Toronto police arrested a pastor who was preaching at the Santa Claus parade, prompting a former MP to rally to his cause.Pastor Jeff Sapocinik was arrested at 2:30 Sunday afternoon near the Toronto Santa Claus Parade in downtown Toronto. He and 15 other members of the Grace Missionary Baptist Church in Scarborough were doing evangelism.Sapocinik preached the gospel using a small PA system at an intersection where people were gathered to watch the parade. He was not impeding the parade, nor impeding traffic, or getting in anyone's personal space. In the meantime, members of his church handed out Christian tracts.After a complaint the police asked Sapocinik to turn off his small PA system, as permits were needed to use one on the parade route. He continued to preach without amplification a few minutes longer.The police told Sapocinik they could arrest him for causing a disturbance. They escorted him to a place about a block away and returned to the parade route.Ten minutes later, Sapocinik and his group walked back toward the parade, but a barricade and a line of police officers prevented them from rejoining the crowd.Sapocinik asked the police officers why they were preventing access for him and the group. He referred to his charter rights. He questioned how he could be arrested for a disturbance. Using his phone, he tried to share an online commentary with the police officer about how the law is to be used.The officer arrested Sapocinik, handcuffed him, put him in a cruiser, and took him to a police station, and arrested him for public mischief. Police offered to release him if he pledged not to return to the "downtown core" of Toronto. However, the area they defined was so large it went right to the border of Scarborough.Sapocinik declined the release conditions, and was held overnight for a bail hearing. His duty counsel was able to negotiate a release on much less strict conditions.Police charged Sapocinik under the Criminal Code s.176 (3) which is disturbing a public meeting–the same section that prohibits interrupting a church service.Former Conservative MP Derek Sloan lamented the events in an email blast.“The irony here is palpable,” he wrote.“Canada never was a nation that would arrest pastors, but now they're making it a chilling habit.”Sloan interviewed Sapocinik for 15 minutes on his Rumble channel Funding the Fight. He encouraged donations for Sapocinik via etransfer to fundingthefight@proton.me with the password “Freedom” and “Pastor Jeff” in the memo.“Sapocinik is now looking seriously for legal counsel, and needs your help to fight this unjust criminal charge,” Sloan wrote.“Please help him fight this crazy charge, and support freedom of speech in Canada.”In the Rumble interview, Sapocinik said his message compared God, Jesus, Santa, and Satan.“Santa wouldn't know if you've been naughty or nice. That implies omniscience. Only God is omniscient. Only Jesus Christ is omniscient,” he explained.“I said, ‘Santa–reverse the…letters, you've got ‘Satan.’ And Satan’s a great counterfeiter, and I explained that, and so on and so forth. So that was the bane of my message.”Sapocinik said a heckler confronted him and the police came sometime later.“They were basically rather aggressive. kind of backed up against the wall and he told me to turn off my PA system. Apparently, I was making children cry, simple as that,” the pastor said.“They agreed to release me on the basis that I could not preach outdoors with any amplification until the case is resolved.”The Baptist pastor said he respected human rights and freedoms and acted on that basis.“It is a confrontational ministry. I also understand that not everyone's going to agree with it. But I also understand I have…the right to practice, not only practice my religion, but to express it in what I believe the Bible teaches,” he said.“You can believe whatever you want to believe, and I believe that we ought to express it freely. I don't have to agree with it. You don't have to agree with me. But I also have the right to preach it.”
