Canada's Supreme Court has Refused to Hear Two Covid-19 Travel Mandate Cases.
A crime committed yesterday is still a crime. This is especially true in politics where edicts remain on the books available to facilitate future crimes and there is no remorse over the initial act.
The Supreme Court of Canada has refused to hear two well funded, well presented challenges to Federal government Covid era travel edicts.
As outlined in the August 29th, 2024 Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) post, “Supreme Court declines to hear Covid vaccine travel mandate cases,” the two cases, filed separately but both supported by the JCCF, challenged Federal Covid vaccine travel mandates enacted, but subsequently rescinded, during the great pandemic of 2020 - 2022.
The first review (Peckford et al. v. Canada) was filed by former Progressive Conservative Newfoundland and Labrador premier Brian Peckford and five other plaintiffs.
People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier championed the second case (Hon. Maxime Bernier v. Canada).
As outlined in the JCCF post:
In both cases, the Federal Court held the issues were moot because the vaccine travel mandate had been rescinded after the cases had been filed and cross-examination had occurred, but prior to the court hearings.
Dismissing a case as moot means that the court has found that its decision will not have a practical effect and that it is not worth the time and effort to decide the case otherwise.
But the JCCF noted problems with the “doctrine of mootness.” According to the press release:
The Applicants argued that the doctrine of mootness ought to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court because emergency orders by their nature are evasive of review, resulting in no oversight by courts or elected legislators.
Hearing these cases would have allowed the Supreme Court to determine whether it is appropriate to allow governments to evade judicial scrutiny of their decisions made through emergency orders.
The JCCF press release also noted that “at the time the federal government rescinded the vaccine travel mandate, the Minister of Transport had threatened to bring back the mandate without hesitation.”
The June 15th, 2022 Toronto Sun editorial, “Trudeau government threatens to bring back mandates and change definition of fully vaccinated,” noted that the Federal government had explicitly reserved the possibility of reinstituting the various vaccine and travel mandates as it saw fit in June 2022 and intended to do so without public consultation.
According to the Sun editorial:
As with their decision to finally suspend the travel and work mandates, the government offered no evidence and no data to support this idea. They’ve been telling us as often as they can that they are listening to the best advice and best science, they just don’t want to share any of it with the public.
The Toronto Sun wasn’t the only legacy media outlet expressing these concerns in June 2022.
As outlined in the June 3rd, 2022 CBC News post, “Conservative leadership hopeful Pierre Poilievre tables bill to ban COVID-19 vaccine mandates,” the issue of potential future mandated lockdowns and travel restrictions was considered to be important enough to influence political campaigns.
The Supreme Court doesn’t seem to have considered this in its deliberations.
Given that the potential for reinstitution of vaccine mandates was on the table even when the original mandates were being revoked, the Supreme Court finding that to two court reviews are “moot” and “will not have a practical effect,” seems on the surface to be demonstrably false.
A Supreme Court decision will certainly reign in future government actions.
As outlined in the June 14th, 2022 Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat press release, “Suspension of the vaccine mandates for domestic travelers, transportation workers and federal employees,” Canadian government authorities have retained the ability to reimpose travel restrictions on the Canadian public for public health reasons at any time they please.
Any Supreme Court decision on this matter will not be “moot.“
Any ruling on the constitutionality of vaccine travel edicts will have far reaching affects on future government options and allow the courts to perform their assigned judicial role of providing reasonable scrutiny of political decisions.
This is an especially necessary and important function of the court when considering politicians and governments like the current Liberal government, who have been often accused of intending to evade judicial scrutiny of their decisions by using emergency orders unsupported by deliberative legislation passed by the Canadian Parliament and vetted by the Canadian Senate.
The Supreme Court must hear and judge the two vaccine travel restriction cases.
Any other court action goes against 175 years of Canadian jurisprudence. Any Supreme Court justice who forgets this simple fact should resign from the bench immediately.
Another instance, I'm afraid, where the Supreme Court has failed Canada and Canadians. Instead of treating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the highest law in the land and worthy of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court seems determined to treat it with utter disdain.
More Canadians need to be upset about this case, hence it will be brought back without a fight. I cannot believe this is the same country of Canada that I grew up in.