The founder and president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said the pandemic showed Canada and the provinces need new legislation..John Carpay made his testimony to the National Citizens’ Inquiry on the third and final day of hearings in Red Deer. In a slide presentation, he presented the basics for 18 points to be considered in new legislation..Carpay said protecting human dignity includes respecting and upholding the freedoms of expression, association, conscience, religion, mobility and peaceful assembly set forth in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He also emphasized the Charter right of every person to accept or reject, without any form of coercion or duress, medical treatments including vaccinations and other injections..The trilingual Carpay said legislation should be made to ensure that medical treatments and history, such as vaccination status, cannot be asked by restaurants and stores, with appropriate exceptions made for medical professionals. He believed new legislation should provide a civil remedy if someone is coerced into receiving a medical treatment..“Legislation needs to be amended, so as to force the colleges of physicians and surgeons to respect the pursuit of truth, to respect the free expression rights of their members. And they should apply as well to the colleges of nurses, colleges, midwives, chiropractors, psychologists, psychiatrists, podiatrists, pediatricians, et cetera,” Carpay said..“Nobody should lose their free speech rates just because they enter into a profession. These are government bodies. And prior to 2020, the college did not tell patient tell doctors how to treat their patients…There are ethical standards, yes.”.Carpay called for transparency regarding contracts with pharmaceutical companies during negotiation and after they had been signed. He also believed legislation should be amended to require that pharmaceuticals are liable for harms..Another proposal would require courts, legislatures, and parliament to continue whether there is a pandemic or not, so government isn’t left in the hands of unelected medical bureaucrats..“A public health emergency should not become an excuse or a pretext for our democracy to diminish as it has in the last three years where we've reverted to a medieval monarch who decrees from week to week, what laws we shall live under. Chief medical officers need to be accountable to the legislature,” said Carpay..The pandemic in Canada was a case of fear outlasting facts, Carpay said, such as early projections something as threatening as the Spanish Flu was loose. “That proved to be demonstrably false as early as April or May. Early on, we knew that that that was simply not the case. But the fear lingered on.”.Carpay said it was an "honour" to speak to the NCI and a "shame and a disgrace" that no government but Alberta was having an inquiry. He called for new legislation that required to hold a public inquiry following the conclusion of health emergencies they declared. .The lawyer warned that another pandemic could rob Canadians of their rights unless the public realizes what happened in covid times is not acceptable..“It's for everybody to work hard on speaking truth to our neighbours or friends or families or coworkers and getting Canadians to a point where we recognize that these lockdowns were horrific human rights violations and they were not justified. They were not based on science. They were not excusable.”.A commissioner asked Carpay if he could point to a case where courts clearly told the government they could not abridge rights as they did..“We've had mixed success. I have not been too pleased with some of the court rulings where it appears that the judge is simply relying on a media narrative and not really taking a hard look at the evidence before the court,” Carpay said..“Disappointment is not going to deter us from doing the best we can to be active participants in the system that we currently have. I think it's all you can do.”
