Supreme Court refuses to hear COVID vaccine travel cases

[Music] I remember very soon after the pandemic and the lockdowns were announced that the state of California brought in Draconian rules including a Prohibition on singing out loud in churches well singing as a form of prayer has been since before recorded time and um this of course was a violation of the First Amendment this very quick made its way to the US Supreme Court and it was a wonderful ruling I haven't looked at it in a couple years but it was written so poetically in which the Supreme Court of the United States said that the state of California was welcom to regulate singing it absolutely could but they couldn't regulate the singing in churches more harshly then they regulated the singing in American Idol in Hollywood and so they struck down The rules because they had exemptions for the favored classes they did everywhere around the world and even if they didn't well the fancy people simply didn't pass didn't follow the laws themselves laws were for the little people don't you know but what I take away from that is this the US Supreme Court realized that it was a bonfire of American civil liberties and nothing less than the first amendment itself was at stake and so very quickly I would say it was within months they ruled and struck down that law and others as well there was a famous case in California I believe there was another one from Massachusetts it's been a little while since I read them and I say all this because it is now almost 2025 and we have been in this state of pandemic or post-pandemic for what four and a half years now and if I'm not mistaken and our next guest will correct me if I am our Supreme Court has been too busy to take a single substantive case emanating from the lockdown it's been four and a half years I say again this dramatic case that dealt with violations of civil liberties Was Heard by the US Supreme Court in very short order within months I'd tell you and here we are coming up on the five-year anniversary of the Declaration of the pandemic and I don't think our court has bothered with anything as trifling as the curfew in Quebec as the mandatory uh vaccinations or you lose your job or a hundred other outrages and so it brings me to the troubling headline I see before me today Supreme Court of Canada declines to hear covid vaccine travel mandate cases and those are cases in which the plaintiffs included Brian peckford the former premier of newon Labrador in fact the last surviving signer of the Constitution uh and chart of Rights of 198 2 and another case with Maxim Bernier as a plaintiff and the reason they say is that well the pandemic's over so it's moot anyways there's no point in even hearing it our Supreme Court is so so busy you see dealing with very important things and uh lockdowns and pandemics just don't make the list joining us now to talk about this is the lawyer for the Justice Center of constitutional freedoms Allison pich who joins us from Calgary Alison nice to meet you thanks for coming on the show thank you so much for having me today am I correct in saying that the Supreme Court of Canada has yet to hear a civil liberties case uh emerging from every level of government regulating to its heart's content during the lockdowns and please correct me if I'm wrong but I really don't think they've actually touched on a single uh lockdown case am I wrong that was the case uh up until this year when they announced that they have agreed to hear a case at of New Finland called Taylor versus New Finland it involved um case of a woman who wanted to travel to New Finland from out of Province to visit her ailing mother and there was a New Finland a travel restriction that um prohibited any outof Province residents of other provinces from entering New Finland during that time and uh she took that case to the New Finland court and she raised uh section six of the charter which is the mobility right and the court found that the mobility right was infringed but that the infringement was justifiable based on the circumstances you know it's co and government was just doing um what it needed to do and the case went to the New Finland court of appeal the New Finland court of appeal dismissed it for muteness uh because it found you know the tribal restriction is gone the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear that case it's unclear to me as to whether that uh the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment will if the um applicant is successful whether the case will go back down to the New Finland court of appeal to be heard on the merits there or if the Supreme Court will adjud adjudicate the charter issue at the highest level so they have agreed to hear this very narrow issue but I will say in contrast to our case I mean I'm sure that case was was you know beautifully presented to the court but we've got a Mobility case on such a greater level where Canadian citizens couldn't get on airplanes to leave the country basically locking Canadians in the country unless he wanted to swim across the Atlantic which government Witnesses admitted was permissible in Cross examination so really really um distressing to our clients and to Canadians as a whole vaccinated or unvaccinated because now um Canadians just don't know whether they're living in a kind of country where this is lawful behavior from the federal government well first of all thank you for telling me about that case I was unfamiliar with it um and that does sound like it was an atrocious violation of our constitution I've never before heard I mean when when foreign Nation come to our country illegally cross roxom road their very first act on Canadian soil is an act of lawbreaking they are not required to stay in one Province or another they have Mobility rights and when Canadian citizens are not allowed to travel across provinces because of a covid scare that's an atrocious violation but what I don't understand so you're saying this will be heard uh by the Supreme Court whether they they decide to send it back or hear it in full you're saying they have accepted this case and it'll be heard in 2025 is that what you're saying I don't know when that case will be heard I I'm not sure of the date but uh certainly it ought to be later this year or in 20125 yeah I I don't think it I mean the Supreme Court moves as slowly as a glacier um at the very least late late 20124 if not 2025 so five years after uh the lockdowns begin our Supreme Court has decided to take a look at a at a case so I can no longer say they haven't bothered with a single case now I have to say they mentioned they do with one case but as you point out although this was a violation of this woman's rights it was one person whereas it wasn't just airplanes if I recall it was trains and it was fairies and it was ships and and it wasn't just to leave the country it was to get around within the country you couldn't fly within your own country um there was no science behind it I know that that the Justice Center examined in great detail different decision makers in the government government and they admitted that there was no science behind it they admitted that this this was not actually an act of Public Health based on science how can you say if you're the Supreme Court we're going to hear this case of this poor woman in newfinland that's not moot or at least they're going to rule on that but a massive travel ban that affected tens of millions of people that paralyzed the whole country that's Mo we don't need to ask any questions about it because it's over now how do you square the circle it's very difficult to understand and uh I can tell you um it didn't get a lot of media attention but one of our clients as you mentioned was the former premier of new Finland Brian peckford he actually had a hand in drafting the chter of Rights and Freedoms and when he comes to the court and says I drafted the charter myself and I'm telling you that I believe a plethora of my rights have been violated I'm asking you to hear my case and he can't get his day in court uh that's very troubling to um Mr peckford and should be for all Canadians we also have the unique circumstances of Maxim bourier who is the leader of the PPC Party of Canada and uh specifically in his circumstances he's trying to build his political party and Canada is a large country it's very difficult for him to drive from City to City town to town across the country meeting people and growing his party he needs to get on an airplane to do that to be competitive with his political opponents and here you have one of his political opponents uh basically instituting a policy which prevents him from Fairly participating in the Democratic process and getting a fair shot at uh becoming elected and that uh that is very that is novel we've never seen this before and when the you know the federal court below said well there are no novel issues in this case this case is not important enough uh it's not evasive overview we've had other Co cases so we don't need to hear this actually no this is extremely novel for maxim Bernie and anyone else who wants to follow in his footsteps and try to campaign across the country if they can't do that that is unfair and it's certainly undemocratic you know I can't believe that such an atrocious Draconian bullying tyrannical unscientific prejudicial partisan and generally Fair law can be implemented on people and just because I mean how long was it in effect the no fly zone for unj people was it a year uh it was in effect no not quite a year but I know for the people that it affected it felt like a year it was the end of November of 2021 I think the first two weeks you could still get through with a negative PCR test but then uh the end of November or the first couple weeks of December um you had to had to show Pro the vaccination and then the Prime Minister decided to lift the Mandate in June of 2022 and uh ironically that was immediately uh after some of the evidence came out that you referenced which was that the uh covid recovery team at Transport Canada admitted in cross-examination that she had never received word or memo or request or anything from the public health agency of Canada which gave a health reason a medical reason to implement the travel mandate shortly after that evidence came out the federal government lifted the uh the travel ban for unvaccinated people so um you know it was uh it was a long time coming uh for people who who were trying to see dying loved ones and some of our clients had very sick loved ones in South Africa and in Europe and they were unable to go and visit them I mean this was basically like something you would you would hear about in a country far away with what you think of as a far more totalitarian uh head of government than we think of as having in Canada you know the word lockdown uh here to for had been used to describe prisons when there was a riot and everyone was confining their c i I don't really remember the use of the word lockdown on innocent citizens ever in history and so if you're saying this is from November 2021 to June 2022 that's about 7 months I I've got to think that that was millions of people who would have flown taken a train or at least hundreds of thousands and for a very long time and they didn't know when it would end by the way and there's certain things you can only do once attend a funeral attend a wedding um attend a surgery yeah hold the hand of your dying love right yeah and for the court to say well it's no longer in effect now so we don't need to we don't need to tell you if was unconstitutional or not basically that sends a message to the government that the courts are so slow like I say that that US Supreme Court moved wicked fast I I'd have to look it up um the case about praying in California that was within months it wasn't years um the Supreme Court got straight to it but what Canada's lethargic Supreme Court is teaching is hey governments be as abusive as you like come up with new and exotic ways to punish people not based on science but based on politics and um we'll move so damn slow that you can have one two three four five six seven months of the most bizarre and Arcane rules and then as long as you stop it before the lawsuit begins you're fine you're good as gold because we're not going to get into a fuss about what tyranny you did few months ago that's moot now it I I tell I promise you this the government learned their lesson which is they can do it they can get away with it and they'll do it again I I find this atrocious absolutely and uh what's interesting about our case I mean the points you make are perfectly valid but in our case you may not be aware but we uh we filed our application at the lower court in February of 2022 and we had five expert Witnesses on our side we were partnered with um another set of applicants who had four experts the government came back with numerous experts and they were all cross-examined in a short time period in May and June 2022 and we had a court date of October so we were able to get filed and before the court for that Charter hearing uh in less than a year so we all moved very quickly the crown moved very quickly we worked well together and we were still unable to get this case heard and so you're you're quite right um it does send a message to Canadians uh you know you can dislike the the public health or is all you want but you may never get to challenge them in court and what I find really interesting is when the freedom Convoy was going if you recall and I know I know that you will the freedom Convoy um part of the reason why the truckers and lots of Canadian citizens went to Ottawa to protest was to protest you know various mandates but certainly the travel ones were high on the list and you know they were told by you know the media or whoever else no this isn't the roate forum for you to to be protesting you should you should exercise your your rights uh through the court system have the judges adjudicate that's the way to challenge what you feel is unjust well I mean this is what happens yeah you get these uh these orders that are put in and removed before Canadians can get to the court system and then when you get there the judges do have discretion to hear these cases anyway but they're deciding not to and so where are Canadians left they file these Court challenges that don't go anywhere or they peacefully protest and get their bank accounts Frozen so you know where what are we left with here in Canada what a great Point you're not allowed to protest in parament Hill even though it was the largest peaceful protest in Canadian history you're not allowed to go to court well you can but you'll just burn up your money because at the last minute they'll say oh sorry it's moot um the five political parties that were in the leaders debate in 2021 were unanimous on all the key issues because they included the green party but did not include the aforementioned Maxim Bernier of the People's Party even though he was at the same point in the polls as the green party so you're not allowed to join politics you're not allowed to go to the law you're not allowed to have a political protest and of course um social media companies would censor you for disinformation if you disputed um Health measures what a stitch up as the British would say but it's not that surprising that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court himself issued a statement that he was going to enforce vacines on the court precincts itself so just in case any lower judge was wondering um what the Supreme Court's position was on on the lockdowns and the pandemic uh the Chief Justice himself pretty much winked and said guys let me put it this way I'm enforcing a vaccine mandated at the Supreme Court building so uh govern yourself accordingly we don't need to have the fuss and the mus of having actually have a hearing you just know what to do I I find this very demoralizing which is yet another reason why I thought the truckers were so important and so effective and by the way I credit the truckers for defenestrating aono Tool as conservative leaders so perhaps the truckers helped fix our political system too last word to you Allison um thank you for your work on this um I guess this is a closed door then there's just no where else to go if the Supreme Court declines to hear it am I right yeah there's nowhere else to go for for us in this case but uh you know it's it's a real travesty of Justice uh you know being the lawyer working on the file um getting to know the clients very well and hearing the evidence that came out uh you know win or lose and of course if we had gone through the hearing and lost and gone through the appal process and lost that's that's one thing and you know as lawyers we went some and we lose some but having the kind of evidence come out that that that came out during those cross- examinations on such an important issue not having that evidence properly adjudicated and and going through the appropriate Charter test with it is can't tell you that what a what a tragedy that is for for Injustice honestly I mean some of the some of the information that we received that came out um most people will never care about it I I I know we've done some news releases but it's it's really it's it's going to get lost and the public deserves to know loud and clear that there was no medical health reason at least testified to admitted to by the government cross examination to put these these Draconian mandates in place what would the court have done with that information anything deserve to know and they deserve to know the kind of country they live in and if they cannot if if they cannot count on being able to leave when they want to leave then you know they have to make decisions as to whether they want to join their family in other countries so these are really critical issues and it's it's it's so disappointing as an understatement to to say the least wow very powerful so glad to meet you Alison pich lawyer who was working on the file on behalf of the Justice senat great to meet you and uh I share your views on these things but I'm glad you fought the fight thanks chesra is very nice to be here [Music] today that's an exerpt from my daily show called The Ezra Lance show every day I do a monologue on the news of the day and then I interview an interesting newsmaker it could be from anywhere really then I wrap up by reading my fan mail and if I can some hate mail too it we do it every week night and my friend Sheila gried does a show every week too but you've got to subscribe go to rebelnews plus.com click subscribe it's eight bucks a month and I hope you like it