surprising, therefore, that he tries to bolster the suggestion with an appeal to St. Paul.   In his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul instructs them to excommunicate a man who has been committing “such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles”, meaning a type that was condemned and considered extremely shameful by the rather tolerant pagan culture of the time, an assessment to which  all the extent classical literature pertaining to the myth of Oedipus indeed, bears testimony.   In his second epistle to the Corinthians, however, he told them that the punishment had been sufficient and to forgive and comfort the man, who presumably had since repented.    The picture this paints of excommunicative authority is of a means of corrective discipline, to be applied as a last resort in extreme circumstances, and lifted as soon as repentance makes possible.   This hardly supports the idea that the keys can or should be used to bar people from the Ministries of Word and Sacrament, not as an act of corrective discipline, but as an instrument of public health policy.

Novelty is not a quality that is valued very highly when it comes to the interpretation of Scripture and doctrine in the Anglican tradition which has long appealed to the Vincentian canon as the gold standard litmus test of catholicity and orthodoxy.    In addition to the novelty of the Right Reverend Phillips’ interpretation of the keys, however, there is another problem in its conflict with Scriptural teaching on a multitude of other issues.

One example of this is the Scriptures’ teachings with regards to civil obedience.   If the pastors protesting the bat flu restrictions are at fault their error is in practicing Thoreau/Gandhi/King style civil disobedience, for which there is no Scriptural justification.   Civil obedience is commanded of Christians by St. Paul in the thirteenth chapter of his epistle to the Romans.   There are, however, clear exceptions.   The Book of Daniel in the Old Testament illustrates these.   If the civil authorities require the worship of a false god, believers in the True and Living God are not to obey, as the example of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who refused to bow to the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar and were thrown into the fiery furnace demonstrates.   If the civil authorities forbid the worship of the True God, believers are not to obey, as the example of Daniel himself in the incident that led to his being cast to the lions shows.   While the latter is the most obviously relevant of the two, I would argue that the first also applies here, in that the kind of trust and obedience the public health orders have been asking of us is the kind that properly belongs to God alone, making an idol out of medical science (George Bernard Shaw said, almost a hundred years ago, that we have not lost faith, we have merely transferred it from God to the General Medical Council, and never has the truth of this been more apparent than at present).   The Lord Himself summed it all up in the twelfth chapter of St. Mark’s Gospel when He said “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”.  While a general civil obedience is rendering unto Caesar (the civil authority) that which is Caesar’s, obeying when they forbid the worship of the True God or require the worship of a false one, is to render unto Caesar that which is God’s, and that is forbidden of Christians by the Highest Authority.

Another example is the Scriptures’ teachings with regards to sickness.     In the Old Testament, the Israelites were told to separate those with leprosy, a far worse disease than the one that is frightening so many today, from the general community, to which they would not be readmitted until such a time as a priest had examined them and found them to have recovered.     There is not a hint anywhere in the Old Testament, that banning all healthy Israelites from the Tabernacle or Temple, let alone confining them to their own dwellings and forbidding them any social interaction with their extended kin, friends, and neighbours, would be an appropriate or acceptable manner of preventing the spread of contagious disease.   This is not surprising as it is an experimental new form of hyper-quarantine, first implemented in totalitarian countries like Red China, which the epidemiologists of what used to be the free world initially, although sadly mistakenly, thought they would never be able to get away with here.   The Old Testament isolation requirements for lepers, of course, had the effect of heaping further suffering upon those already inflicted.   Thus, when Jesus Christ arrived to fulfil the Messianic promise of a New and better Covenant, one of the most prominent signs announcing His identity as the Promised Redeemer was that He allowed the lepers to come near Him and healed them, even, in one notable instance, using tactile contact as the means of healing.   He healed all who came to Him with any affliction and instructed His Apostles to do the same.   The book of Acts records them doing precisely this.   The Jacobean instructions in what is widely believed to be the first book of the New Testament to have been written are “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: and the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.”   Rather a far cry from “Is there a nasty cough going around?  Let everyone stay away from the church, lock themselves in their houses, and never see anyone else without wearing a mask”.

Given what we have seen in the previous paragraph, is it surprising that in the two millennia of Christian history, which have seen plagues far worse than the bat flu ravage Christian countries and at times all of Christendom, never did the leaders of the Church see their duty, mission, and call in terms of shutting all the local churches down and denying the faithful access to the Word and Sacrament.   Rather they saw it as their duty to keep the churches open, so that in times of great physical peril – much greater than today – access to the source of spiritual health, more important than physical health, was not cut off and hope, therefore, was kept alive, as well as to minister to the physical needs of the sick and dying, even at the risk of their own health and lives.   When cholera hit Canada in 1832 and 1834, for example, John Strachan, who would become the first Bishop of Toronto in 1839 but was at the time the rector of the parish of St. James, refused to flee the city but remained to fulfil his priestly duties, visit the hospitals, minister to the sick and dying, and bury the dead.

Previous generations of Church leaders did not see keeping the churches open in times of far worse plagues than this comparatively moderate one as hindering or distorting “the mission of the Gospel in the world, and Christ’s command to the church.”

Our former diocesan chief shepherd asks the question “And what is that Gospel?” to which he provides an answer “It is the supreme command of Jesus Christ ‘to love one another as I (Jesus) have loved you’”.

This is a very enlightening answer.   Not enlightening in terms of the question asked.   In that regards it is just plain wrong.   It is enlightening in that it reveals much about the source of confusion here.

The Gospel is not the command to love one another.   The Gospel is not a commandment of any sort.   It is a message.   As its very name tells us, whether euangelion in Greek, or Gospel – contracted from the Old English “godspel” (“god” = “good” + “spel = “news”) it is Good News.   It is spoken in the indicative mood, not the imperative.   In the ministry of John the Baptist and in Jesus’ own early preaching ministry, when the Gospel was preached only to national Israel and the events around which the Gospel narratives of SS Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are centred had not yet taken place, that Good News was that the “Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”, i.e., the Messianic promises are being fulfilled before your very eyes.   After the Great Commission to take the Gospel to all the nations of the world, the Ascension, the descent of the Holy Ghost on Pentecost to empower the Church, and the preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles, the Gospel in its mature and universal form was concisely stated by St. Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians.   It is that Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and was seen by witnesses.

That this, and not the New Commandment, is the Gospel cannot be stressed enough.   The New Commandment is not “News” of any sort, Good or otherwise.   That we are commanded to love one another was hardly something unheard of prior to the Incarnation.   When Jesus said the Greatest Commandment was to love God and the second was to “love thy neighbour as thyself” He was quoting commandments already familiar from the Old Testament.   Nor was His statement that the whole of the Law was summed up in these a new revelation.   Indeed, while most often the Gospels place the two greatest commandments in His own mouth, in one notable instance He turned the question back on a lawyer who had been interrogating Him and got the answer He wanted (Luke 10:25-28) demonstrating that the idea was nor original with Him.   The similar “Golden Rule”, which appears in His Sermon on the Mount, is common to the ethical systems of almost all religions, and was notably stated, albeit in its negative “do not” form rather than the positive form Jesus used, by Rabbi Hillel, who died when Jesus was about twelve or thirteen (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat a, passage 6), and who said of it “that is the entire Torah, and the rest is interpretation”.     There is a kind of theology that sees in the command to love one another the essence of the Christian kerygma and treats everything asserted about Jesus Christ in the ancient Creeds as accidental trappings that can be discarded.  This theology, and note that I am not suggesting that the Right Reverend Phillips holds this theology, merely that his unfortunate wording here expresses a thought that belongs to this theology rather than orthodox Christianity, is nonsense.   If that were true there would have been no need for Christianity.   While there is a difference between the New Commandment and all these earlier commandments to love each other, that difference depends entirely upon the facts of the Gospel as stated by St. Paul.  Apart from that Gospel, the message of Christ’s death and Resurrection, the New Commandment is meaningless.   It is the Gospel that tells us what “as I have loved you” means.   Christ gave the New Commandment on the evening of His betrayal, to His disciples whom He had already told of His upcoming death and Resurrection, but like so many other things He said in St. John’s Gospel, it was these events themselves that made it comprehensible.

Isn’t it interesting that the example the New Commandment tells us to follow is that of One Who gave up His life for others?   Isn’t it also interesting that the New Testament repeatedly describes this act as one of “redemption”.   Today, the verb “redeem” and the noun “redemption” are often used in a sense that retains some of their connotations from New Testament usage but omits their original basic meaning.   To redeem meant to purchase someone out of slavery and set him free.   The New Testament writers use these words of the death of Christ to depict that act as one of purchasing freedom for mankind from slavery to sin.   Therefore, the New Commandment tells us that we are to love one another in the same way as He Who gave up His life to restore us to freedom.

This is interesting because the Right Reverend Phillips’ interpretation of the New Commandment which he confused with the Gospel itself is that we are to love others by doing the reverse of what Christ did – giving up our freedom for them.

Now he does go on to support his argument with evidence from St. Paul:

In 1 Corinthians chapter 9, Paul outlines the many ways in which he sacrifices his own self, his rights and privileges, his freedom in Christ, in order to effectively witness to the love of Christ.  “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some,” he said (1 Corinthians 9.22)

For the Christian disciple, the effective demonstration and proclamation of the love of God for all people must take precedence over any personal demand or freedom.

St. Paul wrote his epistles to the Corinthian Church at a time when some had cast aspersions on his authority as an Apostle.   A principle theme of both letters was to answer his detractors and establish confidence in this authority.   This is what the Apostle is obviously concerned with through most of the ninth chapter of 1 Corinthians.   In the first verse he gives his Apostolic credentials, in the second he declares that if he is not an Apostle to others he certainly is to the Corinthians for they are the seal of his Apostleship.   He then goes on to talk about all the privileges and freedoms which he has as much as any of the other Apostles but which he refrains from for the sake of the work.   The main point in all of this is that he, as a spiritual minister, is entitled to pecuniary support from them, but has refrained from claiming his right to the same.   This is spelled out quite plainly in verses seven to fifteen

I wonder what St. Paul himself would have thought if someone from the Corinthian Church had written back to him and said that two thousand years in the future, someone would take his words about giving up the financial support to which he was entitled, so as to more effectively carry out the ministry of preaching the Gospel to which he was called and which he is bound by necessity to preach, as evidence that the entire Church should shut down, close its doors, and bar people from coming to hear said Gospel preached.   I suspect he would be livid.   I doubt very much that he would be any more impressed by the same application being made of his words later in the chapter, about meeting every type of person to whom he is sent in their own walk of life so as to more effectively share the Gospel with them.

His Retired Grace then refers to another quotation from a different pastor – again unnamed, but this time it was Heinrich Hildebrand of the Church of God in Aylmer, Upper Canada.  Hildebrand had said “We are here to fight for God, we are here to defend the vulnerable.”

I could have told you what the bishop’s response to this would have been without having read it myself.  However, here he is in his own words:

Surely the vulnerable we need to be worried about are those being exposed to the COVID-19 virus by persons not following the public health orders.   Surely it is those languishing on ventilators in ICUs in hospitals across our country who are the most vulnerable!

I guess it all depends upon how we answer the question “vulnerable to what?”   Even if, however, the answer is “the bat flu”, the Right Reverend Phillips’ thinking appears to be rather muddled on the subject.   Those most vulnerable to the virus are not those who are exposed to it but those with complicating factors such as age, obesity, a compromised immune system, and other chronic conditions that make this virus more than just the non-lethal respiratory annoyance it is to the vast majority who contract it.   When such people, the actual most vulnerable, have come into contact with the virus it has seldom been because of “persons not following the public health orders”.   That is a lie, invented by arrogant politicians and public health officials such as those of our own province, in order to create a scapegoat for the failure of their own policies.  The fact of the matter is that the worst and most lethal outbreaks have taken place in nursing homes where the virus spread got in and spread without any health order violations in spite of such places have been locked down quicker and stricter than anywhere else.

The bat flu, however, is not the only answer to the question “vulnerable to what?”    Suppose that we supply “the public health orders themselves” as the answer to that question.   We then get a very different picture of who the most vulnerable are.

Yes, public health orders hurt people.   The kind of public health orders that have been enacted to slow or prevent the spread of the bat flu are especially harmful.   This has been acknowledged by the World Health Organization, and even by our provincial chief public health officer.   Take the mental health crisis for example.   The Canadian Mental Health Association reported last December about how the “second wave of the pandemic has intensified feelings of stress and anxiety, causing alarming levels of despair, suicidal thoughts and hopelessness in the Canadian population.”   It would have been more accurate for them to attribute this to the “second wave of lockdowns”.    Viruses don’t have this effect.   Mendacious media scaremongering might contribute to it, but overall this is exactly the sort of thing one would expect to see among people who have had all their social and community events cancelled for a year, have been forbidden any social interaction with their friends, and have been told their businesses or jobs are non-essential and must shut down.   Public health orders are the primary cause of this problem.   People are not meant to live this way, it goes against the social nature that God gave us, and when you force people to live in these conditions there will be disastrous consequences.

Since our bishop emeritus made use of the superlative degree of comparison in his own remarks about those vulnerable to the bat flu, I think it is fair game for me to do the same in my remarks about those vulnerable to the public health orders.   Yes, some people are more vulnerable to the ill-effects of public health orders than others.   Somebody who is single and lives alone will be more adversely affected by an order forbidding get-togethers with all except his own household than somebody who has a happy domestic life.   Somebody who is in an abusive and unhappy relationship will be worse off because of a stay-at-home order than somebody who is happily married.   Those who are independently wealthy, whose jobs can be done from home, and whose businesses are in no danger of being declared “non-essential” will not have the kind of hardships that lockdowns impose on those about whom none of these things can be said.    Since the beginning of the bat flu scare the people who have been most likely to shoot their mouths off about how this never-before-tried experimental universal quarantine is “necessary” to fight a virus milder than most of those that caused pandemics in the last century, to lecture the rest of us about how unquestioning obedience to these orders is the loving thing to do and how expressing concern about economic devastation and the rapid evaporation of civil rights and liberties and their constitutional protections is somehow “selfish”, have been the people on the “least affected” side of each of these spectrums for whom the lockdowns have been mostly an inconvenience.

I will close with an observation that is related to the previous paragraph but is not specifically in response to our former bishop’s article.  I note the irony that the clergymen who have been the most vocal in support of the public health orders have been the ones who preach the most about “social justice”.  Indeed, I cannot think of a single dissenter from among their ranks.   The dark irony of this is not just found in the fact that the public health orders, shutting down restaurant dining rooms and indoor public places like libraries and limiting homeless shelter capacities were put into effect before winter ended last year and again just before winter started having absolutely brutal consequences for the very poorest members of our society, while everyone who keeps droning on about “social justice” was glad to be ordered to stay home in their own warm bed.   It can also be found in the fact that the economic result of the public health orders and the lockdown experiment has been to greatly enrich the multi-billionaires of the social media tech companies, internet delivery services, and the hopelessly corrupt pharmaceutical industry while bankrupting and driving out of business all the little guys, whose entire life’s work, and often the life’s work of their parents and grandparents before them has been wiped out through no fault of their own, but by the arrogance of some health bureaucrat who arbitrarily ruled their livelihood to be “non-essential”.   This is accomplishing an economic transition to societies in which small, individually or family owned farms and businesses are unfeasible, and everyone must either sell their labour to some giant, multinational, corporation to survive, or live off of a government allowance.   This is what Hilaire Belloc called “the Servile State” 109 years ago.   At the time, the expression “social justice” was still in its infancy and to those who believed in it in its original sense, the Servile State depicted by Belloc was pretty much the opposite of what they called and strove for, the worst possible of worlds.   Today’s “social justice” clergy have been calling for “universal basic income”, citing the pandemic and the “necessary” public health response to it as demonstrating the need for this measure, the most immediate effect of which would be to greatly accelerate the transition to the Servile State.    Of course what they mean by “social justice” includes such things as Critical Race Theory, the inalienable right of biological males to participate in female sports, and every other notion of this type that left-wing academics have dreamed up and their students have uncritically accepted and regurgitated under the delusion that by doing so they are thinking for themselves, but precious little to do with anything that the expression meant a century ago.   Should any of them be interested in the original version, I recommend to them the essay by that grand old Canadian economist, political scientist, wit, and Anglican layman, Stephen Leacock entitled “The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice”.   I wonder what Leacock would have had to say about people who consider it to be an expression of Christian love to wish government control, greater and more intrusive than any extended or even dreamed of by the totalitarian regimes of his own day – he died in 1944 when Stalin and Hitler were both still in power – on their neighbours?   Gerry T. Neal

Labels: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, COVID-19, Daniel Raiskin, Donald Phillips, Geoffrey Woodcroft, George Bernard Shaw, Hienrich Hildebrand, Hilaire Belloc, Hillel the Elder, John Strachan, Stephen Leacock, Tobias Tissen