A legal organization is suing the B.C. government to end its COVID-19 vaccine mandates for health care workers. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announced Thursday it has filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court, demanding that the provincial government rescind its mandates, which require certain health care professionals to take the COVID-19 shots as…

Commentary A lot has been asked of Canadians over the past two years, and the vast majority have been dutiful, obedient, and sacrificial in doing their part to keep our country going during an unprecedented global pandemic. But as we enter year three of COVID, sentiments are shifting. Canadians are increasingly at odds with each…

Brian Peckford, former premier of Newfoundland and the last surviving architect of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Jan. 26. Alongside five other applicants, Peckford’s team is challenging the Constitutional merits of the Trudeau administration’s mandates restricting travel for Canadians without a COVID-19 vaccination. And…

For Bruce Pardy, professor of law at Queen’s University, it’s important to ensure that people who are suffering the effects of “COVID overreach” from pandemic policies know that they are not alone and that there are still lawyers out there who don’t accept the erosion of fundamental freedoms in Canada. “When you have been suspended…

The last living premier who took part in the 1982 Constitution negotiations says Canadian governments have “violated” the country’s supreme law and governing legal framework during the pandemic. Brian Peckford, who served as Newfoundland and Labrador’s third premier from 1979 to 1989 and has been a Vancouver Island resident since the 1990s, says “governments from…

The vaccine mandates pushed by the federal and provincial governments have divided Canadians, and the way the unvaccinated are berated is “extremely ugly,” a former judge says. “I would never have thought such a thing could happen in Canada,” said Brian Giesbrecht, who served as a provincial court judge in Manitoba from 1976 to 2007….

The vaccine mandate that requires federal employees from core public services to be fully immunized against COVID-19 has constitutional issues that implicate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom, an Ontario lawyer says. “There are several sections of the Charter of Rights that are implicated by mandating vaccines, generally speaking,” said Ryan O’Connor, a Toronto-based…

A group of over 3,500 Alberta health-care professionals including around 70 physicians is calling on the province to stop mandatory vaccination for health-sector workers, saying the mandate violates their Charter rights. “We represent a wide range of vaccinated and unvaccinated health care professionals from multiple disciplines, who are deeply concerned about these mandatory vaccinations,” said…

News Analysis The restrictions on worship and assembly during the pandemic, followed more recently by the potential denial of employment for unvaccinated people, have left some Canadians wondering how such things could take place given Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “It’s in those moments where the individual is standing up against the state, and…

Commentary Like other Canadian provinces, Ontario has turned into a police state where citizens are denied their basic human rights and civil liberties. The simple pleasure of freely leaving your own home to go and visit a friend is now illegal. Citizens can’t escape their own house arrest (a penalty normally reserved for  convicted criminals)…