[Sundaycommunity] Father Raymond J. de Souza: Government overreach on COVID measures has been about power — not the pandemic

[Arthur Blomme]

Hi all

It appears to me that the Post is now leading the way in real journalism.

I copied this article from the post to facilitate easier access. You can 
read The original here 
<https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-government-overreach-on-vaccines-has-been-about-power-not-the-pandemic>

Art


    Raymond J. de Souza: Government overreach on COVID measures has been
    about power — not the pandemic

It's a very ancient infection to which state agents are prone and for 
which no effective cure has been developed

Author of the article:
*Father Raymond J. de Souza*

I have raised the issue of government overreach 
<https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-a-compelling-critique-of-ontarios-vaccine-mandates> 
in relation to vaccine mandates. Respectful readers have asked whether 
that gives comfort to those who oppose the vaccines themselves. Is 
favouring vaccination but blanching at punitive vaccine mandates too 
fine a line? Might it discourage people from getting vaccinated?

That may be the case. I further concede that, alongside reasonable 
arguments against overreach from thoughtful people with genuine 
concerns, there are some crackpots. The pandemic has produced a lot of 
odd behaviour, whether it be conspiracists in their basements or 
motorists wearing masks while driving alone in their vehicles.

Nevertheless, overreach in the promotion of a positive measure — 
vaccination — still remains overreach. It is possible that overreach may 
hamper vaccination, too; at least some who decline vaccination do so as 
a political protest against the expansion of state power. A more 
restrained state might persuade some of them that no great skulduggery 
is afoot.


            It is possible that overreach may hamper vaccination, too

Recent developments have suggested that such overreach is not a bug, but 
a feature. Not a reluctantly embraced necessary evil, but malice 
aforethought. What if the point was no longer containment of the 
pandemic but to extend the reach of the state, pure and simple?

Consider four examples.

For nearly six months, Dr. Bonnie Henry simply abolished religious 
liberty in British Columbia. Her edict permitted people to meet for an 
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the church basement, but that same 
number of people could not meet in the much larger church to pray. It 
wasn’t about regulating meetings, but banning worship.

When the matter was brought before the courts, the judge shrugged his 
shoulders. Yes, the order violated all of the fundamental freedoms 
listed in the Charter of Rights, but in an emergency the public health 
officials could do whatever they wanted, independent of changing 
circumstances or variance between regions.

Dr. Bonnie Henry abolished religious liberty in British Columbia, 
Raymond J. de Souza asserts. Dr. Bonnie Henry abolished religious 
liberty in British Columbia, Raymond J. de Souza asserts. Photo by DON 
CRAIG/GOVERNMENT OF B.C./PNG

What if the point of Henry’s order was not public health, but to expand 
the power of her office, exploiting the pandemic to give her office the 
ability to grant itself an auto-exemption to the Constitution? Even if 
that wasn’t the point, it was the result.


    Article content

A few weeks ago in Ontario, the government announced that thousands of 
cheering fans could sit cheek-by-largely-unmasked-jowl at a Maple Leafs 
game, but a 10-person diner in Kapuskasing could serve only half that 
number. What was the point of that, which had no basis in public health?

Could it be that the government, by strangling the diners and cafés of 
Ontario for a few extra weeks, wished to remind the tens of thousands of 
restaurateurs in the province that their livelihood was in the power of 
the state to grant or withhold?

This month in Edmonton, Justice A. W. Germain sentenced the pastor of a 
small church and his brother 
<https://albertacourts.ca/docs/default-source/qb/judgments/alberta-health-services-v-pawlowski-2021-abqb-493---reasons-for-decision.pdf?sfvrsn=af124c83_7> 
for violating public health orders with manifest contumacy, handing down 
tens of thousands of dollars in fines based what courts had done in Ontario.


          More On This Topic

 1. Ontario Premier Doug Ford attends a press briefing about the
    province's new QR code vaccine passports, on Oct. 15, 2021, in Toronto.


          Raymond J. de Souza: A compelling critique of Ontario's
          vaccine mandates

    <https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-a-compelling-critique-of-ontarios-vaccine-mandates>

 2. A statue representing justice looks out from the Supreme Court of
    Canada over the Parliamentary precinct in Ottawa. There is a strong
    feeling, even among MPs who are vaccinated, that mandatory
    vaccination is an infringement on freedom of movement and the
    constitutional rights of Canadians.


          John Ivison: House of Commons vaccine mandate tramples over
          rights of MPs

    <https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-ivison-committee-overstepped-its-authority-with-house-of-commons-vaccine-mandate>


Germain then went further, issuing what even the bailiff could recognize 
as an egregiously unconstitutional order. If Pastor Artur Pawlowski 
wishes to preach upon pandemic measures in the future, he will have to 
say the following:

“I am also aware that the views I am expressing to you on this occasion 
may not be views held by the majority of medical experts in Alberta. 
While I may disagree with them, I am obliged to inform you that the 
majority of medical experts favour social distancing, mask wearing, and 
avoiding large crowds to reduce the spread of COVID-19. …”

Of course the judge knows that forcing people to say what they do not 
wish to say — and do not believe — violates all the fundamental freedoms 
<https://nationalpost.com/opinion/np-view-an-alberta-courts-wrongheaded-order-to-compel-anti-vaxxers-to-refute-their-own-opinions> 
of the Charter. It is what tyrants do. Courts for that reason do not 
compel rapists to apologize to their victims.

What if the point of the sentence was not justice, but to aggregate to 
judges the power to force preachers and activists to say what the state 
wishes them to say? Any number of emergencies could be imagined in which 
that bit of statist coercion might prove convenient.

Germain, in a rather windy judgment, did not say whether he took note 
that, on the very eve of his hearing the Pawlowski case in September, 
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a packed, sweaty campaign rally in 
Brampton, Ont. Perhaps he did not find it germane. But the message from 
the court was clear. If your speech is favoured by the government, then 
there are no binding rules, let alone charges. If it is not, there are 
serious fines, and confiscation of fundamental liberties.


            The message from the court was clear

Finally, the Speaker of the House of Commons, in his capacity as 
chairman of the internal administration committee known as the Board of 
Internal Economy, delivered this week a nighttime ukase barring 
unvaccinated MPs from taking their seats in the chamber. That he was 
acting beyond his power is not seriously in dispute.

But Anthony Rota knew that pandemic politics trump the law and centuries 
of parliamentary privilege. The diktat was intended to make the 
Conservative party uneasy, and within days Erin O’Toole fell in line, 
playing his customary role of adopting Liberal policies after a modest 
deliberation over what degree of enthusiasm to show for them.

So the Speaker expands his power, awarding himself the power to bar MPs 
from the chamber without the House being able to express itself. Even a 
modest humility might have prompted Rota, elected speaker in a 
parliament now dissolved, to await election of a new speaker before 
abusing the power of the office.

It bears constant repeating that Canada is a high vaccination country, 
one of the highest in the world. In Alberta, vaccine averse relative to 
the rest of Canada, more than 78 per cent of all those over age 12 are 
fully vaccinated, with over 86 per cent partially vaccinated. Given the 
demographic distribution of the province, that means more than 90 per 
cent in Calgary.

Those are world-best rates. Canada’s vaccination record means that 
government pandemic overreach is more about government than the pandemic.

Health bureaucrats, provincial cabinets, judges, officers of parliament 
— all are using the pandemic to expand their power. That is a very 
ancient infection to which state agents are prone. For that, even over 
the course of millennia, no effective vaccine has been developed.


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.integralshift.ca/private.cgi/sundaycommunity-integralshift.ca/attachments/20211023/505ba881/attachment-0001.html>