A lawyer from the Ingram case to get Alberta's pandemic measures struck down says judges have too much power and too few in the legal profession have the right principles.Leighton Grey, KC, made his comments Thursday during a round table discussion hosted by the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) on COVID-19. Grey was co-counsel in the Ingram case that struck down Alberta’s COVID-era public health orders due to their improper execution.NCI lawyer Shawn Buckley said he was “puzzled…that our goal became to protect the system that was supposed to be working for us” and asked Grey for his insights. Grey began his response with anecdotes from the Ingram case where Alberta government lawyers tried to undermine the credibility of Lt. Col. (ret.) David Redman and epidemiologist Jay Bhattachattarya.“When Colonel Redman finally got to testify, he was not asked a single question about his report. Instead, he was asked about a previous crisis that happened many years ago, when he was still working with the province of Alberta that happened in Waubumun,” Grey recalled.“The lawyers for the Government of Alberta had only one objective. And that was to attack his credibility as an expert, which…frankly, is essentially unassailable, but they did it anyway….It was a disgusting display by those lawyers. And I told them that off camera."Grey said eminent Stanford epidemiologist Bhattacharya, one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, received similar disrespect.“He similarly was essentially called a liar. He was accused of sophistry. He was accused of falsifying reports, because Dr. Jay Bhattacharya volunteers his time he was accused of being someone being essentially an opportunist. He was volunteering his time in order to raise his social media profile and make himself famous," said Grey.“Anyone who's met or spoken to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya knows that this is ludicrous. He's one of the finest men I've met during my lifetime.”Grey won the Ingram case on an important technical point, that cabinet oversaw the public health orders and they were not solely made by the public health officer as the law dictated. However, Justice B.E. Romaine defended the wisdom of the public health orders themselves, which Grey can’t believe.“The government's expert wouldn't be qualified to sharpen Dave Redman’s pencils. His evidence was preferred to…Redman’s,” Grey said.“The government expert was essentially a health bureaucrat, a professor working in Manitoba of no repute and his evidence compared to what were his credentials compared to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya were laughable. Again, the evidence of that government expert, quoting the government narrative, was preferred.”In the Ingram decision, Justice Romaine struck down the public health orders because cabinet had overseen them instead of the chief medical officer of health (CMOH), as the Public Health Act dictated. However, the judge also wrote a confused sentence to say the orders would have otherwise been fine.“However, had the impugned Orders been validly enacted by the CMOH, they would not have been, however, not unconstitutional. While they may have infringed certain of the Applicants’ rights… these limitations were amply and demonstrably justified as reasonable limits…and… they were enacted pursuant to a valid legislative purpose.”Grey said he wonders what happened to the legal profession.“The exhortation that I had going in is that we are to stand on the ramparts; we are there to protect people's rights. That's why I'm doing this. That's why I got involved in these cases… I've been publicly canceled and vilified. I've taken a lot of abuse, like just about everybody else who stood up to the government narrative. I'm no exception,” Grey said.“But I thought that there were going to be more lawyers. I thought there were going to be more Shawn Buckleys out there. I thought there were going to be more James Kitchens. I thought there were going to be more Bruce Pardys. And there just weren't. That was very disappointing.“The pandemic “exposed” to Grey how the power of elected people had been usurped by the 1982 Charter.“There has been a silent transference of lawmaking power from our elected legislators, from MLAs, from MPs, from mayors,...and whoever else we elect…[J]udges have become the most powerful people in our country. We are ruled by judges.”A National Post article published earlier in the day quoted sitting Supreme Court of Canada Justice Malcolm Rowe.“Before 1982, restraint was hard-wired into the limited role that judges played. Now judges are hard-wired into enormous authority,” Rowe said in a speech he delivered to law students in Vancouver.“Great caution is warranted in such matters. The courts have no authority to amend the Constitution by adding new elements to it,” Rowe said.Grey expressed his agreement.“Their traditional role…is to interpret the law and to adjudicate…they're not lawmakers. It's totally undemocratic and, I think, unconstitutional, to have judges essentially being governors governing us, but that is what is happening.”Court challenges to pandemic restrictions could have gone much better, Grey said, if justices had a better perspective.“If they put the individual human rights and civil liberties of Canadians ahead of government policy, we would have a much better record in court. Those of us who have been going and going in and fighting these cases…it's a pretty abysmal record…we're like the basketball team that used to play the Harlem Globetrotters…we can barely get our hands on the ball. And that's what's happened with our courts,” Grey said.“It's a very dangerous thing that has happened to this country, and it needs to be addressed. We need to elect people like Danielle Smith, and others who I think are prepared to fetter the discretion of these judges, so they're not making laws…It’s not a good system.”Although people are elected to government from all walks of life, that is not so for judges, Grey said.“These judges, frankly, are not qualified to make law. They're very isolated from the realities that most people experience…they're generally intellectuals, they're part of the elite. And they really should not be making law in a free and democratic society. But that is effectively what's happening.“I was not aware of this, I was not in tune with this until COVID. But that is the reality that we're facing right now. And even a sitting judge on the Supreme Court has recognized it.”
A lawyer from the Ingram case to get Alberta's pandemic measures struck down says judges have too much power and too few in the legal profession have the right principles.Leighton Grey, KC, made his comments Thursday during a round table discussion hosted by the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) on COVID-19. Grey was co-counsel in the Ingram case that struck down Alberta’s COVID-era public health orders due to their improper execution.NCI lawyer Shawn Buckley said he was “puzzled…that our goal became to protect the system that was supposed to be working for us” and asked Grey for his insights. Grey began his response with anecdotes from the Ingram case where Alberta government lawyers tried to undermine the credibility of Lt. Col. (ret.) David Redman and epidemiologist Jay Bhattachattarya.“When Colonel Redman finally got to testify, he was not asked a single question about his report. Instead, he was asked about a previous crisis that happened many years ago, when he was still working with the province of Alberta that happened in Waubumun,” Grey recalled.“The lawyers for the Government of Alberta had only one objective. And that was to attack his credibility as an expert, which…frankly, is essentially unassailable, but they did it anyway….It was a disgusting display by those lawyers. And I told them that off camera."Grey said eminent Stanford epidemiologist Bhattacharya, one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, received similar disrespect.“He similarly was essentially called a liar. He was accused of sophistry. He was accused of falsifying reports, because Dr. Jay Bhattacharya volunteers his time he was accused of being someone being essentially an opportunist. He was volunteering his time in order to raise his social media profile and make himself famous," said Grey.“Anyone who's met or spoken to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya knows that this is ludicrous. He's one of the finest men I've met during my lifetime.”Grey won the Ingram case on an important technical point, that cabinet oversaw the public health orders and they were not solely made by the public health officer as the law dictated. However, Justice B.E. Romaine defended the wisdom of the public health orders themselves, which Grey can’t believe.“The government's expert wouldn't be qualified to sharpen Dave Redman’s pencils. His evidence was preferred to…Redman’s,” Grey said.“The government expert was essentially a health bureaucrat, a professor working in Manitoba of no repute and his evidence compared to what were his credentials compared to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya were laughable. Again, the evidence of that government expert, quoting the government narrative, was preferred.”In the Ingram decision, Justice Romaine struck down the public health orders because cabinet had overseen them instead of the chief medical officer of health (CMOH), as the Public Health Act dictated. However, the judge also wrote a confused sentence to say the orders would have otherwise been fine.“However, had the impugned Orders been validly enacted by the CMOH, they would not have been, however, not unconstitutional. While they may have infringed certain of the Applicants’ rights… these limitations were amply and demonstrably justified as reasonable limits…and… they were enacted pursuant to a valid legislative purpose.”Grey said he wonders what happened to the legal profession.“The exhortation that I had going in is that we are to stand on the ramparts; we are there to protect people's rights. That's why I'm doing this. That's why I got involved in these cases… I've been publicly canceled and vilified. I've taken a lot of abuse, like just about everybody else who stood up to the government narrative. I'm no exception,” Grey said.“But I thought that there were going to be more lawyers. I thought there were going to be more Shawn Buckleys out there. I thought there were going to be more James Kitchens. I thought there were going to be more Bruce Pardys. And there just weren't. That was very disappointing.“The pandemic “exposed” to Grey how the power of elected people had been usurped by the 1982 Charter.“There has been a silent transference of lawmaking power from our elected legislators, from MLAs, from MPs, from mayors,...and whoever else we elect…[J]udges have become the most powerful people in our country. We are ruled by judges.”A National Post article published earlier in the day quoted sitting Supreme Court of Canada Justice Malcolm Rowe.“Before 1982, restraint was hard-wired into the limited role that judges played. Now judges are hard-wired into enormous authority,” Rowe said in a speech he delivered to law students in Vancouver.“Great caution is warranted in such matters. The courts have no authority to amend the Constitution by adding new elements to it,” Rowe said.Grey expressed his agreement.“Their traditional role…is to interpret the law and to adjudicate…they're not lawmakers. It's totally undemocratic and, I think, unconstitutional, to have judges essentially being governors governing us, but that is what is happening.”Court challenges to pandemic restrictions could have gone much better, Grey said, if justices had a better perspective.“If they put the individual human rights and civil liberties of Canadians ahead of government policy, we would have a much better record in court. Those of us who have been going and going in and fighting these cases…it's a pretty abysmal record…we're like the basketball team that used to play the Harlem Globetrotters…we can barely get our hands on the ball. And that's what's happened with our courts,” Grey said.“It's a very dangerous thing that has happened to this country, and it needs to be addressed. We need to elect people like Danielle Smith, and others who I think are prepared to fetter the discretion of these judges, so they're not making laws…It’s not a good system.”Although people are elected to government from all walks of life, that is not so for judges, Grey said.“These judges, frankly, are not qualified to make law. They're very isolated from the realities that most people experience…they're generally intellectuals, they're part of the elite. And they really should not be making law in a free and democratic society. But that is effectively what's happening.“I was not aware of this, I was not in tune with this until COVID. But that is the reality that we're facing right now. And even a sitting judge on the Supreme Court has recognized it.”
