Ontario pastors and former MP have 2021 lockdown tickets stayed

Some prominent Ontario activists who attended outdoor anti-lockdown rallies in 2021 have had their tickets stayed with help from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.On May 8, 2021, former Member of Parliament Derek Sloan attended an outdoor anti-lockdown rally, organized by No More Lockdowns Canada. That rally attracted close to 1,000 participants and included a procession of farm tractors that slow-rolled the 25 km road from the town of Tillsonburg, Ontario, to the town of Norwich. On May 30, Pastor Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God in Aylmer, Ontario participated in a similar outdoor rally in Woodstock, ON, attended by an estimated 350 people.Both rallies were peaceful. There were no criminal charges, only tickets for violating the Reopening Ontario Act, which placed a total ban on indoor and outdoor gatherings during the spring of 2021, although there was no evidence to show that outdoor gatherings were significant contributors to the spread of COVID-19. Sloan had faced charges for participating in peaceful protests across Ontario, in Stratford, St. Thomas, Chatham and Woodstock. All charges have been either stayed or withdrawn at the request of the respective prosecutors. Hildebrandt became one of the most well-known pastors in Ontario during the pandemic for what the Justice Centre calls the expression of "his Charter freedoms of expression, association, conscience, religion and peaceful assembly in the face of provincial laws that violated these fundamental freedoms."Hildebrandt spoke at many peaceful outdoor rallies during the lockdowns and was charged more than six times in the first half of 2021 with violating the Reopening Ontario Act. Pastor Nathaniel Wright of the nearby Crossroads Alliance Church was charged with holding a church service on May 2, 2021. All charges against him were stayed in the same jurisdiction, Woodstock, on February 15, 2024.Wright was also involved in the resolution of the Trinity Bible Chapel case, where all charges against him were stayed for protests in Kitchener-Waterloo. The Justice Centre provided lawyers to defend these pastors who received tickets for exercising their Charter freedoms.All cases involving Sloan and Hildebrandt are now resolved. John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre lauded the pastors' courage.“The government violated the Charter freedoms of millions of Ontarians with health measures that were based on fear, not science. There is no evidence to support the idea that peaceful outdoor gatherings, rendered illegal by the government, caused any harm,” Carpay said.Chris Fleury, lawyer to both Sloan and Pastor Hildebrandt, stated, “While my clients would have preferred not to have been charged in the first place, this is an excellent outcome. With these resolutions, prosecutions under the Reopening Ontario Act are thankfully beginning to come to an end.”Sloan expressed his gratitude in a post to Twitter ("X"). "While there is much work yet to be done fighting the injustices and generational consequences of our governments’ COVID-19 policies, I want to thank the @JCCFCanada and Chris Fleury for their excellent work in defending me against 7 unjust charges for gathering reasonably and lawfully to protest and dispute the government’s draconian and reckless universal lockdown policies," Sloan wrote."My hope is the prosecutors and organizations who are still prosecuting COVID 'crimes' will realize they are not pursuing the public interest, and are in fact fighting against the most enlightened and conscientious of our citizens. The ignominious actions of those who fought and cheered on the crushing of conscience and liberty will be remembered in the annals of history as senseless and shameful."Hildebrandt also thanked the Justice Centre on Twitter ("X")."Thank you to the @JCCFCanada and their outstanding team for defending Canadians against tyrannical mandates. Chris Fleury worked on this case for us and did an outstanding job. We won some cases & we lost some in the short term, but we're winning overall. Onward in truth!"Hildebrandt previously pled guilty to defying the Reopening Ontario Act by holding an outdoor church service on June 6, 2021. Maximum gatherings only allowed 25 outdoors, but police estimated 195 were present, neither social distancing nor wearing masks.As a result of Hildebrandt's guilty plea in August 2023, related charges against him, his family, the Church of God, other church members and former politicians Sloan and Randy Hillier were dropped. Hildebrandt had to pay a $52,000 fine and a $13,000 victim surcharge.