Auto-Generated Transcript The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms provides pro bono lawyers to Canadians whose constitutional rights have been violated. The JCCF is a registered charity founded over a decade ago by John Carpe, who still serves as the organization's president. Their work is supported entirely by donations. Since the start of the COVID pandemic, JCCF lawyers have worked tirelessly to represent those who lost their jobs and businesses. to defend everyday Canadians who received fines or prison sentences for defying mandates, and have partnered with my own organization, Strong and Free Canada, to bring Canadians the truths in the form of brochures, demonstrations, and podcasts. In this, the second of a four -part series on the legal actions being taken by the JCCA on behalf of their clients. clients. I am joined in the studio by Justice Center lawyer Marty Moore, who has been with the JCCF for over 10 years, and who oversees all of their cases. In today's interview, Marty gives us details on a number of live cases, including fighting for the rights of healthcare workers, Christian churches, and Canadians denied EI after being fired or refused. the COVID shots. The JCCF is the largest of the legal organizations in Canada fighting for our rights in the courts. Currently, they employ nine full -time lawyers and four paralegals, and a representing or have represented Tamara Litch and Chris Barber, organizers of the Freedom Convoy, and the Honourable Brian Peckford, who served as a third Premier of Newfoundland. Newfoundland and is the sole surviving author of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. While many cases have been lost due to judges who are ignoring our Charter rights, many cases have also been won. Despite corruption and courts which have refused to look at relevant evidence, Marty and his fellow JCCF lawyers continue to fight for our rights. Thank you very much. Like myself, Marty doesn't pick fights, he can't win. He remains confident that in time these cases will be won. Marty, thanks so much for coming in today. Thanks. Well, good to be with you today. So you're the second in my series on the JCCF and the excellent work you guys are doing because all of you guys are fighting not till battle. Do we ever get a good dose of that when I talk to Glenn Blatvitz? Yeah. Now, however, you have actually been with the JCCF for a very long time. When did you start with them and why? And this is a question I ask all the lawyers because you guys could be making more money elsewhere. You don't have to be doing this. Well, you know, well, I actually started my legal career in the United States and I'll murder a boy and then grew up in Saskatchewan on a farm. farm. I eventually went down to law school in the United States, practiced for a couple of years in Chicago, and then I came back to Canada. And I was studying at the University of Saskatchewan, actually, when I heard that there was an organization in Canada fighting for constitutional rights and freedoms. When I left the country, I wasn't aware of any of that fight going on. And obviously, down in America, that's a lot more of a live issue. People are much more aware of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of rights and freedoms. And in Canada, I think you go back 10 years, maybe even go back five years. Most people weren't even aware that their fundamental freedoms were under assault, largely because at that point it was kind of a hidden issue mostly on university campuses and kind of in back rooms. Certainly it's broken open to the open now. And so, yeah, 10 years ago as a student at the University of Saskatchewan, I heard about the Justice Center and immediately got involved volunteers. there trying to assist on some of their cases and ended up actually joining them after law school there at Saskatchewan and moving to Calgary and I've been working with the Justice Center ever since. So you started out as a volunteer, but what's your role there now? Yeah, right now I manage a lot of cases that are funded by the Justice Center, manage lawyers across the country and get to work on cases myself, but... But it's kind of a fun oversight role, I guess you'd say, in large part. And yeah, getting to see the fight for freedom kind of from almost a little bit of a bird's eye view, but also getting into the trenches as well. Now, it is, as I said, it's an uphill battle. You guys are really having to fight hard with our captured courts and public opinion and everything just being pretty much against you. But before we get into it... specific cases that I wanted to discuss today, I do like people to hear about victories and there have been some. What do you think are the most significant victories that you guys have won? Well, I think, you know, this week, for example, I've been dealing with a few campus free speech issues here in Alberta. And, you know, anytime that we're fighting for free speech on campus, I really feel like that's the genesis of a lot of our problems. in societies. We've had a university system that's educating people not in a way that values fundamental freedoms, but rather in a way that says repressive tolerance is a great thing to adhere to. You can squash the opinions of people that disagree with your narrative. That stems from the university system. The Justice Center long ago fought that fight here in Alberta and won it. I 2020 at the Alberta Court of Appeal, a unanimous decision upheld that in Alberta, at least, and that's where the law has gone so far, there is a constitutional right protecting students' freedom of expression on campus. And so that was a long fight that was years and years in the making. We are still fighting that battle right now in BC where the Court of Appeal has gone the other way. We have a case pending there, but, you know, and then just the fight for free speech is always one of eternal vigilance. And so, I mean, we just threw the University of Lethbridge again this last year for first canceling at Francis Whittleson event, for example. So that particular victory, though, has had ramifications across Western candidates at this point. It's not been a nationally recognized issue that the fact that we pay hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year. year to these institutions and that they're built on government land with all sorts of government mandates put on them and objectives that they're seeking to uphold really on behalf of us as the tax -paying citizen, it hasn't been recognized across Canada yet that freedom of expression on campus is a constitutionally protected right? But in Alberta, thanks to the efforts of the Justice Center, it is. So, that's one of the things that we have to do. of the, you know, I'm glad to see that when happened and I look forward to seeing that one expanded across the country but I've seen cases you know Saskatchewan Manitoba especially but Alberta as well relying on that and it gives you a lot more weight when you start dealing with sensorious university administrators that you can cite that case and say look better back down because we'll probably beat you in court again. Yes so I just also wanted to mention that while Layton Gray and Jeff Ratham, not JCCF lawyers, they were working in partnership with the JCCF. As I understand it, that's correct, yes. Yeah. Layton Gray's entire legal team was funded by the Justice Center in advancing the Ingram case. Yes. Along in partnership with Jeff Ratham, who was actually counsel for Ingram, Layton Gray represented four other parties in that case. Right. And that was, I think, one of the most significant. victories we've seen in the last few years because we got the court to rule that all the COVID mandates in Alberta were illegal. Maybe not the reasons we would have liked them to, not because they were unconstitutional, but illegal nonetheless. Absolutely. And I mean, the impact of that case on Albertans is absolutely massive because, of course, you had a cross -examination of Dr. Dean Hinshaw by Layden Gray, by Jeff Wrath, clearly expected. [END OF TRANSCRIPT] that there was nothing public health oriented about these orders. They were political mandates made by political decision makers. And that's what ended up being the downfall of the entire COVID regime essentially here in Alberta that was imposed on all sorts of people. So when we took on the case of Ty Northcott and the Northcott rodeo, the more lockdowns rodeo along highway two there, taking on on the cases for James Coates and Pastor Stevens and Fairview Baptist Church. As soon as that, those COVID orders fell thanks to the work of Layton Gray and Jeff Rath. All of those prosecutions were dropped as well. And then, of course, you saw the Alberta government not only recognize that and not even appeal that decision further, but refunded all of the fines that had been paid out. And so, yeah, an absolutely massive victory when When it comes to COVID, that's the most significant in the country. Another one that I can think of, which is significant, was actually a case that we brought early in 2021 against BC's prohibition on outdoor protests. In BC, well known for its outdoor protests for various causes, whether it's pro -freedom or anti -pipeline or climate change or what have you, you can almost always find a protest if you look far enough in BC. But they completely prohibited outdoor protests during COVID. And so we sued them on behalf of a gentleman actually, Eileen Baudouin, up in Dawson Creek, who was engaging in outdoor protests out there, mits on, tukes on, gloves on, but of course they had to find him and threaten him with all sorts of penalties, brought it to the court and actually the day of the court hearing in the court. court, the BC government lawyer said, "Look, we acknowledge that not only was this a violation of the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of association, but we acknowledge that there was no justification for it whatsoever. They could not trace a single case to an outdoor protest in BC. And so actually at their consent, the court struck down that prohibition on outdoor protests in Alberta or sorry, in British Columbia at that time. So all of the prosecutions over the next little while. the prosecutors dropped the prosecution of all sorts of different people across the province in BC who are facing charges for simply exercising their right to protest. And so that was another victory on the COVID front. Sadly, we haven't, haven't seen as many of those as we'd like. The fight's not over, of course. Like I mentioned on the, on the university free speech front, when you're taking a battle that runs counter to the narrative, often it takes a long time. And often you're dealing with an uptake of information to the judiciary. You're dealing with the slowly percolating revelation of truth and facts that would run counter to the narrative that everyone was consuming through the mainstream, if you will. And, you know, think the narrative is unraveling, even in the eyes of some of the more ardent consumers of the mainstream narrative. But as that continues to unravel, I do think that we will see a return, hopefully, to some sanity in regard to even some of these COVID restrictions and the review of those before the courts. And I certainly hope so, as well, because I'm really looking forward to seeing that aware that many of the judges are simply taking the COVID pandemic on judicial notice. You know, just, they're saying, well, the government says it is, so it is. And they're not questioning the actual science. I'm not even looking at it, and that's been a real challenge, I know. However, let's move on, because I asked you to come equipped today with what you feel are the three or four most significant cases that you're working on. So please, fill us in. - Yeah, well, I mean, I, again, as I mentioned, I have the opportunity to work with lawyers across the country. We're working with the Justice Center to defend freedom. So I won't say that these are the most significant. These just happened to be ones that I have my own personal hands involved in a little bit here. But that, you know, one of the, one of the situations that we find in Canada is that you know, the truth doesn't need a defense. What the truth needs is light. And if, if people can silence the truth, if they can hide the truth, that's the only defense against the truth. And what we see particularly in the area of questions about the appropriateness of materials and schools, about whether parents should be involved or informed about what schools are doing with their own kids at their own taxpayers expense. When these issues come up in school board meetings, and people, parents, grandmothers, teachers, former staff members, former school board trustees, or even trustees themselves raise these issues, the frequent response of those who are just pushing a narrative rather than trying to find solutions and the best interests of children is often to just censor. And we see that across the country. We have cases obviously in Ontario dealing with that. But British Columbia, not immune from that. Recently, I assumed on behalf of a former school board employee, Linda D 'Armani, a grandmother who has children in the BC school system, who was raising concerns at a public school board meeting about conflicts of interest that were apparent on the face of the record and the agenda before the school board meeting. meeting. And for raising this, in the scope of only two minutes, my client, Ms. Niermani, was silenced, had her mic muted four times, and was being told things that were absolutely bizarre. She was referencing the code of conduct provisions and the conflict of interest provisions that applied to the school board in regard to most a motion that was saying let's have an entire month for this school dedicated to the celebration of pride and let's raise a public flagpole, an additional flagpole, a non -governmental flagpole in front of our school board offices so that we can fly the pride flag and let's spend some money doing this or that to promote pride. Now, whether or not you agree with pride, that wasn't the issue. The issue was that the person putting forward this motion to spend a bunch of taxpayer resources on Pride just so happened to be the marketing director of the Local Pride Association. And so Ms. D 'Amarni went to the school board meeting and said, "Look, this is a conflict of interest." And she was immediately muted, immediately muted because you couldn't even raise that question. I mean, it was so obvious, but she couldn't even raise that question. And she was told, there's no conflict of interest here because we're talking about human rights. We're talking about spending taxpayers' money here to support a particular cause that's very dear to the heart of this one trustee and also, you know, dear to their personal connections as director of marketing for the local pride society. But muted on that issue, she then went on to say, well, I think that our society society would be better served by not promoting the causes and the celebrations of particular special interest groups. And she was immediately muted again. How dare you reference special interest groups when talking about pride? And of course, again, how can she not mention special interest groups? There's nothing necessarily a negative about being a special special interest group. It's just whether or not our government taxpayer dollar should be promoting certain special interest groups, causes above others. It's always baffling to me that they want to have this special category for themselves and they apply these labels to themselves. But if anybody who is not one of them uses that label, they're silenced. Yeah. I mean, there's no logic to this. It's when you cannot defeat the point with logic. logic, they try to defeat it with censorship. And so, you know, she attempted to reference the Supreme Court of Canada case law that says there should be a duty of state neutrality when it comes to matters of belief and non -belief and immediately muted. And not just muted, but her mic was muted. But then the school board share, who's a, you know, this isn't the first time that she's done this, she ends up muting the entire recording of the school board meeting so that you can't even hear my client engage in the discussion about with the school board trustees about whether or not it was appropriate to mute her. So this is a public school board meeting. There's a statutory right that would be public, but you know, most people view these things online. The meeting was muted entirely. People can't even hear what's going on. All they know is that, "Oh, this person must have done something terrible," because they're getting cut off mid -sentence with a mic mute. And of course, the school board has conveniently also prohibited anyone from recording the meetings in person. So the school board chair has complete control over any narrative that comes out of that meeting. As long as she can mute that mic fast enough, enough and then she needs the entire recording. So not even a chance of any other mic picking up the recording. So we've actually brought a challenge saying, look, it's a long history of this censorship happening at the school board. And you can go and there's just, this is one of many of these instances at this school board by this particular chair and the other school board trustees supporting it. And then this idea that you can mute the record, the public record before a public school board meeting that public has a right to see and then, you know, do your dirty deeds in the dark of a muted recording. We challenged both of those in court. We've, we'll be seeing where that case goes, but I look forward to litigating it here early in 2024. Yeah, I certainly hope that it comes out with a positive result because you know as well as I do that what you're talking about is just one example of what's going on in this country with silence anyone who opposes the narrative, who tries to bring up logical problems with it or tries to suggest that perhaps, well, if this particular special interest group has certain rights, well, maybe this one over here should too. If you went into one of these places and you suggested that there should be a Christian students must. month, even though I'm pretty certain in most of these schools, Christian students probably outnumber those who identify as gay students, pride students, and you'd be shut down for that. I mean, no, no, we can't do that. Yeah. I mean, we have a certain particular woke narrative that is being advanced. And if you contradict that woke narrative, it doesn't matter what facts, what facts. what logic, what reality of, "Look, there's a conflict of interest here or not," they just have to silence you because one of the concerns that many of us would recognize in Canada is that the public often fails to be engaged in things that affect their very lives. And so, if parents are actually able to see and understand the concerns concerns that their elected trustees are doing with their money and for their kids, well, we know that when parents are informed, they don't want some ideology, some narrative being rammed down their kids' throats in the school. What they want is an open dialogue. They want a transparent process. They want an education system that's committed to educating, not indoctrinating. Thank you. It's exactly the word I was going to use. Yeah. So, what else do you have for us, Martin? Yeah. Well, sticking with BC. And again, you know, people like to hire of the COVID situation. But as I mentioned, you know, the fight is not over and, you know, getting down to the truth is often a long process. And this is where right now we're representing a number of BC pastors. We've been representing them for almost, well, more than three years now. And, of course, in British Columbia. The public health officer really had no use for houses of worship. And so while you could go to a restaurant You could go to a bar or you could go to a gym. I mean, you couldn't do that and Alberta You couldn't have many other places, but enough in BC. You could go to all of these places You could go watch the Canucks lose if you wanted to But you couldn't gather outdoors with two people For religious worship that was against the law that was a risk to your health even though they had no evidence that outdoor worship or even indoor worship with any of the same protocols that were being implemented in these other facilities was any dangerous to public health, any kind of special danger. It was just a decision to categorically prohibit in -person worship. Just prohibited it from November 2020 to about May 2020. 2021, a massive period of time. And of course, they only said, oh, it's just a couple weeks. Oh, it's just a couple weeks. And they kept extending it, extending it, extending it. And many, many communities of faith went along with that. But we represented clients who, for religious reasons, they, they were required by their faith to gather in person. Zoom was not sufficient. And whether that was because they were serving homeless persons or, or people that had needs that could only be met in person, or when they were, uh, the doctor, of their faith required them to assemble. And in some cases, all three, we took cases to the court and let me lay out the context for this, because the facts of this case give rise to an incredible remedy that we're seeking in this case. We are alleging that the provincial health officer of British Columbia, Dr. Bonnie Henry, and her team engaged in an abuse of process. process by their treatment of Christian churches but also really their treatment of faith communities at large because if you look at the facts that we've already uncovered and we're looking for more it becomes clear in my view and so let me set it out so number number 2020 there's an uptick in cases and greater measures are going to be employed Of course, the greater measure that they choose to employ is we're going to shut down all the churches completely. All the churches, all the houses of worship are going to get shut down. Seek temples aren't going to get shut down, by the way, because they serve food in the basement. So that's not going to be shut down. Because I have to ask some questions because of course I've been, at that point in time I was panning by the closer question to what was happening in Alberta, not so much was happening in BC. And you said earlier, the gyms were open, restaurants were open, bars were open. All of these things were open at the same time. time that they were closing all the churches. That's right. Okay. Thank you for that clarification. That's right. Yeah. And so specifically Christian churches. Well, let me get into that because of course, there's more than just, you know, there's other houses of faith and they were all technically out of the same categorization. As I mentioned though, Gurdwara's because they often have an open buffet essentially in the basement. They were specifically exempted. Interesting. Interestingly not. Then there was some interesting communication between representatives of orthodox synagogues with the public health officer. Right when she's before and after she issues these order on November 19th, 2020. Before the public, there's records that we found where the orthodox community said, well, you know, obviously we need to meet in person. And she's like, yeah, we get that you can meet in person. After we're they say, "Look, your order says we can't meet in person. How does this work?" And within two days, a response comes, "Oh, no, you can meet in person. You can gather in a tent outside 25 people. That's fine. You can do your in -person worship services." She only told it to them. No other religious group gets a response. response. I'm aware of hundreds of churches that sent in communications to the public health officer. Please, we have to meet in person. It's essential to our faith and citing verses and giving elaborate plans and protocols and all sorts of things. Well, they never even got a response, not even a response. And meanwhile, this particular group of synagogues is getting responses every, I mean, the day after two days later, the getting a response from public health officer. Sure, you can, all the synagogues in the province can meet in person in these tents. That's totally fine. We'll expand it every new order. Yeah, this is, you don't even have to ask us anymore. You could always meet in person. And that is what's going on to a particular group. While, for example, the church in Langley sends an email on, on December 7 saying here, we've, we've driven lawyers, we've drafted an entire COVID safety plan so that we can respect the needs of our community and our personal religious beliefs to meet in person. Here's our plan." They sent that on December 7th. Do you want to know when they got a response? I'm guessing quite some time. May 5th, 2021, almost six months later. Right. And they're told. told, you know, guys, Dr. Henry's been incredibly busy. She's been working so hard on solving this pandemic. She doesn't have time to answer your request. He can't help you. This is the same Dr. Henry who was responding to the synagogues went away right away. Okay. She can't help you. So you know, that's thanks so much for your email. But of course you can understand she's a public health officer. She's eating that challenge. Time for that. Of course, we're representing churches as well. They're aware of this. They some of them sent in their own communications on late November 2020. And then in December 2020, Dr. Henry gets word of two of our clients that we're actually meeting rather openly in person. And she writes in this letter saying, you know, you know, how's it going? worship, unlike all these other settings, people at those houses of worship, they just don't follow the rules good enough." Now, of course, our clients, their parishioners were following rules incredibly strictly. They were doing everything they could to comply with all of the rules above and beyond that were imposed on settings like restaurants and gyms and schools and etc. But they were being told in writing by Dr. Henry that, "Oh, religious people, they just don't follow the rules when they get together." And if you really wanted to meet in person, you could write me and I'd consider it. She doesn't say that. She's already given permission and she's already told synagogues across the province that it's safe to meet in person. Why didn't she write to the client to say, "Hey, I'm allowing people to meet outdoors in tents. Why don't you set up a big tent to meet outdoors?" She doesn't say that, disingenuousness right down to the court. Right. Thanks for watching. probably knew this, were gearing up for a lawsuit. We filed that lawsuit early in January 2021. And, you know, lawyers get in touch with us, you know, then they say, "Well, look, there's this statutory provision. Don't you guys know that you can write and request that you can meet in person? The public health officer would consider that." And we say, "Well, hey, give it to us." I mean, we're aware of many people who haven't received any any response while writing to the public health officer, but the better lawyers are well, you can, you can get access this. Well, say, okay, well, go ahead, send our legal documents to Dr. Henry, we've already sent letters to him, but go ahead, send our legal documents to her. Oh, and here's a couple expert reports like that it's safe enough to meet for us to meet in church. Why not? So there was the response of Dr. Henry to that information, was it to grant our clients the ability to meet in person outdoors? Of course not. Of course not. No. No, she immediately files an injunction application seeking court authorization to arrest and imprison pastors and parishioners in BC, but just our clients who are attending church. That's what she does. Now she ran that case again. against our clients. She lost it on February 14th, 2021. And then another week and a half later, now we remember this is the time when her office is responding within a couple of days. Anytime the synagogues make a request, they're getting in -person permission to meet. Well, two days before the constitutional challenge that our clients had filed to be heard. It was going to be heard on March 1st, 2021, two days before that. The chief medical health officer responds out of the blue. Oh, we've received this request for reconsideration. And guess what? After weeks of consideration, we can't allow you to meet in person indoors. Of course, but if you promise not to sing. sing, you can meet outdoors for a limited duration and all of these other requirements and then it goes on and on for pages and pages. Well, you know, what was interesting, Will, is you think, well, that's kind of disingenuous, but that's not the extent of it. Because two days before, the public health officer in British Columbia had in an email to a whole, again, all of the Orthodox synagogues in the province said. I've been looking at this request for you to celebrate I can't remember which of which of the holidays it was and and you're on your weekly Sabbath services you want to do that in person now after review we're going to allow you to do that not only in person but indoors two days later she sends our Christian pastor's a letter that says it's too dangerous for you to meet indoors you can only meet outdoors and if you promised on to sing." And then I was going to say, basically, I imagine this long list of rules that they give back to them comes down to, "It's okay to meet outdoors as long as you don't actually practice your religion." Well, I mean, anyone who's been to a Christian worship service knows that singing and the definition of worship in the Christian faith is almost synonymous with singing. And so I'm going to say, "It's okay to meet outdoors as long as you don't practice your religion." yes, I mean, it was almost like the poison pill in the solution that was being provided. But this idea that we can allow the synagogues to meet in person indoors, but we can tell two days later the churches that they can only meet outdoors. And of course, did Dr. Henry respond to all of the thousands of churches and mosques and other? I mean, for example, the Archbishop. Archbishop of Vancouver, Catholic Archbishop, wrote to Dr. Henry. Did he get a response? No, he didn't get a response from Dr. Henry. He had to sue Dr. Henry just to get a response from her. And was her response, oh, you can meet in person outdoors? No, no, no, she only offered that to our clients, literally on the courthouse steps. And then, the weekend before the court hearing, of course, lawyers were pretty busy and we're doing all sorts of things and we come across some information. Someone had told the press that the synagogues had permission not only to meet in person, but indoors. So we told the lawyers for the government said, "Look, Monday morning, we're coming into court and we're going to tell the court to order disclosure of whatever this is going on here because you told our clients it's too risky for them to meet indoors and now you're telling the synagogues." obviously have been given permission to meet indoors. So the very morning of the court hearing, Monday morning, this is going down. What does the public health officer do? Does she say, you know what, guys, I've been lying to you the whole time. It is safe enough for people to meet in person indoors with the same restrictions that I've been allowed in synagogues to meet. No, no, no, no. She doesn't do that at all. She writes to the synagogues on that morning. before the record gets into the court, because the court was going to order that she produce all those records into the court. She writes to them and says, "No, no, no, no, you all misunderstood me. I'm only allowing you to meet outdoors." Even though her letter literally says permission to meet for indoors for this particular holiday and for weekly Sabbath services. And I mean, this is the kind of behavior that we are alleging constitutes an abusive process. And so for pastors to now in 2023 going on into 2024, still to be prosecuted for complying with the obligations that they had to their parishioners and to their faith to meet in person, to prosecute them in the context of this, doesn't it jar your sense of justice, doesn't it jar jar what you would expect a just society to be entertaining? Should a court participate in the sanctioning and the punishment of pastors who were simply in these circumstances doing the very best they could to serve their faith and to comply with the law at the same time? You're asking the wrong person, Marty, because I've been watching all this stuff happening for the last almost four years now. I do have a question though. In plain English, what does abusive process mean? Abusive process in this context says, "Look, the continuation of this prosecution of pastors for violating the public health officers' orders when the public health officer behaved in such an egregious manner constitutes a shock to the sense of justice of not just you and I, but the average person in society." If the average person knew and understood what the public health officer did to these people, allowing the courts to countenance this kind of abuse by prosecuting these pastors, it should not be allowed. So we're actually asking the court to stop these prosecutions. Because the prosecutors themselves, we've been successful in having them drop dozens and dozens of charges against these pastors, but they haven't dropped all of them. and they're still pushing to get a pound of flesh out of these charitable ministers who survive on a stipend from the donors to the churches. They're still trying to get something out of these people to punish them for holding services. And so we say that is an abuse of our justice system and it really should not be permitted. So in this context, abuse of basically means there was one set of rules for that group, and a completely different set of rules for this group, even though the two groups are basically the same. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you're using your power in an abusive discriminatory manner, not in good faith, then the court has an obligation to look into it. And of course, the government want to raise these issues in court. They hooted and hollered and they they cried foul. and they actually brought an application trying to quash this application to stop the prosecution. And in August, they lost that application because we have enough evidence right now that showing what I've outlawed. This is only what I know. You have your own letters. This is only what I know. And so the judge said, "Look, there's a foundation of evidence here on which to say that the public health officer was treating something." faith groups differently than other faith groups which is kind of prima facia like bad faith conduct and so then we said well look okay let's let's let's bring Dr. Henry in for cross examination she can explain this if it's right she can maybe provide us with some some explanation don't ask me how she could you know a weasel her way out of that uh the court did not order that unfortunately because i think uh like the cross -examination of Dr. Deena Hinch on Alberta, there was a lot of clarity provided. No one has to doubt how those public health orders were made and who was making them. But in BC, so far, the public health officer is shielded from that kind of examination. We just finished a court hearing earlier this month, four days, where we said, "Okay, give us all of the records, all of the communications to Dr. Henry and in her office seeking these exemptions from Dr. Henry to others in response to their request for exemptions permission to meet in person and also we want to see the letters between the politicians and Dr. Henry. What was being said there because a lot of this doesn't make any sense in a real health perspective. It makes sense from a voting block perspective. It does make sense from that perspective. but from a public health perspective, really hard to tell. And so we know that, I mean, Dr. Henry wrote a book actually about COVID or about some of her experiences. And one of the things she says is like, sometimes you got to keep the solution in your back pocket right for the right time because if you do a public health move too soon when the politicians aren't there, you might lose your job. She literally confesses to that in a book. Nick, that's what we're about to ask, realistically speaking. you've asked for this communication between the politicians. What do you think the chances are you're going to get them or if when you get them, they're not going to be so heavily redacted, they'll be useless? Well, look, we have a legal process. We're engaged in it. We're fighting for it. And there's 1 ,033 documents that we're seeking. Well, now their excuse here, Will, is to say, "We don't know how many of those documents are really relevant." relevant. We don't know, really, they're not organized, they're not properly listed, so we can't search them. They might contain private information, so we can't even do that. So now the court's having to rule on whether or not to order any of these documents to be released. I'll note that when we brought up to the court in the case in 2021, "Hey, there's a particular exemption that's being given to the Jewish synagogues to meet in person," they were able to not only find that communication immediately, they were able to change that communication the very day of that court hearing. So for them to come back to the court here in 2023 and say, "Oh, the documents are so disorganized and we can't possibly find out whether there was a decision on an exemption," no, they know. But there's a real aspect of it's going to take us a year or more just to delay, kick it down the road to Friday. Really, quite frankly, this is the public health officer. There's a public interest in knowing how the public health officer is treating communities of faith. Yeah. And I had a discussion with Omar Sheikh in BC, I'm sure you know. And he educated me and my viewers on that. that that's the government lawyer tactic. Delay things as long as possible. Just delay, delay, delay, delay. Yeah. And I mean, that probably brings me to the next case. Please do. BC again, I guess we're on a roll here. And actually right now, while we're speaking here, December 18th, our lawyers started arguing the law in the challenge to the BC healthcare worker COVID -19. vaccine mandate. It's still in place to this day. After all of the information, after Omicron, after all of these variants of concern that have, you know, spread around everything and the vaccines, you know, winding up or not lining up with this, that or the other thing, all of the evidence about whether the vaccine is effective or actually negatively effective. effective compared to natural immunity, healthcare workers to this day in British Columbia are still forced to have two COVID shots of the original vaccine, in case I wonder, or they are terminating. Right. Bill 36. And while that's a different story, but is that not the same? No, it's not the same thing. So these are actually orders, again. Oh. Bill. of the illustrious Dr. Bonnie Henry. Because I was on a very recent-- so this is the side from Bill 36. Yeah, this is the side. This is the draconian document, I think, of a produced in this country. Yeah, I mean, we could talk about Bill 36 for a long time and never get to the bottom of that. That's a very, very-- So please, fill us in on this one, because I want to know where there was something else going on here. So just as Dr. Henry, with an oral order, for a written order-- can shut down all the churches and all the houses of worship in BC indefinitely. So Dr. Henry can cancel the careers and fire thousands of vaccine, of healthcare workers who haven't taken the COVID shots. And that is in place right now because of the written word of Dr. Henry. And it's in place as you talk. in place? - Still in place, to this day, right now. Right now, you can read stories about BC patients seeking cancer treatment who, because of the massive delays in cancer treatment, are being offered suicide by their healthcare professionals, rather than cancer treatment, 'cause there's such a delay. Well, guess what? Our lead applicant in the Tatlok, and there's about, 10 different applicants there, uh, happened to manage all the cancer treatments for the interior of BC. She was fired. Not because she worked in a hospital setting. She actually was an administrator. She could work from home. She was fired because she didn't get the shot. Yeah. Not because she was risked to anybody. Many of our clients, one of our clients worked from home for decades and she was still fired. fired because working from home on the other end of a computer screen was not acceptable for Dr. Henry. She had to be fired. And so in this case, delay, you want to talk about delay, it's been delayed and delayed and delayed. And of course, we've been seeking government records, we've been blocked on that. We've sought the opportunity to cross exam and Dr. Harry been blocked on that. and now the case has gone forward. Now we do have expert reports in the record because we were able to submit expert reports to Dr. Henry before she issued an order and as soon as we submitted them to her then at least in that sense the court will actually review them. In other cases on Dr. Henry's orders if Dr. Henry didn't look at it the court won't look at it and the court won't allow any evidence that Dr. Henry didn't see in order to challenge Dr. Henry's orders. orders. And that's just a, it's an evidentiary nightmare. Normally you think you can go to the court and have a trial where you have this expert stand up and say, well, here's the actual facts on this and this expert stand up and the judge in the middle says, well, I find this expert to be lying and this expert to be credible. Not so in challenging COVID orders in BC because it's an order and not a piece of legislation. The court only considers the evidence that was before Dr. Henry. Henry when she made the order to determine whether that order is constitutional or not. We think that's a violation of the Constitutional Principles, but that's currently the way it stands. And so right now our lawyers are in court arguing that Dr. Henry is wildly out of step with any of the evidence before her. There's no evidence that this vaccine mandate has done any good and only evidence that it's done harm and is unreasonable. Thank you very much for your time. the court needs to essentially say this is wrong. It needs to be reconsidered in light of the constitutional requirements and light of the evidence. And the idea that you can be continuing to stop people from receiving healthcare because you fired all of the healthcare workers who otherwise could serve them and call that public health? And they're so far behind on the cancer case. they're shipping cancer patients to Washington. Yeah. Yeah. Massive taxpayer expenses. Massive. While they're, while they're spending incredible amounts of taxpayer lawyer, uh, dollars on lawyers to fight against their own healthcare workers. How does this make sense at all? Before we move on, Marty, and I, I'm afraid I just have to ask this question because you are overseeing these cases, and we've already talked about three cases. cases in BC. Does it get to you? Does it see how corrupt the BC government has become? These are clearly people who do not care about the populace, at all, they're just trying to cover their own butts, and who knows what other agendas they might have, but serving the people who elected them sure as hell isn't on the list, and you're trying to fight this in the corpse. I think at the times, well, it certainly motivates you to stand up and fight. It certainly motivates me to say, "I'm not backing down on this one inch." I mean, it's animating to you as a lawyer to fight against injustice. That's why we went to law school. That's the oath we take is to fight against injustice, to uphold the rule of law and to fight for the rights and freedoms of others. And so this idea that, you know, there's corruption out there, well, that's exactly what I want to fight against. And whether that's in a provincial government or a public health office, or whether that's on a First Nations in Alberta, where people, you know, treating their own people and their own band members horribly, it's an honor and it's a joy to fight against that and to push back again. a pretty powerful system that can show up being mentioned on a document motion in a provincial court with five lawyers against us, all on the taxpayer dime. And I think something that people need to understand, and maybe I only understand it because I've now talked to so many lawyers, is everybody wants to focus on the victories. And we did start with some of those. But even when it's not necessarily a victory, we're sending a message to the government, we are going to push back. And what people don't understand, what we never see is the things they didn't do because they knew that there was going to be major pushback against that. Well, and I think, you know, the idea that a government actor can just impose egregious violations on rights and civil liberties and then just walk away with it without any concern, that, that's, that's very high. disheartening to me. And so one of my grateful experiences is to be part of the pushback in BC that says, "No, you did something wrong here. We will get at this information because you're still imposing these mandates. You're continued harm of your orders, even if they've been canceled, you're still trying to steal money from..." from pastors. We will push back, and you'll have to look over your shoulder for the next however many years, just in case we get a court order that you be cross -examined, that you disclose the documents where you were deceptively rying to people in your office of public health officer. We want to expose that. We need to expose that. That's the legal system is there for justice. And so, we will use-- it to fight for justice. And yeah, whether a particular judge in a particular case agrees with you, when you are in the right, when you're seeking the truth, when you're fighting for justice, that's what I as a lawyer, that's my responsibility. And, you know, a particular judge's responsibility to decide the law properly and justly, that's their responsibility. And it's my job as a lawyer to bring the facts and to bring them back, and, you know, for example, in BC, they denied all of our constitutional arguments. They never considered our expert evidence at all because they said, "Oh, no, that Dr. Henry didn't really consider that on her orders, and so you're not allowed to bring that to the court now," which was an abuse, and of course, you only hear one side of the story. Which case are you going to, and who's going to win the case? And so that was essentially the outcome in the BC challenges to the prohibition on in -person worship. But now we've found all this other evidence of abuse. And so now we're bringing this other legal concern to the court saying, look, I know you've upheld these orders as constitutional. But whether this is a constitutional or not, this kind of behavior is abusive. It's discriminatory. It's bad faith. And there's other legal remedies for that. And so, yeah, we will continue to fight. and we will continue to push back. And I'm very grateful to this import of Canadians because everything I do is because people donate to the Justice Center that we can stand up for the BC residents, for BC health care workers, for BC pastors. And of course, that's only BC. We could talk about Saskatchewan, we could talk about other provinces, but I realized that time is short. And so switching now to really a national concern. And that's, that's the denial of unvaccinated Canadians from receiving the EI benefits that their premiums paid for. You might recall will the 2021 election in the fall where the Liberal Party made it a campaign platform to really say the unvaccinated are causing all the problems. They're the reason why inflation is coming. They're the reason why there's a lot of reason for all the problems. And so that was a deliberate in my few strategy. And we saw that spoken again and again, not only by the Prime Minister, but by his cabinet ministers. And so shortly after the 2021 election, we saw Minister Qualtroth, Minister of Employment, come out and say, if you get fired for not being vaccinated from Europe for against COVID. we're not gonna pay you any of your EI benefits. And I don't know about you, Will, but EI benefits have really made a massive difference in my life. I mean, I've worked for a charity. I have no personal benefits at all. You know, many people are in that situation. They don't have these elaborate government plans where your union has guaranteed all these benefits for sick leave and all these things. I ended up getting two concussions back to back and I wasn't able to work for them. for the Justice Center. I would try and I'd get like a three -day -long headache. I had massive concussion issues. I ended up going on EI for six months, which is actually the maximum wild period, trying to recover from these concussions. That 500 bucks or so every couple weeks, that saved me. That allowed me to not be living on the street. I barely covered my rent. I had to really. cut it back, but it saved me. Now, it's an insurance program. It's a government -run insurance program. I had been paying the EI benefits since I was 17 years old. Before I could even vote, I was paying the EI benefits. So it's not like the government was giving me a handle. It's something I have contributed, and so many Canadians have done the exact same thing. But when it came to COVID and when it came to the government's coercive, oppressive vaccine mandates, this in my view was one of the worst because what it did is it incentivized and it tipped to many employers across the country that you go ahead and fire those dirty, unvaccinated employees. And then the federal government was going to kick them while they're down. These are fathers. These are mothers working jobs. I know family member, friends whose, you know, livelihood depends. on being able to, for example, drive a bus or drive a truck, sometimes all by themselves and those employees or those employers would come back and say, "Hey, did you get your COVID shot? You didn't. You're fired right now." They wouldn't even be able to pay their rent. They couldn't feed their own kids and then they'd apply for EI and what did they get? In this time when the government was giving hundreds of millions of dollars away to companies of this stat and the other thing to consulting fees and... and and serve payments to everybody, well, you couldn't get your own EI benefits out of the federal government. And so we've been fighting for those Canadians in that process, taking cases that we believe have merit and would mount good facts scenarios. So one of the cases is the case of Robin Francis. He, a father for immigrant, working, delivering. throughout all of COVID, actually working in the healthcare sector, but his role was not an in -person role. He was actually working from home quite a bit at the time, managing different things, IT solutions, those kinds of things. And, uh, his employer comes up to him and says, yeah, we got a, we got a COVID vaccine mandate. Uh, we need to see your status. He says, uh, well, um, here's, here's the policy. You know, and it says, "You've got to get yourself vaccinated for COVID." Oh, but we'll also recognize human rights exemptions. That's a legal requirement they had. So our client submits a whole application, including an affidavit, mind you, was saying, "Look, this is against my religious beliefs." He's a sincere Catholic gentleman. Concerns about the way the particular vaccines were manufactured, the spindle cell lines, et cetera, and the connection. connection to abortion, all of that was his concern. His employer, a government employer actually, didn't even look at that, just denied it out of hand. Almost like it didn't even exist. And then it had a meeting with him and said, you didn't give us your vaccines, I'll crawl out, what about my exemption? But I don't know, that's denied completely. And you're fired two weeks from today. He's like, well, the policies that had been placed on unpaid leave, not fired. No, you're fired two weeks from today. So in that circumstance, he then applies for EI. The Canadian, and this is important because a lot of people were placed on unpaid leave, which meant they weren't eligible for benefits. Well, I mean, there's, there's some debate about that. I, well, they just, they were told constructively, you could probably still have an entitlement to EI and those certain circumstances. But regardless, he's been fired completely. He's absolutely fired. under the statute entitled the EI, except unless his own misconduct caused him to be fired. And so he eventually gets a response back from the government and the government says, "You were fired from misconduct. You didn't get the COVID shot." So that promise of minister Qualtroth, that political actor, is now being implemented through these little decision makers in this Service Canada department saying, "It's misconduct." Mr. Frasus, you didn't do what the government told you to do. You didn't get the shot everybody wanted to get. Well, what is misconduct? I mean, misconduct is like showing up as a truck driver for work completely drunk repeatedly again and again after warnings, after warnings, after the offer of treatment, after all of those things. Well, if you're persistently violating a known company rule that you know can lead into your termination, well, that's misconduct. misconduct. And then if you essentially voluntarily lost your job through your own bad actions, well, that forfeits your right to get this EI. And they were saying that Dr. Francis, Mr. Francis, by applying for EI, by asking for religious exemption from the COVID vaccine mandate at work, somehow that was misconduct. misconduct, disentitling Tim to all of the benefits that his premiums year after year after year had earned him. And of course, this is also in complete violation of his Charter like a security of the person. You would think. Well, and I actually don't have a religion. I was trying to peck fruit about that. Yeah. Directly, I asked him because there was a lot of debate in the courts. I knew about what exactly the security person meet. So I had a conversation with Brian. I said, does it meet? You can't take away a person's means of making a living. Does it mean you can't shove something into their body that they don't want?" His answer was, "Yes, that is exactly what it means. You can't do it. That's a violation of their chart right." And in any sense, in any other situation courts would absolutely agree with you, even to this day. You can't be taking someone's blood and drawing it up randomly and asking for a drug test here and there just randomly to get people's you know, medical information. That's a violation of the security of the person. But when it came to COVID, all of a sudden, that's irrelevant. And so we read through the entire administrative process. Sometimes on some cases, we were successful getting people their EI reinstated. But for Dr. Francis, Mr. Francis, it did not. He was not successful at any of the administrative tribunals. We got all the way to the federal court of appeal. That's a three -judge panel of some of the most senior judges. in Canada. And we're saying, "Look, this tribunal process never once considered Mr. Francis' charter right, his freedom of religion, that he was exercising." And then you call that misconduct? You call his exercise of freedom of religion misconduct, disentitling him to his religious benefits? You're a government actor. How dare you do that? And just his right to bodily autonomy? which is protected by security and the person, that wasn't even considered or balanced. And he's the guy working from home. So how do you call this misconduct? And for that matter, the employment contract didn't say he'd be fired. It'd just be put on unpaid leave. So how is this a reasonable decision? It doesn't satisfy any of the legal tests. The court didn't even take a day to consider that case. Not even one. one day. They dismissed the case out of hand. They said, "Oh, no, this isn't a discretionary decision." So they don't even have to consider your charter rights. Now get this. You're going to have to explain this. Exactly. With this, the court, with a little turn of phrase, inviscirated the constitutional rights of all Canadians in the EI process. If it's a non -discretionary decision, the charter doesn't need to be considered. Now, let me back that after non -discretionary. Okay, so let's take a government, the general role is the government must respect your charter rights. If you have a religious circumstance and the government is telling you to do something like I need you to eat pork or I need you to work on on the Sabbath, well, the government need to accommodate your religious needs, but if it's a non -discretionary decision, the government doesn't actually have to engage in any balancing of the charter rights. So let's, what's a non -discretionary decision? So let's say there's a traffic cop. Let's say the lights are out, the red lights, the green lights are out and the traffic cop has instructions. Every two minutes, switch light from red to green. If, well, Well, on the two minute mark, somebody switches that light, that government actor, cop does it. Well, someone coming up to him says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, I need to get somewhere quickly." And if you don't switch that light to green right now, you're violating my mobility rights. Well, the guy says, "Look, I can't consider that. Every two minutes, I switch this light red to green." That's a non -discretionary decision. - Okay. - But when someone is asked to look at it, your employment situation, say, "Did you or did you not engage in misconduct?" You're engaging your thought process. You're engaging in analysis of the law and the facts. That is by definition discretionary decision. But in order, in my view, to just drive that knife in further, kicking these very vulnerable people while they're down even further. further They don't even view that determination that their exercise of religious and bodily autonomy is Think they view that as misconduct and they say that's not a discretionary decision that engages your charter rights We believe that is such a horrific horrific Abuse of the law we were applying for leave to the Supreme Court of Canada and I mean thankfully a decision actually just for and now it's the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada just released. It's a case about French language rights, actually. And again, it says, look, you got a decision, a discretionary decision. If you're exercising your powers as a government actor, you better be considering the charter rights of the people that you're affecting. And we want to see that precedent applied to the EI benefits and the denial of those EI benefits to unvaccinated people. But it's because it seems to me the way you define discretionary and non -discretionary. If the court is saying, "Well, that was a non -discretionary decision," and keeping in mind, folks, that this was a government employee who was dismissed for misconduct because he didn't take the vaccines. Well, if that was non -discretionary on the part of that employer who fired him, well, who was giving them the rules that made it non -discriminatory in the on the part of the employer who fired him, well, who was giving them the rules that made it non -discretionary on the part of the employer who fired him, well, who was giving them the rules that made it non -discretionary to do it in two minutes. His superior told them every two minutes, "You're going to change this light." So if that employer, government employer, whichever branch of the government it was, is saying to him, "Well, you're fired because you didn't do this. It's misconduct." And the court says it was a non -discretionary decision, my answer to the court would be, "Okay, who gave them that order?" See, we actually closed that off by how we pled the case. Because we said, look, we're seeking challenge, we're challenging two things in this situation. Number one, we know that the minister Qualtrough said that unvaccinated people would be denied their EI. We are challenging whatever order, whatever communication, whatever form that went down to all of the decision makers. And they came back and said, no, there's nothing there. That was just a statement. There's no legal effect to that. that. Every single one of these decision makers decides whether somebody engaged in misconduct in the course of their employment. But they can't have it both ways. They can't have it both ways, but the courts have allowed them to at this point. So we are seeking leave to the Supreme Court saying, "Look, in these circumstances, if you allow this kind of a precedent to stand, it has national implications." implications, because if a government can say, "Look, we've delegated this decision to, you know, the Service Canada," and Service Canada finds that, you know what, if you go to church on Sundays, your taxes are 25 % higher. It's a non -discretionary decision. Well, if they can just eliminate your charter rights by saying it's non -discretionary decisions and give it to a government, small government actor and hide their paper trail, well, then you're in a real problem. You have no charter rights immediately based on the whims of government actors. And so we're fighting against this, I think given the egregious circumstances and the very lack of consideration by the court, again, this is a decision released the exact same day that our lawyers were arguing in court. We're looking forward hoping, hoping for leave from the Supreme Court. It's a discretionary decision whether the Supreme Court of Canada grants leave, but the law is certainly on our side in regard to the obligation of the government to at least consider your charter rights. Marty, I'm going to ask you a personal question, and I'm sure you're not going to have a problem answering it. John Covey, president of the JCCF, one good friend with he's a very committed Christian. I sense that you are as well. Yeah, good. Okay. Because there's an important question I want to ask you. Because you're a lawyer involved in this fight, and we were talking in those second cases about all the discrimination against the churches in BC. And it's been very, very clear, even to a respectful atheist such as myself, that Christians are being targeted right now, not just associated by our government. You know, it's equal. I've expressed this. equal rights for everyone except Christians. So as a lawyer and a Christian involved in this fight, what's your perception on that? What's happening in our country? And the attack on Christianity, it just seems so obvious to me, and I'm not even on the inside of it. Well, I mean, you know, I've obviously represented a lot of Christian clients represented represented members of different faiths and no faith. And I probably would back up from characterizing as a specific attack on the Christian faith. And I've certainly seen cases where that is the circumstance. But I would say more broadly, in Canada, we have just a basic attack on common sense. Anything against the narrative, anything that would be, for example, the Amy Ham case, just a recognition of biology, the dimorphic distinctions between male and female. There's just an attack on that. You can't say that. They're not allowing you to speak the basic truths on that. We literally had experts in a Tributal hearing vouching for the fact that there's differences biologically between males and females. And so, I don't... don't, you know, my faith certainly is a personal thing for me, but when it comes down to fighting against censorship and against the violation of fundamental rights and freedoms, I don't view it as an exclusively attack on Christians, but I do view it as an attack on, I'm gone and sense, on the truth, on the basic entities that would preserve elements of that. And so, yes. I'm not trying to suggest that there's a specifically an attack upon Christians. Yeah, you're absolutely right. There's an attack on common sense. But it does seem to me that Christians are being particularly targeted. You gave that example. Synagogues. Okay, you guys can meet in person. Christians? No, no, no, no, no. You can't do that. And if you are allowed to be in person, well, only if you don't actually practice your religion. Well, you know, and I would, I would raise however in that case that I got letters on behalf of, I think, 24 different mosques in British Columbia. They had the same treatment. Okay. No response. And so this is broader than our clients. We're representing Christian churches here. I'm not aware of actually any churches, any houses of worship other than churches that got charged for holding worship. But the treatment of communities of faith in British Columbia was discriminatory, but it wasn't necessarily limited to discrimination against Christians. Okay. Marty, thanks so much for coming and giving us all this information. It's so important for people to understand what the JCCF is doing. And folks, if you're watching the series of Interviews, please, if you can't, go to JCCF .ca, donate to them. They'd rely entirely upon donations to do all of this. Marty, you've been in this fight, you've been fighting for constitutional rights now with the JCCF for 10 years, and I'm sure it's extra hard since the beginning of the COVID narrative. Jets have final thoughts for our viewers. What would they be? Yeah, well, my view is that as Canadians, we have taken for granted that we have rights and freedoms, and that those rights and freedoms need need to be protected. It's not, unfortunately, a human nature to respect the rights and freedoms of others. Tolerance, respecting the diversity and the actual diversity of opinions and views, that's not something that comes naturally to people. And so we as Canadians need to understand the foundational importance of the fundamental freedoms that we have, the freedom of conscience and religion, that you can respect the beliefs or not. non -beliefs of other people, the freedom of thought, opinion, belief, expression, the freedom of the press, which is massively under attack. But we understand those and begin to communicate the value of those freedoms when we engage in different societal issues that come up, when we engage politically, when we talk to elected candidates and then we ourselves might be willing to actually stand for elected office. Because we need to be people who stand on the fundamental freedoms on which Canada is founded, who don't allow others to obscure or to minimize or to delegitimize the exercise of those freedoms in our country. We need to be an educated population because that's really, I believe, the key to fighting for the longevity of freedom in Canada, fighting for the free society. We, as Canadians, need to be educated in our country. and engaged in the fight for freedom. And whether that's, you know, gratefully supporting the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom and fighting the legal battles, whether that's donating to candidates who are expressing that message, donating to media organizations, including, you know, Will, supporting your programming here, that is bringing out the message of freedom and what happens when freedoms are ignored and violated. We need a Canadian culture and environment that is promoting the understanding and the application of freedoms in everyday life and not tolerating the ignorance and the violation of freedoms because far too long Canadians have become ignorant of their own freedoms and tolerant of their rights. abuse of them, and we need to step up and stand against that. Well, sir, thank you so much for your hard work and for your time today. Thanks, Will. It's been a pleasure.