20,000 People Attend Zoom Hearing Contesting Mootness of Peckford Case Re Travel Mandates
But 20,000 people is not an indication that opening the case is in the public interest
As an ordinary citizen, not trained in law, I tried very hard to make sense of what was happening in the courtroom today. The first thing I learned was that although roughly 20,000 people attended via Zoom, that had no impact. The reason given was that it was not “in the public interest” to pursue the case because there was “an absence of live controversy.” In other words, since the mandates have been lifted there is no longer any ongoing controversy. This is the central argument of the crown. Now we wait for the court to decide whether the Peckford case will be heard.
For an overview of what happened in the courtroom this morning, I recommend the Epoch Times article, Travel Vaccine Mandate Challengers in Court to Contest Previous Mootness Ruling. I am still looking for a Canadian mainstream news outlet to report on this. Eva Chepiuk, BSc, LLB, LLM, ran a commentary on the proceedings on Twitter which you can find here.
A ruling last week Friday in BC has a likelihood to influence this case. Once again the article, BC Vaccine Passport Appeal Given the Go-Ahead at Court Hearing, is covered by the Epoch Times. Again, as I did a Google search, no mainstream Canadian media outlet came up. It appears one must subscribe to the Epoch Times for half of the available Canadian news.
While 5 million Canadians were prohibited from travel by air, rail or ship because of not receiving vaccination, somehow it is deemed that this case of whether their rights were violated is not in the public interest. The government of Canada requested a mootness ruling.
As the Epoch Times reported,
Mr. Ben Naoum also asked how the government could withhold fundamental human rights, hand them back at the eleventh hour, and then claim the issue is moot and shouldn't be examined by the court.
The federal travel vaccine mandate was lifted on June 20, 2022, and eight days later the attorney general (AG) filed a mootness motion in order for the cases not to be heard by the court.
Justice Gagné essentially agreed with all the arguments presented by the government. She declared that the applicants had “substantially received the remedies sought,” given the mandate had been repealed.
Another argument made by the crown was that considerable resources would be used in such a case and this could not be justified. Reference was made to the cross-examinations that would be required, the time frame of the case, and the volume of thousands of pages of evidence collected that would require review. Justice Gagne who made the mootness ruling was excused by the crown for not possibly having been able to read all the content before she passed her judgment.
The Epoch Times articles also states,
Allison Peijovic, a lawyer with the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms representing Mr. Bernier and Mr. Peckford, centred her arguments around jurisprudence on the issue of mootness, established in Borowski v Canada (AG) in 1989.
She argued that Justice Gagné did not fully analyze her clients’ applications against that jurisprudence.
In reference to Ms Peijovic’s statement that proper consideration was not given to the weight of certain aspects of the argument as compared to the Borowski v Canada case which is used as the precedent for mootness (see Wikipedia) there was a short, dismissive retort by Justice Canada senior general counsel J. Sanderson Graham saying it “is not our job” to “balance” the Borowski arguments. This kind of minimization and avoidance is what results in a mootness ruling.
Just as an aside, it is of interest to see what happened in the Borowski v Canada (AG), [1989] 1 S.C.R. 342. Wikipedia states this “is the leading Supreme Court of Canadadecision on mootness of an appealed legal issue. The Court declined to decide whether the fetus had a right to life under sections 7 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Had they found in favour of Borowski, laws against abortion in Canada would have to have been again enacted. Thus, along with the later Supreme Court case Tremblay v Daigle(1989), Borowski "closed off litigation opportunities" by anti-abortion activists.[2]”
The Canadian government clearly does not want this case to be heard in court. They want to ensure that they have “closed off litigation opportunities.”