An undercover female RCMP officer seemingly cried while testifying as a Crown witness during Wednesday’s proceedings in the Chris Carbert and Anthony Olienick trial in Lethbridge, AB.
Both defendants are charged with conspiracy to murder, with the Crown alleging that the two conspired to murder police officers during their participation in the 2022 Coutts blockade and demonstration. The two men are also charged with unlawful possession of firearms for a purpose dangerous to the public peace and mischief causing damage over $5,000. Olienick is uniquely charged with unlawful possession of an explosive device for a purpose dangerous to the public peace. Carbert and Olienick have pleaded not guilty to all charges against them.
The 2022 Coutts blockade and protest was a peaceful and civilly disobedient demonstration broadly opposed to governmental edicts, orders, and mandates issued as “public health” measures, ostensibly to reduce COVID-19 transmission. It ran concurrently to the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, ON.
Carbert and Olienick are the two remaining defendants of a group of men dubbed the Coutts Four, which previously included Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin, who were also accused of conspiring to murder law enforcement officers. Lysak and Morin pled guilty to lesser weapons-related crimes in March and were sentenced to time served in remand.
The female RCMP undercover operator (UCO) testified in a courtroom inaccessible to the public and news media in order to protect her anonymity. With her in the courtroom were the judge, prosecutors, defence lawyers, defendants, jurors, and court staffers. Members of the public and media could listen to a live audio feed of her testimony in an adjacent courtroom. Her name was also withheld from the public record.
The female UCO sounded as if she was crying while reflecting on what she said were statements made to her by Olienick during a conversation. She stated that Olienick, during the Coutts blockade and protest, told her he was willing – and even expected – to die in a violent confrontation with police officers.
“[Anthony Olienick] said he thought he would die for this cause,” the female UCO stated. She continued, “He comes now to realize that this was his destiny, and this was the war he was meant to fight in. … [He said] the devil would make sure he didn’t survive.”
While sounding as if she was losing her composure, lead prosecutor Steven Johnston asked the female UCO if she needed a break from testifying to restore her poise. The female UCO acknowledged that she was upset and replied that she only needed a moment. She also testified that emotional control was a skillset she possessed as an undercover investigator with the RCMP.
According to the female UCO, Olienick claimed that “the devil” would use its “arms” to ensure he didn’t survive the Coutts blockade and protest. She interpreted Olienick’s remark as if “the devil” was a reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and “arms” was a metaphor for the RCMP.
Near the end of the day’s proceedings, the female UCO acknowledged that her notetaking documented very little of her own statements and behaviors as an undercover investigator. The vast majority of her notes were composed of statements and behaviours she claimed to observe on the part of her investigatory targets.
Justice David Labrenz, the judge overseeing the trial, said he expects the trial to conclude by mid-July.
Judge Brinton’s complaint raises issues about the proper functioning of the judiciary, both in Nova Scotia and across Canada. It engages the principles of individual judicial independence, judicial impartiality and, by extension, the rule of law itself. It concerns the working relationship between a chief judge and her fellow judges, and the proper scope of the chief judge’s authority within that relationship.
It has been two years, ten months, and thirteen days (1,053 total days) since the administration of my employer, the University of Guelph, locked me out of my office and laboratory. I spoke truths about COVID-19 when much of the world was not ready to hear them. As the University of Guelph still expects me to work, I would like to have access to my work spaces. My administration keeps sharing their policy stating that I should feel valued in my workplace; I don’t.
– B. Bridle –
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This breaking news needs to be shared far and wide.
It is another narrative-crusher.
Placing the Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines into a Readily Understandable Context
When it comes to evaluating the safety of a vaccine, isolated numbers taken from a passive adverse event monitoring system are difficult to interpret because they lack an appropriate context. Among other issues, passive safety monitoring systems that rely on voluntary submission of reports substantially underestimate the true number of adverse events that occur following receipt of a vaccine. So, they yield artificially low numbers. Therefore, I have long advocated for placing the safety data for COVID-19 vaccines into a readily understandable context. Specifically, I have argued in favour of conducting head-to-head comparisons of adverse events following immunization (AEFIs) for COVID-19 vaccines with another ‘popular’ vaccine. The flu vaccine would be an ideal comparator because there are robust, long-term data sets available for this, it is an optional vaccine, and people have decades of familiarity with both the vaccine and the disease it targets.
People have a lot of experience making their own risk-benefit assessments in the context of influenza. Further, the peer-reviewed scientific literature has made it clear that for the vast majority of people outside of the high risk demographics (which are the frail elderly and those with multiple chronic illnesses), COVID-19 was, on average, of similar risk as the flu. For children, COVID-19 represented less of a risk than the flu. So, letting people know how the safety of COVID-19 vaccines compared to flu vaccines would have been extremely helpful for people to properly assess their personal risk from COVID-19 versus the COVID-19 shots. However, finding publicly available data sets amenable to an accurate direct comparison of the safety of these two types of vaccines has proven to be a challenge.
So, I was thrilled when I was granted an opportunity to review a report earlier today that was obtained by a lawyer in British Columbia, Canada, following a freedom of information request. It is a 1,315-page report documenting information shared among staff of British Columbia’s Centre for Disease Control and Dr. Bonnie Henry, who is the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health. These experts of public health pulled data about AEFIs for both COVID-19 vaccines and flu vaccines from the same safety data base. One could not ask for a better-controlled public health data set. These experts used these comparative data for months to help them place the information about COVID-19 shots into a readily understandable context prior to releasing information to the public. But, the data and how they were handled and hidden in the public release are downright shocking.
The Public Deserves to Know How the BC Centre for Disease Control Mishandled and Hid Important Vaccine Safety Data
In a world where many physicians claim to promote the concept of informed consent, the BC Centre for Disease Control must be called out for failing miserably in this regard. I will show you why by highlighting some of the most egregious aspects of the report…
British Columbia Centre for Disease Control Discovered COVID-19 Shots Were More Than Sixteen Times More Dangerous Than Flu Shots But Never Disclosed this Publicly
For months, public health officials in British Columbia accumulated data about AEFIs for COVID-19 vaccines and placed them into the context of flu vaccines. Here are the data from their final weekly update meeting just prior to when they went public with it…
…this represents data about AEFIs that accumulated from December 20, 2020, until March 25, 2021. The first two rows represent the total # of AEFIs and serious AEFIs. I highlighted these in blue. I have also highlighted a very important column for comparative purposes. The #s in this column show the relative risk of the COVID-19 shots compared to historic flu vaccines. Note that there was a 15.7-fold higher incidence of serious AEFIs than what historically occurred for flu shots! This massive difference in the safety profile of the two sets of vaccines is of substantial concern when one understands that the risk associated with the two diseases is approximately equal for most people.
COVID-19 Shots Caused 13.6-Fold More Hospitalizations and 24-Fold More Deaths Than Flu Shots
See for yourself…
Although the data set is small, an apparent 24-fold higher rate of deaths following administration of COVID-19 shots should not have been trivialized. Instead, it should have triggered intensive active safety monitoring; something that was not done.
A Short Time Later The Public Data Set Was Released With Critical Information Removed and Numbers Manipulated
Here is the communication following discussion of the March 25, 2021 AEFIs dataset…
And here is a portion of what was released publicly. I am showing just two pages to highlight major concerns. This is from page 1 of the public release…
…it boldly states that “Serious events have not been reported at rates higher than expected compared to background rates”. Yet I just showed you the internal data that they looked at, which demonstrated that serious adverse events were occurring at a 16-fold higher rate for COVID-19 shots when compared to the historical gold standard flu shots. In short, this appears to be a bald-faced lie!
And they also released this table to the public, which covered data from December 13, 2020 to April 3, 2021; so, one week of additional data compared to the internal data set reviewed above…
…note that all comparisons to the flu shots were removed so the public could not place the numbers into an appropriate context. Worse, numbers were manipulated in what appear to be nefarious ways! Go back and review the internal data from March 25, 2021, to conduct your own analysis.
One week prior to this public data release there were 523 total AEFIs. This suggests that an additional 70 reports of AEFIs were received between March 25 and April 3, 2021. So, with 70 new AEFIs added to the data set, how did the total number of serious reports plummet from 144 in the internal data set on March 25th to a mere 26 in the public data on April 3rd?!? 118 serious AEFIs are unaccounted for!
On March 25th, 27.5% of the total AEFIs were serious. How did this drop to a mere 4.4% on April 3rd?!? Even if all 70 new reports represented non-serious side-effects, the lowest this could have dropped to was 24.3%
And the rate of serious AEFIs listed in the table is a mere 3.0 per 100,000 doses. But it was 23.23 per 100,000 doses one week earlier!
Summary
The report obtained by a freedom of information request is damning. It demonstrates the withholding of comparative data that would have dramatically facilitated informed consent with respect to COVID-19 shots. It also shows that numbers of adverse events were manipulated in the public report in a way that substantially downplayed safety concerns. I did not find explanations for this in the report.
These manipulations of data should be cause for concern for everyone and require an explanation.
Dr. Bonnie Henry and the BC Centre for Disease Control need to be held accountable and should be compelled to explain, under oath, why there are major discrepancies in the data between the internal and public documents. Why did they not provide the public with the same contextual data that they were privy to on a weekly basis?
Transparency and integrity should be the hallmarks of public heath. Otherwise, trust will be eroded.
Consider the following two statements:
· Public statement: COVID-19 shots are safe.
· Based on hidden data: COVID-19 shots appear to be sixteen times more dangerous than flu shots.
Tell me, do you think the difference between these could have impacted people’s decision-making with respect to COVID-19 shots?
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Lawyer Marty Moore consistently hits the right chords in explaining the issues in this case.
To me, Chief Medical Health Officer of BC, Bonnie Henry, is clearly acting outside the Law. There is a good interview regarding the legalities in the first related posting.
UPDATE APPENDED: A local Report, June 14th. (The trial started on June 13th.)
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that Fraser Valley churches are arguing, in a 10-day hearing in Chilliwack, BC, that BC Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry granted preferential treatment to some faith groups over others when considering requests to be exempted from her total ban on all in-person worship services. The churches argue that their prosecution for violating public health orders is an abuse of process and ought to be stayed. Lawyers for the churches will present evidence that Dr. Henry acted dishonestly and in bad faith while banning in-person worship services in 2020 and 2021, granting immediate exemptions to Jewish synagogues while ignoring exemption requests from Muslims and Christians.
The hearing will begin at 9:30 a.m. PT on Thursday, June 13, 2024, in Courtroom 205 at the Chilliwack Law Courts, 46085 Yale Rd, Chilliwack, BC. The hearing will conclude on Thursday, June 27.
In November 2020, Dr. Henry banned in-person worship services while allowing bars, restaurants, gyms, and salons to remain open for in-person services.
Along with several other churches in the Fraser Valley, the Free Reformed Church in Chilliwack, BC, re-opened its doors in 2020 and 2021 while simultaneously complying with health orders regarding face masks, hand washing, social distancing, etc. In January 2021, the Free Reformed Church, along with two other churches, filed a constitutional challenge to the prohibition on in-person worship services. After filing the challenge, these churches submitted an accommodation request to gather for in-person worship services, but their request received no response for several weeks. At the same time, however, Dr. Henry had been responding within one or two days to accommodation requests from Orthodox synagogues, granting them permission to meet in-person.
Two business days before the Court was scheduled to hear the constitutional challenge, Dr. Henry finally granted the Free Reformed Church and two other churches limited permission to gather outdoors, while refusing them permission to gather indoors, claiming that indoor gatherings were too risky. However, earlier that same week, Dr. Henry had granted all Orthodox synagogues in the province permission to gather indoors; that same week, mosques seeking permission to gather in-person received no accommodation.
On March 18, 2021, BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Christopher Hinkson dismissed the Free Reformed Church’s challenge, in part because Dr. Henry had granted them permission to meet outdoors. The BC Court of Appeal upheld Chief Justice Hinkson’s decision, and the Supreme Court of Canada subsequently refused to hear the case.
Meanwhile, Pastor Koopman of the Free Reformed Church, and other churches and pastors, were prosecuted by the Crown in BC Provincial Courts. On November 8, 2022, Pastor Koopman was found guilty of hosting an in-person worship service in December 2020.
On April 14, 2023, Pastor Koopman submitted an Application to the Provincial Court of British Columbia, alleging that the discriminatory actions of the Provincial Health Officer had made the continuation of his prosecution offensive to societal notions of fair play and decency and had brought the administration of justice into disrepute. In response, on May 10, 2023, the Crown argued that the abuse-of-process application should not proceed to an evidentiary hearing, and that Dr. Henry and Deputy Provincial Health Officer Dr. Brian Emerson should not be subpoenaed as witnesses in the case.
For three days, from May 15–18, 2023, Judge Andrea Ormiston heard arguments on whether the abuse of process Application could proceed to an evidentiary hearing. On September 6, 2023, Judge Ormiston denied the Crown’s Application to summarily dismiss Pastor Koopman’s abuse-of-process Application because she found that there was “some evidence that the Provincial Health Officer preferred some faith groups over others.” Judge Ormiston found that, under the circumstances, it was not “manifestly frivolous” to think that the continued prosecution of Pastor Koopman “risks undermining the integrity of the judicial process.” However, Judge Ormiston declined to allow Dr. Henry or Dr. Emerson to be subpoenaed on the matter.
“When government officials, including public health officers, exercise coercive government power, it is essential that they use that power honestly, in good faith and without discrimination against people based on irrelevant consideration, including their particular religious faith,” stated lawyer Marty Moore. “We believe that the evidence in this case will show that the Provincial Health Officer’s treatment of faith communities during 2020 and 2021 violated the rule of law and that the prosecution of pastors and churches in this context undermines public confidence not only in our public health officials, but also in our justice system.”
Abbotsford West MLA Mike de Jong asks why B.C. government has spent “a fortune” on court proceedings related to churches that said their constitutional rights were violated during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Wolfgang Depner/Black Press Media file)
Listen to this article
00:04:48
Abbotsford West MLA Mike de Jong appeared Friday in a Chilliwack courtroom to explain his January 2021 letter to then-B.C. Attorney-General David Eby questioning the ban on in-person worship imposed by provincial health orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The long-time MLA had been asked to share his rationale for writing the Eby letter by Paul Jaffe, lawyer for Rev. John Koopman of the Free Reformed Church, the first applicant in the abuse-of-process hearing that began June 13 in Chilliwack court on behalf of three Fraser Valley churches.
Church leaders of the Immanuel Covenant Reformed Church in Abbotsford, Riverside Calvary Chapel in Langley and Free Reformed Church of Chilliwack were charged for violating PHO restrictions in 2020.
They took the matter to court, challenging the legislative basis that made the in-person gatherings illegal, and lost on appeal.
The voir dire portion of the abuse-of-process hearing, to consider witnesses and evidence, had been paused on the morning of June 14 so that de Jong could appear in court to underline the “importance” of the in-person nature of worship.
“I had started to receive calls and letters,” de Jong told the court, about the lack of accommodation being offered by the provincial government to those wishing to worship in churches. De Jong stated he originally sent his letter electronically to Eby, now posted on his social media, after noticing a “diminishment in the legitimacy” of the health orders, as a long-time MLA for more than three decades, and as one who held several cabinet posts when the BC Liberals were in government, including the role of Attorney General, and Health Minister.
“These laws need to be viewed as legitimate instruments,” de Jong said. The MLA wrote there was a need “to find a reasonable balance” between legitimate public health issues and the constitutional rights protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
He suggested there was a “fundamental inconsistency” in the way religious groups were being accommodated versus secular groups at the time. Asked if he knew that in fact some Orthodox synagogues had received accommodation for exceptions to the health order rules around worshipping in 2021, de Jong replied that he had not been aware.
He estimated that he heard from “more than 50 but less 100” people including constituents and from people across the province, including spiritual leaders representing thousands. The MLA was warned by Judge Andrea Ormiston that “hearsay would not be tendered for truth,” after Crown counsel Micah Rankin said he was making a “half objection” to de Jong’s account of his state of mind at the time of the letter writing.
Asked if he sought any media publicity about the letter, de Jong replied that he provided a copy of his Jan. 21 letter to Eby to anyone who expressed interest in it. The first part of de Jong’s letter to Eby: “I am writing to communicate the concerns that have been expressed to me by a number of spiritual organizations representing a broad cross section of religions. These faith-based agencies have asked that I transmit their frustration with the provisions of the Order of the Provincial Health Officer that imposes a total ban on holding ‘a worship or other religious service, ceremony or celebration in British Columbia.’
“It is my hope, and theirs, that you will take these concerns and the submissions that follow into account when providing advice to the Provincial Health Officer in advance of any discussions to extend the present order,” the letter continued. “These groups ask that the provisions imposing a total ban on religious services not be renewed. In the alternative, they ask that the provisions of the Order be amended in a manner that will permit certain in-person religious gatherings to occur.”
The letter later continues: “The essence of the concerns today is that there is a fundamental inconsistency between how secular and religious gatherings are being treated by the Public Health Order. The frustration I am hearing is further amplified by the fact that, unlike many of the secular activities accommodated by the Order, religious gatherings are specifically protected by the first fundamental freedom enumerated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
The three churches lost lost their first case against the province in 2021. The B.C. Court of Appeal then heard the case and also ruled against the churches in December 2022. When it went to the Supreme Court of Canada, it ruled in August 2023 that it would not hear the churches’ appeal.
An abuse-of-process hearing gives courts the authority to order that a proceeding be stayed once deemed to be unfair or otherwise able to undermine the integrity of the judicial system.
–with files from Vikki Hopes, Abbotsford News
About the Author: Jennifer Feinberg
I have been a Chilliwack Progress reporter for 20+ years, covering the arts, city hall, as well as Indigenous, and climate change stories.
The undercover female officer said her ‘cover story’ while investigating the Coutts protesters was that she was sympathetic to ‘the cause,’ which she defined as opposition to government mandates, orders, and edicts marketed as measures to “stop the spread” of COVID-19.
(Lordy! That undercover officer’s testimony makes me laugh! She was prescient – – she knew the truth of the matter.)
Undercover RCMP officers “are not allowed to use [their] sexuality during the course of an investigation,” a female RCMP undercover operator (UCO) testified during Tuesday’s proceedings in the trial of Chris Carbert and Anthony Olienick in Lethbridge, AB.
Carbert and Olienick are both charged with conspiracy to murder, with the Crown accusing the two men of conspiring to murder police officers in the context of their participation in the 2022 Coutts blockade and protest.
They are also charged with unlawful possession of firearms for a purpose dangerous to the public peace and mischief causing damage over $5,000. Olienick is uniquely charged with unlawful possession of an explosive device for a purpose dangerous to the public peace.
Both have pled not guilty to all charges against them. The 2022 Coutts blockade and protest was a peaceful and civilly disobedient demonstration broadly opposed to governmental edicts, orders, and mandates issued as “public health” measures, ostensibly to reduce COVID-19 transmission.
Carbert and Olienick are the two remaining defendants of a group of men dubbed the Coutts Four, which previously included Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin, who were also accused of conspiring to murder law enforcement officers.
Lysak and Morin pled guilty to lesser weapons-related crimes in March and were sentenced to time served in remand. The female undercover RCMP officer who testified on Tuesday is the first of two female UCOs summoned by the Crown as witnesses in the trial. She stated that the use of “sexuality” or “romantic” techniques in the course of secretive investigations are expressly prohibited by the RCMP.
Surreptitious use of digital recording devices for video and audio – such as body cameras and microphones or the placement of such devices in targeted areas – was not deployed in the course of the RCMP’s investigation of the Coutts protest and blockade, the female UCO stated.
She further testified that such technologies are used by the RCMP’s undercover units. When asked why such devices were not used by the RCMP in Coutts, she stated she did not know.
The undercover female officer said her “cover story” while investigating the Coutts protesters was that she was sympathetic to “the cause,” which she defined as opposition to government edicts, orders, and mandates marketed as measures towards COVID-19.
“We were supporters of the cause, that was our backstory,” she testified. The courtroom in which the female UCO testified was closed to the public and news media. Attendance was restricted to the judge, prosecutors, defence attorneys, defendants, jurors, and court staffers.
Public observers and news media were permitted to listen to her testimony in a separate room which received live audio of proceedings.
The female UCO’s name was also withheld and subjected to a publication ban in the event of inadvertent sharing during proceedings, with Justice David Labrenz – the judge overseeing the trial – stating that protection of her anonymity is required to enable the continuation of her undercover policework.
Plaintiffs in the COVID-19 case argued the Los Angeles United School District’s (LAUSD) pandemic-era mandatory “vaccination” policy, which was enforced even up to 12 days after the lawyers made oral arguments, “interfered with their fundamental right to refuse medical treatment.” People who refused to comply lost their jobs.
Further, plaintiffs asserted the COVID-19 mRNA jab was not a traditional vaccine, as the Jacobson case set precedent for.
The lower courts dismissed the case. The appeals court panel, however, overruled the district court’s order dismissing (the) plaintiff’s action.
“We vacate the District Court’s order dismissing this claim and remand for further proceedings under the correct legal standard,” wrote the appeals court.
US Appeals Court rules COVID mRNA shots could be considered not ‘traditional’ vaccinesViva Frei/YouTube
Canadian litigator David Freiheit (Viva Frei on social media) delivered a breakdown on the ruling on YouTube over the weekend.
“Simply put, a panel of the court of appeal at the 9th circuit vacated the initial judgment dismissing the plaintiff’s claim that the COVID-19 ‘vaccination’ policy, and I’ll put it in quotes for a damn good reason, violated their rights,” said Viva.
“The lower court dismissed the plaintiff’s claim, the panel vacated the lower Court’s decision to dismiss the plaintiff’s claim, and here the court of appeals two to one reverse the lower court’s decision and sent this back to the lower courts for further consideration.”
“What they’ve declared is that, at this stage of the proceedings, the plaintiffs have alleged that the COVID-19 jab is not a traditional vaccine such that Jacobson, that horrible precedent in Jacobson, does not apply to their case — such that their case cannot be dismissed on the basis of Jacobson because in Jacobson we were actually dealing with a traditional vaccine that actually prevented the contraction and transmission of a virus,” continued Viva.
“Whereas in this case we’re not dealing with a vaccine, we’re only dealing with something closer to a therapeutic, and therefore this is not a traditional vaccine, therefore Jacobson does not apply.”
“That is the argument raised by the plaintiffs, which cannot be dismissed at this stage of the proceedings.”
“The District Court misapplied the Supreme Court’s decision in Jacobson vs. Massachusetts, stretching it beyond its Public Health rationale,” said Viva.
“LAUSD basically argued that the issue was moot because they ended their policy of mandatory vaccination, and the court says you have been playing games throughout this entire context.
“The court of appeals says, ‘you are playing serious screwy games and we no longer believe that you’re not going to reimplement this policy, so it’s not moot’ and ‘we no longer trust you, you no longer have displayed good faith.’”
“Jacobson was the decision that people argue authorizes mandatory vaccination, except for the fact that even in Jacobson, it never authorized mandatory vaccination, it just authorized the issuance of a small fine in the event that someone didn’t want to get vaccinated — a vaccine that actually worked in the context of small pox,” continued Viva.
“It’s that caveat of a vaccine that actually worked, a traditional vaccine that actually yielded results by way of preventing transmission or contraction of an illness that is going to be at issue here.
“In this case, the plaintiffs are alleging that the so-called vaccine, the COVID jab, doesn’t even prevent transmitting or contracting the virus, therefore it’s not a traditional vaccine under the sense of Jacobson, thus Jacobson doesn’t apply to dismiss their case.”
I have a bit of experience with “carbon capture and storage” that dates back. I don’t have time to find it right now. My conclusion at the time was essentially what this author expresses:
While I share Michelle Stirling’s concern that measures to address climate change can waste a great deal of money, I’m disappointed that she neglected to say one word about CCS, or carbon capture and storage. This is an astonishing omission, as both our federal and provincial governments are giving budgetary and policy support to this costly distraction.
It’s a decade since the launch of the Boundary Dam carbon dioxide removal project managed by Sask Power, and it has never captured its promised 90% of carbon emissions. Not even close. The average capture rate, at this highly supported, much touted facility, is 57%.
Just a bad apple, perhaps? Um, no. William Burns, a founding co-director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University, noted that even the modest amount of CO2 stored at the Archer Daniels Midland plant in Illinois was only achieved with the help of massive taxpayer subsidies.
“We’ve been providing these subsidies for a long time — billions and billions of taxpayer dollars — and we still have very little to show for it,” Burns said. Last month Avik Dey, the CEO of Capital Power, told analysts in a conference call that the company will no longer pursue its $2.4 billion CCS project at the Genesee power plant west of Edmonton.
“Fundamentally, the economics just don’t work,” he told them.
One of the guests on the May 17th West of Centre podcast was Derek Evans, former President and CEO at MEG Energy, and the new Executive Chair at Pathways Alliance, a partnership between the six largest oilsands companies who want to work together to take carbon capture and storage to the next level. He said on that podcast that, “We’ve talked for 40 years about climate change … and we’ve done very, very little about it.”
Well, now that they want to do something about it, they want $50 billion in taxpayer support. But Ms. Stirling, concerned about costly fixes to climate change, can’t mention it? What?
Excerpt: Bill C-63 already provides that any citizen can approach any magistrate and file a restraining order against any other citizen, who they believe will say something hateful.
= = = = = = = = =
Conservatives predict failure of Online Harms bill
Calgary Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner predicts the Trudeau Liberals’ federal internet censorship legislation, Bill C-63, is so flawed it will never be enforced.
Rempel Garner said cabinet had neither the integrity nor public support for such a far-reaching initiative, per Blacklock’s Reporter.
“The government is close to the end of its mandate and does not have a lot of public support across the country. The Online Harms bill “would not likely become law,” Rempel Garner told the House of Commons.
“Certainly the regulatory process is not going to happen prior to the next election even if the bill is rammed through.”
Bill C-63 would appoint a Digital Safety Commission to monitor legal but “harmful” content on Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms.
The Trudeau Liberals in 2021 tried and failed to pass C-36, legislation that would amend the Criminal Code and grant a chief censor unprecedented powers to block websites containing legal content deemed hurtful.
“We are presently living under a government that unlawfully invoked the Emergencies Act and that routinely gaslights Canadians who legitimately question efficacy or the morality of its policies as spreading misinformation,” said Rempel Garner.
Hurtful internet content could be countered by “laws that are already on the books but have not been recently enforced due to a lack of extreme political will,” she said.
“The bill is irremediable. It is not fixable and members do not have to take my word for it.”
Attorney General Arif Virani testified March 21 at the Commons Justice Committee that he was personally terrified of the internet.
“Social media is everywhere. It brings unchecked dangers and horrific content. This frankly terrifies me. We need to make the internet safe,” said Virani at the time.
“We all expect to be safe in our homes, neighbourhoods and communities. We should be able to expect the same kind of security in our online communities. We need to address the online harms that threaten us.”
Human rights groups, lawyers and free speech advocates have condemned federal attempts at regulation of internet communication.
“Proposals fail to account for the importance of protecting the kinds of expression that are most central to a free and democratic society including journalism, academic scholarship and public interest research, debate, artistic creation, criticism and political dissent,” the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab wrote in a 2021 submission to the Department of Canadian Heritage.
The Ontario Civil Liberties Association called federal proposals “astonishing.”
Judge Brinton’s complaint raises issues about the proper functioning of the judiciary, both in Nova Scotia and across Canada. It engages the principles of individual judicial independence, judicial impartiality and, by extension, the rule of law itself. It concerns the working relationship between a chief judge and her fellow judges, and the proper scope of the chief judge’s authority within that relationship.
The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) announced their role in this case, in Feb:
HALIFAX, NS: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that the hearing for Judge Rickcola Brinton’s challenge to the dismissal of her complaint against former Chief Judge of Nova Scotia goes before the Halifax Supreme Court at 9:30 AM ADT on June 6, 2024. The proceedings will take place in Courtroom 701 of the Halifax Law Court – 1815 Upper Water Street, Halifax, NS. The hearing is expected to take the full day.
In 2021, the Chief Judge of the Nova Scotia Provincial Court imposed a vaccine mandate on Provincial Court Judges, only allowing those who had taken the Covid vaccine to hear cases in court.
Judge Rickcola Brinton objected to the imposition of this policy. She told her fellow judges, “I realize I may be in the minority, but I echo some of what [another judge] said, as I have concerns with medical privacy. I also know that the vaccination mandates and passports may be disproportionately impacting racialized communities. And as an essential service, will we be creating a two-tiered society for those who already feel as though we are not free to serve them?”
On this basis, she declined to share her private medical information with the Chief Judge. The Chief Judge proceeded to threaten Judge Brinton with suspension and referred her to the Judicial Council, which handles misconduct complaints against judges. Judge Brinton then went on medical leave. The Chief Judge sent written and phone communications directly to Judge Brinton’s doctor’s office, trying to get the doctor to provide details of Judge Brinton’s medical issues.
On June 7, 2023, Judge Brinton submitted a judicial misconduct complaint against the Chief Judge, alleging that the Chief Judge had applied undue pressure on Judge Brinton to disclose her vaccination status and had improperly contacted Judge Brinton’s doctor. The Chief Justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court received and reviewed the complaint. On October 10, 2023, the Chief Justice summarily dismissed that complaint. Judge Brinton then filed a case challenging the dismissal of her complaint against the Chief Judge.
Judge Brinton argues that the Chief Justice improperly dismissed her complaint by expressly deciding to exercise the role of a judicial review committee (normally composed of a judge, a lawyer and a lay person). Judge Brinton further argues that the Chief Justice should have given her an opportunity to respond to the Chief Judge’s submissions in which she argued that Judge Brinton’s complaint should be dismissed. Finally, Judge Brinton argues that the Chief Justice failed to engage in the required balancing process for constitutional rights and principles affected by the dismissal of her complaint, including judicial independence and the right to be free from compelled disclosure of private medical information.
Judge Brinton’s complaint raises issues about the proper functioning of the judiciary, both in Nova Scotia and across Canada. It engages the principles of individual judicial independence, judicial impartiality and, by extension, the rule of law itself. It concerns the working relationship between a chief judge and her fellow judges, and the proper scope of the chief judge’s authority within that relationship.
“Judge Brinton should be commended for taking a principled stand seeking to uphold public trust in the administration of justice, despite majoritarian sentiment at the time promoting vaccine mandates and the disclosure of private medical information,” states Marty Moore, one of the lawyers representing Justice Brinton. “The Nova Scotia Supreme Court is being asked to uphold the integrity of the process for reviewing judicial misconduct complaints, and to ensure that such complaints are fairly determined.”
A provincial court judge in Nova Scotia wants her complaint against her former employer for requesting her COVID-19 vaccine status revived, citing inappropriate dismissal.
Judge Richcola Brinton originally filed a complaint against Judge Pamela Williams last June, alleging judicial misconduct and a violation of her rights as the courts demanded unequivocal adherence to COVID-19 vaccine status disclosure.
The complaint was initially dismissed by Chief Justice Michael J. Wood in the fall of 2023, prompting Brinton to file for a judicial review of the decision.
Brinton’s legal team stated that Brinton was not given the option to respond to the submissions used in Justice Woods’ decision and that the complaint was inappropriately dismissed, during court proceedings in Halifax last week.
Justice Christa Brothers, who is overseeing the judicial review in Halifax’s Supreme Court, reserved her decision until a later date.
The Chief Judge of Nova Scotia Provincial Court – overseen by Williams until her term ended in August – imposed a COVID-19 vaccine mandate on Provincial Court Judges in 2021 that denied court entry to those who did not adhere to the requirement.
When Brinton refused to share her confidential medical records, Williams threatened her with suspension and a misconduct complaint. Williams then contacted Brinton’s doctor directly, both in writing and by phone, to request her private medical information.
“Judge Brinton should be commended for taking a principled stand seeking to uphold public trust in the administration of justice, despite majoritarian sentiment at the time promoting vaccine mandates and the disclosure of private medical information,” shared Marty Moore, a lawyer representing Justice Brinton. “The Nova Scotia Supreme Court is being asked to uphold the integrity of the process for reviewing judicial misconduct complaints, and to ensure that such complaints are fairly determined.”
Brinton has filed a separate civil suit against Williams and the provincial court, alleging that her rights to judicial independence and medical privacy were violated when Williams pressured her to disclose her COVID-19 vaccination status. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for July 2.
PUBLICLY-FUNDED HIGH-POWER TRANSMISSION LINES TO THE U.S. BORDER
Note:
– The multi-billion dollar high-power transmission line (publicly-financed) running down the centre of Alberta would have fed electricity into the privately-owned MATL (Montana Alberta Tie Ltd) running south from Lethbridge into the U.S.
– Now we need a wikileaks on the Saskatchewan connection! In 2009 we fought the “UDP Report” (Uranium Development Partnership Report). The plans for generation of nuclear power in Saskatchewan included high-power transmission lines from Saskatchewan to Alberta.
As you know, Bruce Power has been back-and-forth trying to get a foothold for nuclear reactors in either Alberta or in Saskatchewan. Whether it is the tax-payers of Alberta or the tax-payers of Saskatchewan who get to foot the bill for the very expensive high-power transmission lines (not to mention high-cost electricity from reactors that must also cover the cost of radioactive waste disposal) is a toss-up.
The article indicates that Alberta is advanced in implementing the scheme. But earlier information on Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s role in the Canada-U.S. Western Energy Corridor coupled with his Government’s funding of the nuke industry using the University as the back-door, keeps the ball bouncing between the provinces. It remains to be seen whether it will be the citizens of Alberta or the citizens of Saskatchewan who are the biggest suckers.
Landowners’ lawyer Keith Wilson: ‘Now we know it’s for export.’
Critics of Alberta’s program to build a $16-billion electricity transmission system without public need studies have called for a major judicial inquiry on the massive taxpayer funded project following new revelations from U.S. embassy cables released by Wikileaks.
Cables sent from the U.S. embassy in Ottawa in 2003 and 2008 show that Alberta politicians offered to export power to the United States using excess electricity generated by oil sands facilities.
Shortly after the last cable the Alberta government proposed a massive upgrade to its existing $2-billion transmission system.
Yet no other jurisdiction in Canada has proposed to build eight times its existing transmission infrastructure at taxpayers’ expense with no public needs assessments. Nor has any other province proposed to give away that very infrastructure to two private transmission companies (Atco and AltaLink) along with a promised rate of return of nine per cent.
“The cables show that the government was going to export power all along and lied about what they were doing with transmission upgrades,” says Joe Anglin, a former U.S. Marine and long-time advocate for electrical reform in Alberta.
“The cables are the hammer that nails all the supporting evidence together,” says Anglin. “We need a full judicial inquiry.”
Because many Alberta government officials repeatedly told Albertans that its unprecedented program to spend $16-billion in upgrades were all about “keeping the lights on,” Anglin also suspects that many officials may also be guilty of perjury.
‘More troubling questions’
Keith Wilson, a St. Albert lawyer who has attacked draconian legislation supporting the transmission upgrades, says the Wikileaks documents answer some questions.
The cables explain why the government proceeded with such a massive over build and why the government passed Bill 50 in 2009. That bill took away the public’s needs assessment hearings and shifted all decision making to the back-room of Alberta’s provincial cabinet.
“The Wikileaks documents answer some questions but also raise more troubling ones,” says Wilson who recently represented landowners challenging the Heartland transmission line at public hearings in April.
“I always thought the transmission upgrade was either a product of government incompetence fueled by the extravagant fantasies of engineers or it was for export. It’s just too massive for local needs. Now we know it’s for export,” says Wilson.
The documents also raise troubling questions about secret deals behind closed doors. “Clearly something happened between the Wikileaks cables and 2009’s draconian transmission bill legislation. Discussions were held and decisions were made to allocate these transmission lines and who would benefit, and we don’t know the answer to these questions.”
Premier Ed Stelmach has called Wilson “a silk suited lawyer” but hasn’t answered growing questions about power exports. (For the record Wilson says he doesn’t “even own silk underwear.”)
Cables reveal power pledges
The cables, released two weeks ago by Wikileaks, leave little doubt about the Alberta government’s export plans. In 2003 U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci detailed a commitment by Alberta’s Energy Minister Murray Smith, who oversaw the province’s messy electricity de-regulation plans, to provide the U.S. with more electricity from oil sands cogeneration plants.
Wrote Cellucci: “Smith and others also want to make sure that the USG (United States government) is aware that over time there will be tremendous electricity co-generation available as a result of the huge thermal needs of the oil sands refining process.”
Cellucci added that “this could over time make significant new electricity exports available to the United States, but at least for now there is limited capacity to move this west and then south through British Columbia and on to our Pacific Northwest. There is almost no capacity to move it south into the U.S. Rocky Mountain states and markets further afield. Albertans see this as a promising issue for future provincial-state-Washington-Ottawa and regulator to regulator coordination.”
Shortly after this cable was filed, Smith changed the 50/50 rule for financing electrical power lines. The change placed the entire burden of transmission upgrades on Alberta ratepayers.
Separate documents found by The Tyee also confirm the province’s plans for power exports. For example, the Alberta government made a presentation promising to export at least 2.5-million MWh of electricity by 2020 to the United States at a 2006 meeting of the Oil Sands Experts Group in Houston, Texas.
Huge upgrade sold as ‘critical infrastructure’
Another 2008 U.S. embassy cable also mentions the potential of exports from Alberta’s oil sands where natural gas fired cogeneration facilities provide both steam and electricity for bitumen production and often create more power than the mega-industry can use:
“Co-generation could also make a net contribution to electricity supply, perhaps even changing the province’s traditional status from small net importer of power to net exporter if transmission capacity in Montana and Wyoming can be expanded,” says the cable.
Adds the communication: “Moreover, some in Alberta are seriously considering use of nuclear reactors to fuel bitumen extraction, which could boost the amount of power co-generated in this process.” The cable added that only a lack of transmission lines prevented such exports.
A year after this cable was sent, the Alberta government passed three controversial and interconnected bills (19, 36 and 50) that concentrated decision-making on power lines in the provincial cabinet. In particular Bill 50, the Electric Statutes Amendment Act, eliminated the requirement for public needs assessments in the province by declaring the construction of five major transmission projects as “critical infrastructure” for Alberta.
Without the construction of these five so-called critical lines, it would be impossible to move power generated in Fort McMurray or from planned nuclear plants in Peace River to U.S. markets. The plans include two hotly contested 500 kV HVDC lines between Edmonton and Calgary.
The content of the cables, however, did not surprise industry critics of Alberta’s ongoing $16 billion transmission scandal.
“It’s been known all along that there had been discussions about export schemes in place,” says Sheldon Fulton, executive director of the Industrial Power Consumers Association of Alberta. The group, which represents the province’s largest power users, opposes the transmission expansion as a dire threat to the province’s economy.
Profits would flow to SNC Lavalin
Fulton says there is room for limited upgrades but not an eight-fold increase. Current plans will bankrupt industry and ratepayers alike and come with no cost effective monitoring, he says.
“It’s essentially a public wealth transfer to one private company in Montreal,” adds Fulton. AltaLink, a transmission line owner and builder created by the Alberta government’s deregulation process, is now 100 per cent owned by SNC Lavalin, a Montreal engineering firm.
According to The Globe and Mail, AltaLink could eventually provide a 2013 profit to SNC worth more than half the company’s current bottom line if Alberta’s regulators approve all the transmission lines supported by Premier Ed Stelmach pro-transmission line legislation.
The province’s major transmission players all have ties to the Progressive Conservative Party. Patricia Nelson, a former Tory energy minister, sits on theboard of AltaLink. The company’s vice president once served on the party’s executive committee with direct access to the premier.
Key Tory party funders and supporters also sit on the boardof the Alberta’s Energy System Operator (AESO), which operates the electricity grid and determines power needs. (Even industry critics say it’s highly questionable “how independent AESO is from government and government influence.”)
In addition SNC Lavalin, the key benefactor of Alberta’s transmission overbuild, is chaired by Gwyn Morgan, a former Tory confidante of Premier Ralph Klein. Klein deregulated Alberta’s electricity markets in the early 2000s with no cost benefit analysis.
Albertans’ power rates already rising
Although de-regulation allowed oil sands producers to create their own electricity, it has dramatically increased power rates in the province.
Fulton describes the province’s transmission mega-project as “so unbelievably dramatic and out of control that people can’t believe that the government would be as dumb as it is. But the hard facts just get you.”
Unlike Alberta’s grandiose plans for $16 billion of new infrastructure, British Columbia has proposed $4.3 billion in transmission upgrades while Ontario has plans for $5.4 billion.
“That tells the whole story,” explains Fulton. “Those provinces are two-and-a-half times bigger than Alberta in terms of generation and consumption yet they are building only a third of what we are. We need a full inquiry on our transmission plans.”
Many business leaders consider the mega-transmission upgrade a dangerous threat to the economy and the future of the province.
At a May 13 hearing for the controversial Heartland Transmission line in the Edmonton area, the president of AltaSteel, Chris Jager, said the province’s power plans could triple his firm’s power bills from $15-million to $34 million by 2017.
“The approach that’s been taken here is to build 10 Cadillacs when you could use two Volkswagens. It’s overdone, it’s not well thought out and quite frankly the people that are building it have a history of spending two-and-a-half times as much,” said Jager.
‘Some of it don’t read good’
What many are now calling the transmission boondoggle has sparked widespread debate in the province.
At one recent public meeting Alberta’s Minister of Transportation Luc Oulette flew down from Edmonton in a government jet to heckle Joe Anglin, a long-time critic of the upgrades. Anglin then invited Oulette to speak.
In front of a hundred people the minister called Alberta “the fifth best emerging economy in the world” but admitted “I have a heck of a time understanding a lot of the legal stuff” in legislation and how it works. “I do question some of it and some of it don’t read good when you pick and paste pieces apart.”
In the oil sands, cogeneration, the simultaneous production of electricity and steam by the burning of natural gas, now accounts for 40 per cent of the province’s electrical generation.
Due to the uneconomic status of private transmission lines to the United States, oil sands producers have built co-generation plants primarily to satisfy on-site power and steam needs.
But 2010 study by the Oil Sands Developers Group noted that removal of public needs assessments for transmission lines with Bill 50 “could potentially reverse the trend to build capacity to meet on-site demand only and support the growth in net exports from co-generation by encouraging developers to install greater capacity.”
Alberta government denies plans to export
Although the Alberta government still denies any plan to export power (Energy Minister Ron Liepert has described the Wikileaks revelations as “boogeyman stuff”), neighboring U.S. jurisdictions contradict the government.
To date every opposition political leader in the province has condemned the transmission upgrades following the release of the Wikileaks cables.
“These documents show this government’s sales job on the need for these transmission lines to be a complete fraud,” Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said. “If they want to have a debate about exporting electricity, let’s have that debate. Instead, they’ve deliberately and repeatedly deceived Albertans by trying to convince them they need to pay for these upgrades for their own good. We need to go back to the drawing board immediately to determine Alberta’s true transmission needs.”
In the last two weeks several new leadership candidates for Alberta’s Tory party have openly rebuked existing policies and reversed their positions on the boondoggle. Many have called for a review of legislation supporting the transmission upgrade.
“While I have never doubted the need for additional transmission capacity, I have never been persuaded of the need for two DC lines between Edmonton and Calgary, said leadership candidate Ted Morton in a statement. “I was not persuaded as a private member. I was not persuaded as a Cabinet Minister, and I am still not persuaded today.”
Comments
Alberta Power
So THAT’S where all of Gordo’s conniving power brokers went!!
What the world needs are
What the world needs are more Wikileaks to keep corrupt politicians and their corporate owners on their toes and into jails.
What nobody dares to mention is that corporate profits are also forms of taxation and should be accountable to the public, because they all come out of our pockets, therefore should be fully justified.
They need profits to survive, but not without limits and multimillion salaries to executives.
Ed Deak.
Good reporting
Now if we could only get similar info on BC-based shenanigans… Gateway project, BC Rail, GM Place, convention centre, yadda yadda
· Van Isle
Is Site C part of this scam?
Is Site C part of this scam?
· Jeffrey J.
Thank God for Wikileaks
While the Mainstream Media (MSM) has dropped Wikileaks off the news, let us not forget the light Julian Assange has helped shine on secretive government and corporate dealings.
Wikileaks has proven that governments lie, virtually all the time. Along with their backers, large multinationals.
But as citizens, we are the vast majority of our country. We outnumber the elites by about 99 to 1.
Minority rule over the majority has always been inherently unjust, unfair, and wrong. Hence the continual bubbling of democracy around the world.
Posted May 17; Last Updated: May 17, 2011 5:26 PM MT
Beginning of Story Content
Internal U.S. documents published by WikiLeaks are raising questions about whether the Alberta government plans to export electricity to the United States.
The leaked internal U.S. diplomatic cables reveal that Murray Smith, Alberta’s former energy minister, told U.S. officials in 2003 that excess electricity generated for oil sands operations could be made available for export.
According to the documents, Smith said Alberta lacked the transmission lines needed to export the power to the United States.
“But at least for now there is limited capacity to move this west and then south through British Columbia and on to our Pacific Northwest,” the cable notes.
“There is almost no capacity to move it south into the U.S. Rocky Mountain states and markets further afield.”
Opposition parties say a proposed multi-billion dollar north-south transmission line will be used to export that power even though the Stelmach government has denied it.
“There’s nothing necessarily wrong with exporting surplus power to the United States,” NDP Leader Brian Mason said.
“But by hiding it, they’re proceeding with a policy that will require Albertans through their electricity bill to pay for this transmission infrastructure which is worth billions and billions of dollars.”
On Tuesday, Premier Ed Stelmach didn’t deny discussions had taken place, but he said Albertans have nothing to fear.
“If anybody wants to export power out of the province, the cost of that transmission is borne by the exporter, not by the consumers of Alberta. That is very clear.”
He insisted the proposed transmission line between Edmonton and Calgary is to serve the province’s needs, not the U.S. market.
