Medical professionals beat punishments for COVID vaccine wrongthink in Canada

Is the Great White North starting to thaw for medical professionals chilled by the threat of punishment for what are now mainstream COVID-19 beliefs and practices?

Professional conduct tribunals in two Canadian provinces threw in the towel in vaccine-related disciplinary proceedings this month, part of the broader but inconsistent withdrawal of Canada's wide-ranging COVID crackdowns involving arrests of clergy, dismissal of service members and freezing of bank accounts and fundraisers.

A third province this month dropped its case against a traveler who refused to use Canada's COVID vaccination tracker, while political opposition leaders are seeking Supreme Court review of the federal government's refusal to pledge it won't bring back travel vaccine mandates.

The Ontario Superior Court heard arguments last month in the bureaucrat-led $290 million class-action lawsuit against participants in the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy on behalf of Ottawa residents and workers for "nuisance," which defendants characterize as a strategic lawsuit against public participation. 

The "convoy" was a series of protests and blockades in Canada in early 2022 against COVID vaccine mandates and restrictions.

After three days of hearings last fall, the Discipline Committee of the College of Registered Nurses of Saskatchewan ruled that Leah McInnes did not spread "disinformation, misleading information or 'anti-vaccination messages'" in her social media posts and that she cannot be described as an "anti-vaxxer," as alleged by the redacted nurse who complained.

While the "Investigation Committee suggested that it had no alternative but to refer these matters to the Discipline Committee," the Jan. 12 decision says that "a contextual and careful review before proceeding with a discipline charge should have resulted in a different outcome."

That means the case "should not have even proceeded to a hearing," McInnes's lawyers at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said Friday in announcing the decision.

The legal advocacy group has represented several medical professionals and challengers to Canada's COVID policies.

The regulator faulted McInnes for characterizing potential provincial policies as "mandates" in her protests, claiming that "non scientifically proven measures" led to "collateral damage and death" and for saying that vaccinated and unvaccinated people "can both easily transmit virus."

But the discipline committee agreed with McInnes that media, governments, universities and employers "commonly used" the term "mandates" to refer to proposed policies and that her "non scientifically proven" claim cannot be read to refer to vaccination itself.

Expert witnesses either backed her vaccination claims or added context that did not make them false, the decision says.

McInnes herself called vaccination "a vital part in the fight against this pandemic [that] should be promoted" while noting COVID vaccines don't provide "sterile immunity" that brings infection risk to "nearly zero."

"She expressed her opinion about public health measures and government policy and did so without using conspiratorial language or promoting the public to ignore the mandates," which does not make them disinformation even if the committee "may not agree with her criticisms or the language she used," the decision also reads.

McInnes "embodies the ‘moral courage’ Canadians should expect of all health professionals," her lawyer Glenn Blackett said. The decision is "perhaps most important for upholding a nurse’s right to voice ethical and scientific dissent and to participate in democratic discourse."

Two days before the Saskatchewan decision, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta dropped professional-misconduct charges against doctor Michal Princ for granting COVID vaccine exemptions to patients, JCCF said Thursday.

The hearing was initially scheduled for Nov. 8-10 and 14-17, then rescheduled for March 4-8, two fewer days, archives of the hearing page show. It now simply says "cancelled," without elaboration.

JCCF credited the cancellation to last summer's ruling by the Alberta Court of King's Bench, which found that some orders "enacted" by then-Chief Medical Officer of Health Deena Hinshaw violated the Public Health Act because Hinshaw improperly delegated her "final decision-making authority to cabinet."

It noted that CPSA's "guidance" for doctors and frequently asked questions for patients, issued 12 days apart in 2021, alternately said there were "no medical conditions that would universally warrant a complete exemption from initial COVID-19 vaccine" and then "virtually" none.

The latter said physicians could offer only exemptions "based on the latest medical evidence from authorities like Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services, the National Advisory Council on Immunization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." 

The Sept. 7, 2021, AHS "rapid brief" said there "may be a small number of persons with medical exemptions assigned after a formal assessment process." 

But it only recommended deferral of the first mRNA dose for people with documented heart inflammation – a known side effect of the platform – as well as deferral of the second dose after "[s]evere allergic reaction/anaphylaxis" to the first, or "using a different type of vaccine."

CPSA violated its own standards of practice by ignoring informed consent except in its mRNA vaccine recommendation for women who are breastfeeding, pregnant or planning to become pregnant, JCCF said. 

Said Blackett: "These kinds of draconian restrictions on personal freedoms" by governments "surely constituted ‘undue influence, duress or coercion,’ negating informed consent."

CPSA told Just the News Tuesday that it was "not in a position to provide details on why the hearing was cancelled" when asked about JCCF's explanation.

JCCF said it immediately warned prosecutors that it would raise constitutional Charter issues when Scott Bennett was charged in 2022 for not using Canada's ArriveCAN app to disclose his vaccination status when returning to Ontario from a trip abroad.

His trial was scheduled for a court "usually reserved for traffic tickets with fines of less that $1,000" that would have limited his Charter arguments to "a few minutes," on a date "without input from the defense, JCCF said.

After the public interest law firm filed a notice it planned to raise Charter issues on "unjustified search and seizure" and "arbitrary arrest and detention," charges were dropped when the prosecution's government witness didn't show up in court Jan. 16, according to JCCF. 

While "positive for him personally," that no-show prevented Bennett from pursuing his Charter challenge against ArriveCAN, meaning the government's "decision to detain citizens based on their vaccination status may never see judicial scrutiny," his lawyer Chris Fleury said.

Litigants including former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, the "last living signatory of the Charter," and People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier filed appeals to the Supreme Court this month to evaluate the travel mandate's constitutionality after lower courts ruled the challenge was moot.

The feds moved for mootness after each side's lawyers "spent hundreds of hours placing all the evidence and legal arguments before the Federal Court for its consideration," despite the fact that any emergency order is likely to have expired by the time it's ready for trial, JCCF said Jan. 11.

“If courts are going to affirm and uphold emergency orders that violate our Charter rights and freedoms whenever the emergency order is no longer in force, how can the Charter protect Canadians from government abuses?” JCCF President John Carpay said.