First. let's admit that putting a tail on a judge is bound to spook the legal profession..It might be legal. (Today.) But upon trial, It might also turn out to be considered obstruction of justice. It depends on whether or not someone uses surveillance footage to intimidate a judge into ruling a certain way. Either way, it's likely to attract the wrong sort of attention.. John CarpayJohn Carpay, founder and president, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms .Over at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom, that’s President John Carpay’s immediate problem. Just after Christmas, he was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice..The charge arose from an incident in Manitoba 18 months ago, when it is alleged that he arranged the surveillance of the judge hearing a case in which the JCCF was representing complainants challenging the constitutionality of the Manitoba government's COVID restrictions. As the story goes, Carpay supposedly believed the judge hearing the case might be flouting the very restrictions upon which he would shortly be ruling. A private investigator was hired to check: Was he masking up in public, that sort of thing.. Tamara LichFreedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich .As described, clearly not a good idea. But you can imagine how anybody might be tempted. As we now know, governments will monitor your phones, freeze your bank account and check your face against their databases. (Where do they get those databases, anyway?) So if they can check on us, why can't we check on them? The government belongs to we the people after all, not the other way around. Just saying..Anyway, when all this erupted, the provincial attorney general complained to the Manitoba Law Society. The law society demanded an apology from Carpay, (which he offered immediately and contritely.) There is still a law society hearing awaiting him but until December 30th, that was it..Then, out of the blue, this warrant for his arrest on a charge of obstructing justice, 23 unpleasant hours in a jail cell without a bed or blanket and elevation to the company of free-speech martyrs such as Tamara Lich and Pastors Timothy Stephens and James Coates.. Pastor James CoatesPastor James Coates, GraceLife Church, Spruce Grove, AB .Designed to be intimidating? . Pastor Tim StephensPastor Tim Stevens .How would you feel?.There is however, something bigger going on in Canada today. Whatever a Manitoba court finds in Carpay’s case, he is but one of a number of people who Canada's progressive governments would be glad to see see shut out of the marketplace of ideas — by any means, legal, administratively or by exclusion — because they challenge them on freedom issues..Not surprisingly, governments and bureaucrats don’t like it when freedom activists — and there are others besides Carpay and the JCCF — ask awkward questions. They’d much rather tell you what to do, have you do it and if things don’t work out, tell you it’s your fault anyway..As for you pointing out inconvenient facts, or expressing a counter-narrative opinion, they find that extremely threatening..And now, it looks as though the empire is striking back.. Jordan PetersonCourtesy artreview.com .Jordan Peterson, the most effective voice for common sense and rigorous argument in a generation, is now under attack from what? His professional association. In what looks like a Mao-ist struggle session, they want him to take sensitivity training and if he won’t, they have threatened to cancel his licence to practice psychology..As we saw during the past few years, experienced physicians who disagreed with public-health officials were shut down by their professional associations. Lots of stories like that: Nurses and other medical professionals likewise, if they drew attention to COVID stupidities..In universities across the continent, boards enforce reverse discrimination in hiring and get away with it..And if John Carpay wins his case in Manitoba, he still has guess what? Another regulatory body — the Manitoba Law Society — waiting for him..Alas, in my view he did rather play into the hands of those who would like to silence him. However, even if things don't go his way, it doesn't alter the fact that in this country no organization has done more in the last ten years to challenge arbitrary and unconstitutional actions by governments, or to stand up for powerless people who fall afoul of political correctness, than the JCCF. Whether it’s challenging COVID narratives or protecting immigrant aestheticians from a pervert, the JCCF has been there. A court will decide whether John Carpay broke a law. He will remain however, a genuine free-speech hero..I have no evidence that there’s a sinister mastermind directing all this..But, there doesn’t need to be: You don’t end up on a regulatory board, if you don’t 'think right.' And so, professional boards that are not responsible to you are going to war against people who in your interests, challenge governments in ways that your elected representatives won’t..When it’s time to lower the boom on free thinkers, they don’t need instruction..They just need to feel like it..And suddenly it appears, they all do.
