The revelation that a firm representing Manitoba churches hired a private investigator to tail a judge, to see if he complied with COVID-19 public health orders, sent shockwaves across the country Monday. Any effort to intimidate a judge is not acceptable in a free and democratic society such as Canada, federal Justice Minister David Lametti said.
Four days after he realized he was being followed around Winnipeg, Court of Queen s Bench Chief Justice Glenn Joyal accepted the apologies of two lawyers for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a right-wing Calgary group, which is fighting Manitoba s public-health restrictions in court.
Winnipeg Free Press
Last Modified: 8:42 PM CDT Thursday, May. 13, 2021 | Updates
THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES/John Woods
Public health orders that temporarily close churches and limit gathering sizes infringe on the charter rights of Manitoba’s faith communities, but are justified to slow the spread of COVID-19, a lawyer for the province argued Thursday.
Public health orders that temporarily close churches and limit gathering sizes infringe on the charter rights of Manitoba’s faith communities, but are justified to slow the spread of COVID-19, a lawyer for the province argued Thursday. The charter protects fundamental rights and freedoms… but it also requires, in times of crisis, that citizens are asked to make reasonable sacrifices, said lawyer Michael Conner in a closing argument before Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Glenn Joyal.
Posted: May 07, 2021 5:00 AM CT | Last Updated: May 7
Critics of Manitoba s pandemic restrictions rallied outside the Winnipeg Law Courts on Monday afternoon, the first day of a hearing in a legal challenge of Manitoba s pandemic health restrictions.(Cameron Macintosh/CBC)
As a group of seven churches are challenging Manitoba s public health restrictions in court this week, saying they violate religious freedoms, many faith leaders are pushing back at that notion, saying they don t feel the same way. I ve heard a lot of other fellow Christians say that this doesn t really represent most of us in Manitoba, and most of us in southern Manitoba, in terms of how we feel about these things, said Michael Pahl, executive minister of Mennonite Church Manitoba, an association of more than 30 congregations.
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.