14,000 pages is the total documentation of evidence the Honorable Brian Peckford and his team prepared for their case which was declared “moot” on October 20, 2022 by associate Chief Justice of the federal court Jocelyn Gagne.
The question was whether travel mandates during the pandemic breached constitutional rights of Canadians.
If we are looking for the person most qualified to understand this issue it would be Peckford who was one of the drafters of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
But the court decided it was not in their interest to take this case. They declared it a moot issue because the mandates are now lifted. The way I understand it they thought it would use up too much time and money to go forward with the case. It was not worth it for the conclusion they might arrive at.
In other words they landed at the end of the race without ever running it.
It is the place of the court to judge a case after a trial, not before. Let the final analysis result from an actual trial. Let’s have due process.
It is the right of Peckford et. al. to have the court hear their case and it is in the public interest, contrary to what was also used as an excuse not to take the case. Never in Canadian history have roughly 20,000 people registered to participate remotely in an appeal hearing. I was one of them on October 11, 2023: Hearing A-251-22 The Honourable A. Brian Peckford et al. v. AGC / Audience A-251-22 L'Honorable A. Brian Peckford et al. c. PGC (With/Avec A-252-22, A-253-22, A-254-22) I wrote about it briefly here and here. You can read the appeal here.
Clearly Peckford and his team have done their homework. Let’s give a little bit of credit to Peckford and his legal team and not insult them and imply they don’t know what they are doing.
The statement below is directly from the Government of Canada website, asking ‘How Does Canada’s Court System Work?’
Courts in Canada help people resolve disputes fairly - whether they are between individuals, or between individuals and the state. At the same time, courts interpret and pronounce law, set standards, and decide questions that affect all aspects of Canadian society.
The way I see it is the court is side-stepping several of its above obligations in refusing to take this case. Now we wait to see if the appeal will result in the case going forward as it should.