Lawyer James Manson brings us up to date on the $290 million lawsuit brought by Ottawa resident Zexi Li and others against the Freedom Convoy. In court on Oct 28, Mr. Manson put forward his arguments in an appeal against the dismissal of his Anti-SLAPP motion that would have ended the lawsuit. It's still early days, he says, but he's already put forward some interesting evidence, like the fact that it was the Ottawa police, and not the truckers, that created the traffic problems in downtown Ottawa back in January and February 2022.

Justice Centre, Oct 25, 2024: On Monday, court will hear arguments in $290 million lawsuit against Freedom Convoy

Justice Centre Active Case, Feb 5, 2024: Zexi Li launches $290 million lawsuit against Freedom Convoy participants

Justice Centre, Aug 8, 2023: Update on Anti-SLAPP Motion in Class Action Lawsuit against Freedom Convoy Participants

Justice Centre, Feb 7, 2024: Justice Centre in court today opposing application against organizers of Freedom Convoy

Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, Sep 14, 2020: Supreme Court rearticulates test under Ontario “anti-SLAPP” legislation

Superior Court of Ontario: Best Practices Guide For Class Actions in Ontario

Theme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave Stevens

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We discuss a recent Ontario Court of Appeal decision, Mathur v. Ontario, which was the subject of a recent National Post column by Jamie Sarkonak. In this case, a group of teenagers had gone after the Ford government when it lowered the CO2 targets created by the previous government. The kids claimed the change in government policy violated their Charter rights by endangering the future. The teenagers lost the first round, but now the Appeal Court has ordered a new trial, indirectly suggesting they might have a right to a stable climate.

Court of Appeal for Ontario, Oct 17, 2024: Mather v. Ontario

Jamie Sarkonak in the National Post, Oct 22, 2024: Court says lack of economy-killing climate targets may violate the Charter

Supreme Court of Canada, Apr 2, 2024: Vriend v. Alberta

Friends of Science, Aug 6, 2019: Alligators in Alaska

Ken Gregory in Friends of Science, Jun 14, 2024: Climate Sensitivity by Energy Balance with Urban and Natural Warming (PDF)

CanLII, Jun 20, 2024: Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, SC 2018, c 12, s 186

Supreme Court of Canada, May 25, 2021: References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act

Financial Times, Feb 21, 2015: Chairman of climate change panel accused of sexual harassment

Wikipedia: Rajendra K. Pachauri

BBC, Feb 24, 2015: Profile: Climate chief Rajendra Pachauri

Carbon Brief, Jan 12, 2023: Tonga volcano eruption raises ‘imminent’ risk of temporary 1.5C breach

Watts Up With That?, Aug 24, 2024: Climate Change Weekly #516: Hunga Tonga Eruption Behind “Record” Warming

Kenneth P. Green, Fraser Institute Bulletin, Apr 2024: Extreme Weather and Climate Change (PDF)

CanLII, Sep 9, 2021: O.M.S. v E.J.S., 2021 SKQB 243 (Ruling by M.T. Megaw)

Justice Centre Concluded Case, May 11, 2023: Trinity Bible Chapel, et al. v. Ontario

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John shares his thoughts on a National Post column criticizing recent statements from Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard Wagner. He agrees that undermining the value of legal precedent harms the rule of law. John also discusses a column in which he supports adding the right to refuse a vaccine to the Alberta Bill of Rights, as proposed by Premier Danielle Smith. He argues that while the Charter theoretically protects rights, judges too often side with governments.

Stéphane Sérafin and Kerry Sun in the National Post, Oct 9, 2024: Unchecked judicial power — that's Chief Justice Wagner's vision for Canada

Supreme Court of Canada, Jan 27, 1959: Roncarelli v. Duplessis

Supreme Court of Canada, May 17, 2001: Trinity Western University v. British Columbia College of Teachers

Supreme Court of Canada, Jun 15, 2018: Law Society of British Columbia v. Trinity Western University

John Carpay in The Epoch Times via the Justice Centre, Oct 11, 2024: Canadians Need Legislation to Protect Their Rights

The Canadian Press via the National Post, Sep 24, 2024: Danielle Smith announces details of planned Alberta Bill of Rights that includes vaccine choice, gun ownership

Fox News, Dec 3, 2021: Canadian judge stays compelled speech order issued against pastor whenever he speaks publicly about COVID-19

CanLII, Sep 9, 2021: O.M.S. v E.J.S., 2021 SKQB 243

Justice Centre Active Case, Sep 19, 2024: Challenging constitutionality of Ontario’s public health orders - Hillier v. Ontario

Justice Centre Concluded Case, May 11, 2023: Trinity Bible Chapel, et al. v. Ontario

Justice Centre Report, Sep 13, 2022: Excess Deaths Contradict Narrative of Success

Justice Centre Concluded Case, Mar 13, 2024: Challenging Manitoba’s lockdown measures - Gateway Bible Baptist Church, et al. v. Manitoba and Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin

CTV News, Sep 27, 2021: Alberta NDP calls for door-to-door vaccination campaign to increase immunizations

Theme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave Stevens

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Justice Centre President John Carpay shares his perspective on the residential school system and on NDP MP Leah Gazan's Private Members' Bill (Bill C-413), which would make it a Criminal Code offence to condone, deny, downplay, or justify the residential school system. He discusses the potential impact of this Bill on freedom of expression, the Truth and Reconciliation project, and what he thinks is required for true reconciliation in Canada.

National Post, Sep 26, 2024: NDP MP tables bill seeking to criminalize residential school 'denialism'

Blacklock's Reporter, Sep 27, 2024: MP Seeks Jail For ‘Denialism’

Rose LeMay in Hill Times, Oct 8, 2024: Residential school denialism should be illegal

The Canadian Press via CTV, Nov 26, 2023: Special interlocutor 'waiting' for MP bill criminalizing residential school denialism

Leah Gazan on X, Oct 27, 2022: (this is her introducing her motion to get residential schools considered genocide)

Tristan Hopper in National Post, Oct 1, 2024: All the times the current Parliament has tried to limit free expression

Mark Milke in the National Post, Oct 3, 2024: Criminalizing residential school 'denialism' would silence Indigenous voices, too

Woke Watch Canada Substack, Feb 3, 2024: Why Indigenous Land Acknowledgments are Harmful to the Public Interest

Jonathan Kay in Quillette, Jun 20, 2023: In Canada, Asking for Evidence Now Counts as ‘Denialism’

National Post Editorial, Jun 24, 2023: Criminalizing speech the wrong way to address residential school legacy

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Justice Centre President John Carpay returns to the show to tell us about the book he's writing with the working title "Corrupted by Fear." It's about Canadian court judgments in constitutional challenges to the many Covid restrictions over the last 4 years. Judges, he's found, relied heavily on fear driven media narratives. He also discusses two recent and related columns, "COVID-19 in Italy, what actually happened?" and "Will we fall for the same old PCR tricks again?"

Justice Centre, Mar 13, 2024: Challenging Manitoba’s lockdown measures

John Carpay in the Western Standard via the Justice Centre, Sep 14, 2024: COVID-19 in Italy, what actually happened?

Xinhuanet, Feb 11, 2020: I am human, NOT virus! Stories behind trending anti-racism videos after novel coronavirus outbreak

The Atlantic, Apr 8, 2020: An Unimaginable Toll

Justice Centre, May 11, 2021: Manitoba Chief Microbiologist and Laboratory Specialist: 56% of positive “cases” are not infectious

Justice Centre, Apr 29, 2020: Chief Medical Officers questioned on lockdown’s adverse health impacts

CTV News, Oct 14, 2021: Hinshaw apologizes after Alberta mistakenly reports 14-year-old's cancer death was caused by COVID-19

Bonnie Henry: Reconsideration decision

John Carpay in the Western Standard, Sep 5, 2024: Covid Apocalypse and the triumph of fear over facts

Justice Centre Report, Dec 3, 2020: Flying Blind - Governments’ hasty decisions to lock down Canadians while damaging public health and the economy

Scientific American, Apr 29, 2021: Flu Has Disappeared for More Than a Year

WHO, Jun 7, 2020: Medical certification, ICD mortality coding, and reporting mortality associated with COVID-19

CBC, Sep 9, 2024: Alberta's COVID-19 death toll more than 4 times higher than flu over past year

Global, Sep 11, 2024: New Alberta COVID data highlights value of getting newly formulated vaccine once available: expert

George Jonas Freedom Award dinner in Calgary on Friday, September 27, 2024

Theme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave Stevens

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Lawyer Glenn Blackett talks about cases he's working on that involve free speech on campuses across Canada. This is part of the Justice Centre's Spotlight Campaign this month. He describes the case of the University of British Columbia's Free Speech Club where the administration shut down an event in which journalist Andy Ngo was to talk about Antifa. The other big case involves Professor Frances Widdowson. She was denied the opportunity to give a speech at the University of Lethbridge about the damage that woke culture does to academic freedom. Also, Glenn describes recent changes to health and safety laws used as cudgels to beat down free expression in post-secondary education and elsewhere.

Justice Centre Spotlight Campaign: Help us stop censorship on Canadian campuses

Justice Centre, Jun 4, 2024: University of British Columbia censors Free Speech Club

Justice Centre, Aug 1, 2023: University of Lethbridge cancels event, undermining academic freedom

Frances Widdowson on Amazon.ca: Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation

BBC, Feb 23, 2021: Canada's parliament declares China's treatment of Uighurs 'genocide'

Frances Widdowson in C2C Journal, Feb 23, 2023: Into Wokism’s Raging Maw: Frances Widdowson at the University of Lethbridge

Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship

Christopher Rufo Podcast via the Manhattan Institute, Aug 5, 2022: The Long March Through the Institutions

Supreme Court of Canada, Dec 6, 1990: Mckinney v. University of Guelph

Supreme Court of Canada, Oct 9, 1997: Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General)

The Canadian Bar Association, Jun 11, 2020: Alberta Court of Appeal finds that Charter applies to students’ exercise of freedom of expression on university campus

McMillan LLP, Jan 2018: Alberta Bill 30: Changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act on the Horizon

Open Alberta Bulletin BP024 (PDF): Assessment and Control of Psychological Hazards in the Workplace--OHS information for employers and workers

Jonathan Kay in Quillette, Jun 4, 2022: The Case Against Hate-Speech Laws: a Canadian Perspective

Theme Music “Carpay Diem” by Dave Stevens

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Host Kevin Steel talks to former Ontario MPP Randy Hillier, an outspoken critic of the government's response to Covid. While exercising his Charter freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, he was issued 25 tickets with fines. For his participation in the 2022 Freedom Convoy, he even faces criminal charges. In this interview, he speaks to the issue of governments using the courts to punish and silence critics. Mr. Hillier also explains what motivates him to keep fighting.

July 12, 2023: Charges dropped against former MP Derek Sloan and MPP Randy Hillier

Justice Centre, Jul 27, 2023: Challenging constitutionality of Ontario’s public health orders

Justice Centre, Nov 27, 2023: Judge ignores evidence of lockdown harms when justifying Charter violations

CBC, Mar 28, 2022: MPP Hillier granted bail as he faces 9 charges related to Ottawa convoy protest

Randy Hillier Substack

Randy Hillier GiveSendGo

Randy Hillier on YouTube, Nov 21, 2023: The great assault on Parliament Hill

AP via The Toronto Star, Feb 19, 2020: Passengers leave ship docked off Japan after quarantine ends

Randy Hillier on Youtube, Feb 28, 2024: Hillier gives evidence in the USA Senate -What did they hide?

Britannica: Canadian History--Rebellions of 1837

The Canadian Encyclopedia: Winnipeg General Strike of 1919

Theme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave Stevens

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Lawyer Paul Jaffe joins the podcast to talk about how BC Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry targeted and ticketed churches during Covid lockdowns. He goes over what evidence was presented and what evidence wasn't allowed by the court in cases where - and this may surprise listeners - British Columbians are arguing that Dr. Henry acted in a discriminatory way against faith groups.

Justice Centre Active Case, Jun 13, 2024: Fraser Valley churches argue that Dr. Bonnie Henry was dishonest and discriminatory

Justice Centre, Sep 12, 2023: British Columbia Public Health Officer preferred some faith groups over others

Justice Centre, Jan 8, 2021: Justice Centre to defend numerous individuals and faith communities issued $2300 tickets under BC public health orders

Justice Centre, Aug 10, 2023: Supreme Court will not hear appeal of BC churches challenge to total ban on in-person worship

CanLII, Jan 1, 1959: Roncarelli v. Duplessis, 1959 CanLII 50 (SCC), [1959] SCR 121

Justice Centre, Dec 16, 2022: Challenging British Columbia’s prohibition on outdoor protest--Beaudoin et al v. British Columbia and Dr. Bonnie Henry

CBC, Feb 9, 2021: B.C.'s provincial health officer seeks injunction against churches for defying COVID orders

CBC, Mar 3, 2021: Judge questions whether B.C.'s top doctor appreciated right to religious freedom

Theme Music "Carpay Diem" by Dave Stevens

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