A recent Calgary Sun opinion column by Kevin Martin says Justice Jeffrey Champion was right to fine Douglas Kaban $2,000 for refusing to wear a mask on an Edmonton-bound WestJet flight in November 2021..Martin supportively argues that it was foolish for people to “scream that their Charter rights and freedoms have been torn from them,” in the face of lockdowns, mandatory masking and mandatory vaccination policies..“The passage of time tempers our memories and we tend to misremember the seriousness of the pandemic,” wrote Justice Champion, in his May 8th judgment..However what Justice Champion calls the “seriousness” of COVID-19, is mere repetition of what the media have said thousands of times since early 2020. And what the media said is simply not supported by death statistics, which do not reveal a drastic increase in the death rate in 2020 when compared to 2019..Again: these death stats do not support the government-and-media narrative..On the other hand, later years have witnessed thousands of entirely unexpected deaths from causes other than COVID-19..It seems that Justice Champion merely repeats the speaking points of people such as Dr. Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, who in March of 2020 predicted incorrectly that COVID-19 would be like the Spanish Flu of 1918..Likewise, former Premier Jason Kenney has also suggested that COVID-19 was as serious as the Spanish Flu. Those who do their homework, rather than simply believe whatever government-funded media say, will know that the threat of COVID-19 was repeatedly overstated while lockdown harms were continually denied or minimized..Justice Champion goes on to claim that businesses were lost, schools were shuttered, relationships were impacted and nearly every person in the world paid a price “because of COVID-19.”.Not true. It was the government, not COVID-19, that violated our Charter freedoms of association, expression, peaceful assembly, bodily autonomy, movement, and travel..It was the government, not COVID-19, that caused so much hardship and suffering..The government drove people into isolation and loneliness, destroyed family businesses, prevented children and students from attending school and university, delayed diagnostic testing for cancer, cancelled surgeries, damaged people’s mental health and caused a huge rise in addictions..Claims these harms were “caused by COVID” sound just like government propaganda spread by government-funded media..Justice Champion goes on to say: “Yet this court has seen pockets of resistance throughout the province, individuals who have felt the rules did not apply to them. The rule of law means that the rule applies to everyone. Whether you are a king or a peasant, the rule of law applies to everyone.”.Indeed, the law ought to apply to everyone, including former Premier Jason Kenney who flaunted COVID-19 rules when dining with his cabinet ministers at the Sky Palace..Jason Kenney was never jailed, while leading a government which put pastors in jail for not complying with COVID-19 rules..The “pockets of resistance” to which Justice Champion refers are people who cherish the free and democratic society and who insist, appropriately and legitimately, on governments producing actual evidence to justify their violations of Charter rights and freedoms..No evidence supports Justice Champion’s characterization of resisters as being motivated by the arrogant sentiment of “the law does not apply to me.”.Justice Champion asks what would happen if everyone on that WestJet flight took the same stance as Douglas Kaban, who repeatedly refused crew instructions to put his mask back on. The answer to his question is: nothing..Justice Champion likely has not reviewed the evidence that mandatory mask mandates were useless. There is no persuasive evidence showing that jurisdictions requiring masks fared better vis-à-vis COVID-19 than jurisdictions that left mask-wearing to the personal choice of each individual..I would be surprised if Justice Champion was familiar with the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses..The study’s leading author, Oxford public health researcher Tom Jefferson, has stated that there is no evidence that mandatory masking made any difference..There is nothing honourable about mindless compliance with unscientific edicts, nor does respecting the rule of law require blind obedience to unjust laws..“Those who can make you believe absurdities can also make you commit atrocities” is a quote attributed to Voltaire. The vicious and irrational hatred that many Canadians (including our prime minister) displayed against those who did not get injected was frightening to behold..Good people do not obey unjust laws. In my view, Douglas Kaban is a hero, unjustly subjected to a $2,000 fine for exercising his Charter rights and freedoms..John Carpay, B.A., LL.B. is President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.
