A panel of Alberta appeals court judges has dismissed an appeal by parents of five immunocompromised Alberta kids.
Lawyers for the families, known only by initials, had argued the children’s Charter rights were violated in 2022 when the province stopped masking requirements and barred school boards from enforcing their own masking mandates.
Comments closedWhen Alberta Premier Danielle Smith mused in the midst of the debate over her government’s new funding turf war with Ottawa that “we could also establish our own research programs” to ensure ideological balance in academic research, many Albertans suspected they understood precisely what she had in mind.
They thought the United Conservative Party’s Bill 18 is about more than just keeping the Trudeau government from getting credit for helping Alberta municipalities, starved for cash by her government’s policies, and Alberta students and researchers who qualify for federal grants. The so-called Provincial Priorities Act, many also thought, was intended to ensure that what research gets done in Alberta reinforces the UCP’s ideological preferences for unbridled markets and climate change denialism and against vaccines and effective public health measures.
Comments closedMichael Gordon Jackson, a Saskatchewan man accused of abducting his daughter to prevent her from getting a COVID-19 vaccine, has been found guilty for contravention of a custody order.
Following two weeks of proceedings, the jury’s verdict handed down Friday found Jackson, 55, withheld his then 7-year-old daughter from her mother in late 2021 to early 2022. Police eventually found the pair in Vernon, B.C.
While the motive was undisputed, Crown prosecutor Zoey Kim Zeggelaar said the results of Jackson’s actions were in direct contravention of the Order.
Comments closedMichael Gordon Jackson acknowledged some people might view what he did — taking his then seven-year-old daughter on the run across Western Canada — as…
Comments closedWARNING: This story contains offensive and racist language.
A Kelowna man charged with causing a disturbance after yelling at a security guard at a vaccine clinic has been found not guilty by a B.C. judge.
Bruce Orydzuk, 60, was captured on video repeatedly yelling at the guard, who was wearing a turban. The guard had asked him to leave the property of a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in July 2021.
Comments closedThe City of Ottawa’s general manager of emergency and protective services says there is no double standard when it comes to how Ottawa Bylaw issues tickets to protesters who violate things like noise bylaws.
His comments come after the city announced this week that bylaw tickets were not issued to protesters in Ottawa for the “Freedom Convoy” anniversary rally on Saturday, despite the fact that a group of protesters set off fireworks in a parking lot on Queen Street, in violation of the city’s fireworks bylaw.
Comments closedConvoy protest organizers defending a proposed class-action lawsuit now argue the Ottawa Police Services Board should be on the hook for any potential damages to be paid out, claiming protesters were following police directions when they parked hundreds of trucks in downtown Ottawa during the 2022 demonstration.
“None of the defendants … had originally expected to park any vehicles on the streets of downtown Ottawa as part of the protest,” according to a new third-party claim filed by the lawyer for the defendants, which include organizers Tamara Lich, Chris Barber and Pat King.
Comments closedDowntown Ottawa residents and business owners who launched a proposed class-action lawsuit against organizers of the 2022 convoy protest moved one step closer to having their day in court as a judge tossed a defence motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
“There is sufficient basis to conclude that the plaintiffs have a meritorious case,” Superior Court Justice Calum MacLeod said in his ruling, released Monday.
“There is evidence that certain plaintiffs were subjected to what they contend to have been extreme amounts of noise, horn honking, incessant diesel fumes and other pollution, blockage of the streets and intimidation.
Comments closedComments closedThere is evidence that certain plaintiffs were subjected to what they contend to have been extreme amounts of noise, horn honking, incessant diesel fumes and other pollution, blockage of the streets and intimidation. There is evidence that plaintiffs had difficulty accessing their properties and that business was disrupted, reservations cancelled, and revenue negatively impacted.
A federal judge says the Liberal government’s use of the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters was unreasonable.
“I conclude that there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable and ultra vires,” Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley wrote in a Tuesday decision. “Ultra vires” is a Latin term used by courts to refer to actions beyond the scope of the law.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters at a cabinet retreat in Montreal that the government plans to appeal the decision.
Comments closedMembers of far-right convoy groups are holding private meetings where they are developing an ambitious and unorthodox plan to occupy police stations in cities across Canada in order to pressure police into arresting government officials.
The “Team Lead” for the plan is Dana Metcalfe, an organizer of the original Freedom Convoy who is currently facing criminal harassment charges after staging a “surprise convoy” to the home of the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.
On a Zoom call Monday night, Metcalfe was joined by over 100 others, including several leaders of the “Save the Children Convoy,” a group influenced by sovereign citizen and QAnon rhetoric that also planned arrests of politicians and police officers and has since established a rural basecamp near Ottawa.
Comments closedThe COVID-19 vaccination campaign did not result in millions of deaths, as claimed by a former University of Ottawa professor during an interview on Monday’s Network X show with conspiracy activist Alex Jones.
Denis Rancourt, a former University of Ottawa professor, was invited this week to participate in Alex Jones’ Infowars. The appearance came three days after Tucker Carlson’s show referred to Rancourt’s claims that COVID-19 vaccines have killed at least 17 million people worldwide.
Comments closedWhen the pandemic hit American soil, the country faced a tragic lack of leadership in President Donald Trump, a man who famously did not bother to read his daily briefs. He also spent a lot of time on Twitter, and not only religiously watched Fox News but took policy cues from it. In the emerging crisis — which happened to coincide with Trump’s reelection campaign gearing up — while scientific experts couldn’t get the ear of the president, social media and right-wing media very much could and did.
Trump, who had promised the pandemic would simply disappear, came to embrace a too-good-to-be-true pandemic “solution” in the form of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which had captured the excitement of Silicon Valley — and the attention of Elon Musk on Twitter. Though the repurposing of existing drugs is not inherently a bad idea, Team Trump was not interested in engaging in the scientific process to test for safety and efficacy. And it certainly wasn’t the only time Musk or Trump recklessly took off with an idea because they wanted it to be true.
Comments closedOttawa-Carleton District School Board trustee Dr. Nili Kaplan-Myrth says she was subject to a threatening and antisemitic phone call against her which has led to a 39-year-old man from British Columbia being charged with hate-motivated offences on Monday.
In a press release on Monday morning, the Ottawa Police Service Hate and Crime Bias Unit say they charged a man with several offences for a phone call against a healthcare professional which also included mysoginistic and intimidating threats, but did not name the victim.
Comments closedA $300-million proposed class-action lawsuit filed against convoy protesters, donors and organizers on behalf of people who live or work in Ottawa is facing another challenge, with lawyers arguing the case seeks to unfairly limit fundamental freedoms.
A judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has dismissed former MPP Randy Hillier’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge against Reopening Ontario Act charges laid against him in the spring of 2021.
Comments closed
