Winnipeg Free Press By: Dean Pritchard | Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, May. 3, 2021 Save to Read Later
Only God has the authority to restrict church gatherings, a Steinbach area minister told a court hearing Monday for seven Manitoba churches fighting provincial pandemic restrictions limiting their right to assembly.
Winnipeg Free Press
Only God has the authority to restrict church gatherings, a Steinbach area minister told a court hearing Monday for seven Manitoba churches fighting provincial pandemic restrictions limiting their right to assembly. That is God’s jurisdiction, said Church of God (Restoration) minister Tobias Tissen. I don’t have the authority from God to do that.
WINNIPEG An anti-restriction rally coincided with a legal challenge of Manitoba’s public health orders on Monday. Seven churches and three individuals are fighting the province’s measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The 10 applicants, which include a church minister repeatedly fined for defying orders, are being represented by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms. The applicants are arguing the orders infringe on their Charter rights to hold religious and public gatherings and to gather at private homes. On Monday, Court of Queen’s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal began hearing testimony from witnesses in the case. Tobias Tissen, a minister at the Church of God Restoration near Steinbach, Man., testified in the case and then spoke at the rally.
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Posted: May 03, 2021 3:00 AM CT | Last Updated: May 3
The Church of God Restoration in Manitoba, seen from above, on Nov. 22, 2020. The church and its pastor have been fined for breaking public health orders, including in December 2020, when more than 100 people attended a service while the area was in Code Red for having a COVID-19 test-positivity rate of 40 per cent.(Submitted)
Seven rural Manitoba churches hope to convince a judge that the province s lockdown measures are unjustified violations of Charter-protected freedoms of conscience, religion, expression and peaceful assembly and that the chief medical officer of health failed to consider the collateral social and health costs of locking down society.
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If you’ve been paying close attention to Dr. Brent Roussin’s press conferences over the last month or so there has been a slight change in tone.
The chief provincial public health officer has suddenly been careful to emphasize balance in health orders between protecting the public from COVID-19 and the unintended impacts of the health orders. While he continues to talk about having the least restrictive orders in place for the shortest amount of time a line that becomes more laughable every time he uses it as we are still in the midst of some of the most restrictive orders in the country that have been in place since November but the slight change is notable.