A BC lawyer told a conference audience in Victoria that vaccine mandates are a clear infringement on rights, but one it may take years to overturn..Lawyer Umar Sheikh made his comments May 28 at the Renewing Canada Conference, the second annual event put on by the We Unify citizens’ group..Sheikh said his advocacy for truckers was prompted by a personal event two years ago. He was walking with his 10-year-old son in downtown Victoria one summer day when he encountered an elderly couple of Portuguese descent carrying a Canadian flag on their way to the legislature..“They were going there to protest and be in solidarity of the truckers. And all of a sudden, this mob right on Government Street formed around this elderly couple, and they started accosting them. ‘What rights of yours have been violated? How dare you do this?’ And clearly, these are some woke people around them.”.Sheikh let his son know they would intervene. He engaged the group, which included, “shall we say, flamboyant gentlemen”..“I walked in the middle of a crowd, and I said, ‘Listen, stop accosting these people. I'll explain what rights have been violated to you. I'll give you some examples.’ And I went through them in a very calm, professional way,” Sheikh asked..Someone looked at Sheikh and yelled that he was a white supremacist..“Have you ever heard something so stupid, that it makes you question your own reality?” Sheikh asked conference attendees..“I was stunned. For a minute there, it made me question my reality, I looked down. I said, ‘I am?’ I looked at my son and my son says to me, Dad, ‘Are we white supremacists?’ The stupidity of that statement really sums up the counter narrative, and how they try to pigeonhole folks of every creed and every ilk into these ridiculous categories of who they were.”.The event convinced Sheikh it was time to help people in the freedom movement. His firm began to advocate for clients in government, policing, aviation, and health care. Their desperation became apparent early in the fight..“When you take away everything from an employee, when you take their job, when you take their homes, when you take their ability to buy gifts for their children, you're not just damaging them temporarily, you're not just suspending a right — taking a man or woman's livelihood away is akin to killing them. That is exactly what was happening,” Sheikh said..“We had three suicides in the groups we represent. Three people who had nothing left, and everything taken away from them, had taken their own lives saying there was no other way. And so we knew there had to be a different way to practice law in this country. Lawyers are notoriously expensive.”.The challenge led Sheikh to pioneer a unique arrangement for the thousands of clients “at the bottom of their lives in great despair and great mental health issues.” He called it “the karmic retainer.” Here, groups had to organize themselves and create a hardship fund so those in desperation could continue to have their rent paid and their material needs met..“We have groups in health care, and we said you can provide mental health support … [and] provide one on one counseling. And so that became a condition of the retainer as well, that all of those services had to be there.”.Sheikh put paying his legal fees at Sheikh Law at the bottom of the priority list. His firm takes on corporate, civil, and human rights cases and claims to represent 25,000 people in his current cases. He said he is “very proud” to say no suicides have occurred in these groups since this arrangement began..Starting in 2008, Sheikh worked as director of Labour Relations at the B.C. Ministry of Health. In 2012, he joined the British Columbia Nurses’ Union where he served as general counsel and director, Legal Services. In 2017, he was appointed CEO of the BCNU and led the 48,000-member union in collective bargaining until his departure in 2020..Health care workers were required to take the flu vaccine or mask up, a requirement his union fought repeatedly. The initial legal attempt to end this requirement failed in 2009. Renewed efforts in 2012 eventually led to success, with the help of Bonnie Henry..“Individuals working at the BC CDC and her [Henry] and I would spend a great deal of time talking on the phone and in person around what these vaccines did and didn't do. And so she gave this great testimony for us that said masks don't work,” Sheikh recalled..“She said look, these masks only worked for about 20 minutes unless you change them. After that they're as good as useless. And so we knew masks didn't work. And then Bonnie said, mandates don't work.”.The mandate was eventually dropped, but only after 10 years of effort and $2 million of legal fees in what Sheikh remembers as “a very slow moving train.”.“I have a lot of clients who want to get the next gratification, when are we going to win?” Sheikh said. He warns the path to victory in the current circumstance may require “negative decisions to appeal and appeal again and appeal again.”.A year ago, Sheikh did an interview on a Facebook live stream where he said “the purge” over mandates already removed hundreds of BC Government Employees Union members from their jobs..“I don’t see the BCGEU fighting for them or running campaigns to get these people back on some sort of pay or helping them in any way. I can tell you that the legislation this was passed under required union consultation. So that’s in black and white. .“And so any sense that the unions weren’t consulted is nonsensical to me. So I don’t know what they are going to do. But I do know that I am going to sue them all.”
A BC lawyer told a conference audience in Victoria that vaccine mandates are a clear infringement on rights, but one it may take years to overturn..Lawyer Umar Sheikh made his comments May 28 at the Renewing Canada Conference, the second annual event put on by the We Unify citizens’ group..Sheikh said his advocacy for truckers was prompted by a personal event two years ago. He was walking with his 10-year-old son in downtown Victoria one summer day when he encountered an elderly couple of Portuguese descent carrying a Canadian flag on their way to the legislature..“They were going there to protest and be in solidarity of the truckers. And all of a sudden, this mob right on Government Street formed around this elderly couple, and they started accosting them. ‘What rights of yours have been violated? How dare you do this?’ And clearly, these are some woke people around them.”.Sheikh let his son know they would intervene. He engaged the group, which included, “shall we say, flamboyant gentlemen”..“I walked in the middle of a crowd, and I said, ‘Listen, stop accosting these people. I'll explain what rights have been violated to you. I'll give you some examples.’ And I went through them in a very calm, professional way,” Sheikh asked..Someone looked at Sheikh and yelled that he was a white supremacist..“Have you ever heard something so stupid, that it makes you question your own reality?” Sheikh asked conference attendees..“I was stunned. For a minute there, it made me question my reality, I looked down. I said, ‘I am?’ I looked at my son and my son says to me, Dad, ‘Are we white supremacists?’ The stupidity of that statement really sums up the counter narrative, and how they try to pigeonhole folks of every creed and every ilk into these ridiculous categories of who they were.”.The event convinced Sheikh it was time to help people in the freedom movement. His firm began to advocate for clients in government, policing, aviation, and health care. Their desperation became apparent early in the fight..“When you take away everything from an employee, when you take their job, when you take their homes, when you take their ability to buy gifts for their children, you're not just damaging them temporarily, you're not just suspending a right — taking a man or woman's livelihood away is akin to killing them. That is exactly what was happening,” Sheikh said..“We had three suicides in the groups we represent. Three people who had nothing left, and everything taken away from them, had taken their own lives saying there was no other way. And so we knew there had to be a different way to practice law in this country. Lawyers are notoriously expensive.”.The challenge led Sheikh to pioneer a unique arrangement for the thousands of clients “at the bottom of their lives in great despair and great mental health issues.” He called it “the karmic retainer.” Here, groups had to organize themselves and create a hardship fund so those in desperation could continue to have their rent paid and their material needs met..“We have groups in health care, and we said you can provide mental health support … [and] provide one on one counseling. And so that became a condition of the retainer as well, that all of those services had to be there.”.Sheikh put paying his legal fees at Sheikh Law at the bottom of the priority list. His firm takes on corporate, civil, and human rights cases and claims to represent 25,000 people in his current cases. He said he is “very proud” to say no suicides have occurred in these groups since this arrangement began..Starting in 2008, Sheikh worked as director of Labour Relations at the B.C. Ministry of Health. In 2012, he joined the British Columbia Nurses’ Union where he served as general counsel and director, Legal Services. In 2017, he was appointed CEO of the BCNU and led the 48,000-member union in collective bargaining until his departure in 2020..Health care workers were required to take the flu vaccine or mask up, a requirement his union fought repeatedly. The initial legal attempt to end this requirement failed in 2009. Renewed efforts in 2012 eventually led to success, with the help of Bonnie Henry..“Individuals working at the BC CDC and her [Henry] and I would spend a great deal of time talking on the phone and in person around what these vaccines did and didn't do. And so she gave this great testimony for us that said masks don't work,” Sheikh recalled..“She said look, these masks only worked for about 20 minutes unless you change them. After that they're as good as useless. And so we knew masks didn't work. And then Bonnie said, mandates don't work.”.The mandate was eventually dropped, but only after 10 years of effort and $2 million of legal fees in what Sheikh remembers as “a very slow moving train.”.“I have a lot of clients who want to get the next gratification, when are we going to win?” Sheikh said. He warns the path to victory in the current circumstance may require “negative decisions to appeal and appeal again and appeal again.”.A year ago, Sheikh did an interview on a Facebook live stream where he said “the purge” over mandates already removed hundreds of BC Government Employees Union members from their jobs..“I don’t see the BCGEU fighting for them or running campaigns to get these people back on some sort of pay or helping them in any way. I can tell you that the legislation this was passed under required union consultation. So that’s in black and white. .“And so any sense that the unions weren’t consulted is nonsensical to me. So I don’t know what they are going to do. But I do know that I am going to sue them all.”
