I (Sandra) have been perplexed by what Colleges of Physicians & Surgeons in Canada get away with.
Michael Alexander explains the Law. It is complicated in the end, but the BASICS are not.
You can listen to Michael in the Interview; you can read the full Transcript; or here’s a short sampling of what we’re up against.
An EXCERPT FROM THE TRANSCRIPT, to give you an idea.
. . . the College is proceeding against my clients, some of whom have prescribed ivermectin, but they have done so completely in accordance with the law and the authorization around this medication. Yet the College is trying to take away their licences for doing so.
Geneviève Eliany
This is very much a continuation of the theme you have explained where policies, statements that are certainly not law or regulations, are being prosecuted as law.
But what the colleges have done is they have published statements and established policies and issued guidelines. Well, the Ontario Court of Appeal has said that a statement, a policy, or a guideline is not a law; it’s just a recommendation. And yet, the colleges are treating these guidelines and recommendations which they post as if they have the force of law and as if they can be used as a basis for investigating and prosecuting doctors and other health care professionals. So it’s a very troubling situation because essentially what we have—in particular with the College of Physicians—is bureaucrats simply inventing the law and then using it to prosecute doctorsLet’s chat about JN v. CG. Why don’t you explain what kind of case that was?
Michael Alexander
This was a case decided by Justice Pazaratz in the family law courts [Exhibit TO-24f], over a year ago.
This involved a case where you had two parents: the mother had custody of two children, they were separated or divorced. And a dispute arose between the parents as to whether the children should receive the COVID-19 injections. The father wanted them to receive it, the mother did not. So this had to be dealt with in the context of the court under family law legislation.
Now, neither the mother nor the father introduced expert evidence. The father produced printouts from the Health Canada website, essentially provided government information about the injections. And the mother provided some reports and studies by people like Dr. Tess Lawrie, Dr. Robert Malone, the founder of the mRNA technology that’s been used in these injections. So she provided some kind of expert evidence, because they’re not bringing forth experts. Now as you know, in a case like this, if people are not providing expert witnesses, the court is limited to the information that the two parties put in front of it and must make a decision based on that.
Justice Pazaratz was quite influenced by the fact that the mother had read the Pfizer monograph that comes with the injection. And it listed over 24 possible side effects and could I just read what those were? So the mother brought that forward and said, “I have concerns that my kids might be subject to some of these side effects.” So this is in the case itself, this is quoting directly from the Pfizer monograph. These are the possible side effects: “difficulty breathing, swelling of your face and throat, a fast heartbeat, bad rashes all over your body, dizziness and weakness.” And then there’s a second list: “chest pain, shortness of breath, feelings of having a fast beating, fluttering, or pounding heart, severe allergic reactions, non-severe allergic reactions such as itching hives or swelling of the face, myocarditis, pericarditis, injection site pain, tiredness, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, fever, injection site swelling, injection site redness, nausea, feeling unwell, swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, vomiting, arm pain.”
I might mention in relation to myocarditis, when this is mentioned in the press, it’s kind of mentioned in passing. The doctors I represent have impressed upon me that if a child gets myocarditis, the inflammation in the heart actually destroys heart cells, which can never be replaced. It actually destroys nerve cells that are responsible for the beating of the heart. And 50 per cent of those children—and this would include adults as well—will die within five years of having myocarditis. So this is a very— This is essentially a death sentence for some people.
The judge was quite persuaded, just on the basis of the possible side effects, that the mother had legitimate concerns. And he actually decided this matter in favour of the mother and was not persuaded that the government printouts dealt in as much detail with these problems as the mother had in the materials that she addressed.
Geneviève Eliany
Unlike the Divisional Court cases that you’ve mentioned, would you agree that this case is an example of the judiciary pushing back? And even the language of the text is unusual? It made it to social media, which is unusual for case law. But the judge expressed frustration that people couldn’t ask questions anymore.
Michael Alexander
Right. And right at the very beginning of the decision, he makes an extraordinary attack on the idea of misinformation. Perhaps I could read what he said here, because I’ve used it in my own cases. He says, “is ‘misinformation’ even a real word, or has it become a crass, self-serving tool to pre-empt scrutiny and discredit your opponent, to delegitimize questions, and strategically avoid giving answers? Blanket denials are almost never acceptable in our adversarial system. Each party always has the onus to prove their case, and yet ‘misinformation’ has crept into the court lexicon: a childish but sinister way of saying, ‘you’re so wrong, I don’t even have to explain why you’re wrong.’”
Geneviève Eliany
What happened with the JN case at the Court of Appeal level?
Michael Alexander
It was overturned by the Court of Appeal [Exhibit TO-24].
Geneviève Eliany
Did they have any commentary about it?
Michael Alexander
It’s an extraordinary case, in particular because one of the judges presiding was the new Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal.
[00:30:00]
Well, first of all, the Court of Appeal said that the mother’s evidence about the side effects should not, essentially, have played a role in the decision. The Pfizer monograph should not have played a role in the decision. Because in drawing attention to those side effects, the mother was holding herself out as an expert witness, and she was not qualified to be an expert witness. Think about that for a moment: the Court of Appeal has said that you have to be an MD or have a PhD in science to understand words like vomiting and diarrhea, swelling of the face. So that’s one way in which the decision was attacked.
It was also attacked on another ground. Essentially the court did something— Like, I’ve been reading cases since 1980, for 43 years. I entered law school in 1980. And the court came up with a new principle I’ve never heard of before, which is that government should always be given the benefit of the doubt. So it said that the government—and not just in relation to COVID—but the government has experts and it does analysis. And so if you come to the court and you want to challenge a government decision—in this case one which supposedly comes from Health Canada and the Ministry and experts are involved and so on—the burden is on you to rebut the presumption that the government is right.
How is that possible? I mean, we’re supposed to have equal justice in our system. There is supposed to be no bias in the system in favor of either party. There’s nothing more fundamental to adjudication in our court system than that. But if you decide to challenge the government on a point now, the Court of Appeal is going to say, “No, we begin with the assumption that the government is right and you, the citizen, you are wrong.”
There’s no authority for this proposition. In fact, what the court does by way of authority is very troubling. It quotes a provision from the Evidence Act to the effect that if the government issues a decision or makes a statement and actually publishes it officially in a document, in the Gazette, where you find new legislation, or through a statement by a ministry, you can take that to be confirmation that the statement was made. And they take that rule and they transform it and interpret it to mean that if the government publishes a statement, you can also assume the veracity of the statement. So it’s not just that the government’s made the statement, but that the statement is true. That is not what the rule says. This is such a misapplication of this basic rule of evidence that— I mean, if you wrote this on a first-year law school exam, you would flunk.
Geneviève Eliany
That’s very true. They’ve made hearsay admissible for the truth of its contents, which is contrary to very basic law.
Michael Alexander
There’s just one other thing they did, which is quite extraordinary. Which is, you know, they did say that— Essentially, they took it as a matter of judicial notice that the vaccines are safe and effective. In other words, that is a fact which is beyond dispute just because that’s what the government has said, right? So this is where the assumption in favour of government comes in.
But they cite a case for that authority, which has recently been cited in Saskatchewan—also a family law case. And in that case, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal was very clear: they took the very opposite position. They said you can never assume that what the government has said regarding the safety and well— You do not have to take at face value the statement by the government that the vaccines are safe and effective. For two reasons. First of all, that “safe and effective” conclusion is only made within certain parameters. And you, as a patient, may fall outside of those parameters or boundaries. So this kind of statement can never be treated as absolute. The second reason that they gave for not taking this as, so to speak, a judicial fact, is that we know that governments can get it wrong. And they pointed to the thalidomide disaster. So the government assured people that thalidomide was safe and effective until there were thousands of deformed babies. And so they took notice of the fact that you can never assume that government is right.
So how the Court of Appeal can take this case from the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal,
[00:35:00]
which is contrary to what the Court of Appeal here in Ontario is trying to prove, and use that as authority is to me astonishing. Absolutely astonishing. . . .