Maxime Bernier Attacks Judges After Vaccine Mandate Lawsuit Gets Shot Down – Again
“These judges are enabling totalitarianism,” Bernier fumes after appeals court rules it found “no reviewable error”
People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier and a group of convoy figures have lost the appeal in their lawsuit against travel vaccine mandates.
In a decision handed down Friday, Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal ruled it found “no error” in a judge’s earlier ruling last year dismissing Bernier et al.’s lawsuit challenging federal vaccine mandates for air and rail travel.
“I see no reviewable error that would permit this Court to intervene,” the appeals court concluded.
“Moot” point: The Federal Court’s October 2022 ruling dismissed the lawsuit, finding the matter “moot” given vaccine mandates had already been lifted.
“The air and rail passenger vaccine mandates were repealed, as have other related public health measures,” the Federal Court stated. “The Applicants have substantially received the remedies sought and as such, there is no live controversy to adjudicate.”
The Court of Appeals rejected several arguments raised by applicants arguing that the court needed to intervene and establish “jurisprudence” on the question of vaccine mandates:
“The Federal Court was clearly concerned that a decision in the appellants’ applications would not be of sufficient value to the public in future circumstances to justify the significant resources that would be required to hear and decide them.”
PPC leader denounces appeals court judges: “These judges are enabling totalitarianism,” Bernier said in a statement Friday.
“I told you immediately after our hearing that I was not confident based on the body language of the judges and the slanted questions they asked us versus what they asked of the government lawyers.”
In an earlier statement on October 12, Bernier questioned if the appeals court was able to “view our case in an unbiased manner.”
“The judges were all appointed by the Trudeau Government,” Bernier stated, adding that “the judges refuse to speak out for the unvaccinated, because they are not unvaccinated.”
Maxime Bernier can’t stop losing: In 2021, Maxime Bernier lost a defamation lawsuit he launched against political operative Warren Kinsella for calling him “racist” after the courts dismissed it as a SLAPP lawsuit.
The court awarded Kinsella $132,000 in costs. Bernier was represented by lawyers Mark Bourrie and Andre Marin.
Other applicants in the failed vaccine mandate lawsuit:
Brian Peckford: Former Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador who played a major behind-the-scenes role in the Freedom Convoy and chaired the convoy group Taking Back Our Freedoms.
Shaun Rickard: Freedom Convoy supporter from Pickering, Ontario who also runs a fishing channel on YouTube. According to a sworn affidavit, Rickard said the federal vaccine mandate caused him to postpone “several trips planned to the Caribbean” and “Oman” to film fishing videos. Rickard says he chose not to get vaccinated after doing independent research into the pandemic and feeling that “some things did not add up.”
Karl Harrison: Wealthy West Vancouver businessman who serves as the director of the Institute of Freedom and Justice, a registered charity that sponsors “selective litigation.” In a sworn affidavit, Harrison complained he had sunk “many thousands of dollars” into the lawsuit and that it had taken a “toll on my business, personal time and mental health.” Harrison is a Freedom Convoy supporter and describes himself as a 60-year-old Conservative voter.
Nabil Ben-Naoum: Unvaccinated Québec lawyer who attended and participated in the Freedom Convoy. Ben-Naoum told the appeals court that the vaccine mandate was “totalitarianism”: “In 2022, this sub-class of citizens, the non-vaccinated, found themselves assimilated to Cubans under Fidel Castro's regime.”