LION LAWYERS THE DEMOCRACY FUND

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Today’s Lion is Alan Honner of The Democracy Fund. The following was part of their email blast from February 1s’ 2024. Please be sure to find and subscribe to find what cases they are bringing and their approach. In this case they tied the Arrive Can App to an invasion of privacy and a violation of s.8 of the Charter and the right to be free from unjustified State Intrusion. ALSO PLEASE SHARE WITH ALAN IF YOU KNOW HIM MY ARGUMENTS.

It seems a lot of Trudeau’s draconian Bills could have this same challenge: VIOLATION OF THE RIGHT TO BE FREE FROM UNJUSTIFIED STATE INTRUSTION. The link for their Notice of Constitutional Question is within the text below in case there are other lawyers or even those wishing to bring their own files.

“MISSISSAUGA: The Democracy Fund (TDF) has filed a Notice of Constitutional Question in the Ontario Court of Justice over an ArriveCAN ticket issued to one of their “fight-the-fines” clients. The court application argues that the client had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the information the government demanded she disclose through ArriveCAN, which included information about her vaccination status. TDF further argues that this demand constituted an unreasonable seizure as it was not authorized by law.

While the Government of Canada has claimed that ArriveCAN was legally required starting in November 2020, TDF argues that the orders-in-council that purport to establish ArriveCAN make no reference to ArriveCAN. Rather, the orders say that information must be provided by an “electronic means specified by the Minister of Health.”

The question is, when and where did the Minister of Health specify ArriveCAN to be the electronic means referred to in the orders in council?  

TDF’s litigation director, Alan Honner, says he made several inquiries to government ministries about when and where the Minister of Health actually specified ArriveCAN to be the electronic means set out in the orders in council. He never received an answer.

The only document TDF uncovered which specifies ArriveCAN as the electronic means set out in the orders-in-council is dated November 26, 2021, more than a full year after ArriveCAN was supposed to become legally mandatory.

“There is a real question about whether the government actually took the steps to make ArriveCAN legally binding on travellers prior to November 2021,” says TDF Litigation Director Alan Honner. “If the Minister of Health failed to make the specification as required by law except for this one time, then for at least an entire year, the government was telling us that ArriveCAN was legally required when it was not.”

TDF had previously filed an application in the Federal Court of Canada making this same argument. That application was dismissed for mootness because all COVID-19 border measures were rescinded within weeks of TDF filing its court documents.

TDF will be arguing at the upcoming trial that the November 26 document does not apply to their client. Among other things, the document refers to an order in council that was rescinded and not to the order in council that their client was charged with breaching.

“The good news is that the application cannot be struck for mootness because we are dealing with an active ticket,” says Honner. “The bad news is that the prosecution can avoid the argument by dropping the charges.”  

The trial will take place on February 15, 2024.”

While the route is through a technicality into the idea that they did not properly set down the law in the Order in Council, shouldn’t the in the alternative argument be that even had they done so, a violation of s.8 would nevertheless had occurred. Because where governments are in the process of restricting Charter Rights in all domains, that is the time they should be held most firmly. I say this. When governments are restricting rights across the board, the courts must take judicial notice of this trend, and hold the government to a HIGHER STANDARD THAN WHEN there are no restrictions on citizens’ rights.

IT IS THE VERY FACT THAT RIGHTS ARE ROLLING BACK EVERYWHERE THAT MAKES THIS CASE WHAT IT IS. BECAUSE IT BELONGS IN A BROADER TREND.

It is when all rights are being rolled back that the government’s relationship with the citizen can slip into tyranny. It is then, that all constitutional criminal procedure must be most elevated.

It is also then that limits pursuant to section 1 be removed. There can be no justification for wide spread denial of Charter Rights. Once there is a trend that the government is systematically removing Charter Rights, an alarm should sound for the Judiciary. Where the Judiciary doesn’t see that they have blinded themselves with the sword, and their blindfold is stained with the blood of Canadians.

That is in fact when the Charter has to be a thunderous protection of Citizens rights. WHEN GOVERNMENTS ARE ON THE MARCH; WHEN GOVERNMENT POWER IS ON THE MARCH.

For then the slope is not merely slippery, the luge ride has begun. For Judges to matter, to their Nations it is in time like these.

THRUST THE SWORD DOWN.

ROAR.