Crown drops bail condition that forced man arrested at Toronto BBQ protest to submit COVID-19 test

[In political cases, the Crown often seeks to impose restrictions or conditions that have nothing to do with ensuring that the accused will show up for trial. This case is one small victory in the war against political persecution. Paul Fromm]

Betsy Powell January 04, 2021

A Markham man who planned to argue in court Tuesday that he was unlawfully ordered to take a COVID-19 test and turn the results over to police has abandoned that fight after the Crown dropped the condition of his release on bail, his lawyer said Monday.

However, the issue of whether that “outrageous” bail condition was constitutional remains unresolved and still needs to be argued in Ontario Superior Court, says defence lawyer Ian McCuaig.

Michael Arana, 27, was arrested during a boisterous, high-profile pandemic lockdown protest outside Adamson Barbeque on Nov. 26 and charged with six counts of assaulting a peace officer, two counts of uttering threats and one count of obstructing a peace officer. It’s alleged he spit at officers.

“For Mr. Arana, we won, but there’s a bigger issue here… the issue becomes whether this an appropriate bail condition at all,” McCuaig said Monday.

Arana represented himself at a bail hearing where the justice of the peace, at the request of the Crown, agreed to release him from custody if he immediately scheduled a COVID-19 test and promised to provide police with the test results.

When he learned what happened, McCuaig stepped in to launch a legal challenge to the “invasive medical testing” and requirement to report “potentially personal health information to the police as a condition of his bail,” which violates his charter rights, reads the bail review application record filed in court on Arana’s behalf.

“The Crown’s decision to require the unrepresented Applicant (who has a known history of mental illness) to either accept this unlawful condition or spend the weekend in COVID-19 isolation in jail awaiting a contested hearing is oppressive, remarkable, and reprehensible. It is a marked and unacceptable departure for the reas