The Justice Centre announced that the crown has dropped charges against former MPP Randy Hiller, former MP Derek Sloan, Pastor Heinrich Hildebrandt, and private citizen, Dan Stasko.

The charges stem from a June 2021 protest in Norfolk County. The four men were charged for attending a peaceful protest, while there were restrictions placed on public gatherings due to Covid. They were charged with offences carrying potential fines of $100,000 to each individual as well as up to one year in prison.

The Crown dropped the charges citing that it was no longer in the public’s interest to proceed.

This begs the question, when was it ever in the public’s interest to arrest and charge individuals for exercising their protected rights under Section 2 of the Charter? The right to freedom of peaceful assembly, along with every other guaranteed right is not stripped from Canadians just because the government claims there is a pandemic.

There are checks and balances put in place for this exact reason. The government must demonstrably justify this gross abuse of removing freedoms.
This is laid out in Section 1 of the Charter and is applied through the Oakes Test. The Oakes Test is a 4-pronged test that proves there must be minimal impairment of rights. It must be proportional between the infringement and the objective.

It comes as no surprise to us that this case did not see the inside of a courtroom. We’ve always maintained that these measures implemented were neither proven nor proportional and would not stand up to the Oakes Test.

“Peaceful demonstration is an essential pillar of a democratic society,” says Justice Centre lawyer Henna Parmar and we could not agree with more.

To read the article written by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedom, click here