Group of Ontario police officers launches charter challenge of pandemic restrictions

A group of 19 Ontario police officers has launched a constitutional challenge against the provincial and federal governments and several police chiefs, claiming that enforcing sweeping pandemic health restrictions puts them at odds with their oath to uphold the charter.

Fifteen active and four retired members of law enforcement agenciesincluding the Toronto Police Service, York Regional Police Service, Ottawa Police Service, Niagara Regional Police Service, Hamilton Police Service and the RCMP are behindthe civil action.

It was filed in the Superior Court of Justice against the premier, the attorneys general of Canada and Ontario, as well as five police chiefs.

The challengehas yet to be tested in court.

It seeks these declarations:

• Canada's pandemic laws "are not rational" and have "no force or effect."
• Lockdowns, stay-at-home orders and curfews are "forms of martial law."
• Wearing masks, social distancing and lockdowns are "ineffective" and "not scientifically or medically based" because they'rebased on coronavirus cases the legal documents claim"are 96.5 per cent false."

The group also wants the court to declare that religious gatherings and protests are exempt from pandemic restrictions in Ontario.

The lawyer forthe officers is Rocco Galati, executive director of the Toronto-based Constitutional Rights Centre. He didn't respond to a request for comment on Monday, but the legal challenge was detailedin avirtual news conference posted April 30 to YouTube.

Officers describe rank-and-file 'divide'

"My clients are concerned to the point that they're stepping forward at their personal and reputational risk because of unwarranted, and hostile and irrational reprisals," said Galati,flanked by Toronto police Sgt. Julie Evans and York Regional Police Const. Christopher Vandenbos, who are both plaintiffs.

"Anyone who dares speak out is ostracized and attacked, even if they do so in civil and appropriate ways," said the lawyer.

Both Evans and Vandenbos spoke during the news conference of simmering tension among police officers in some municipalities who are divided on ideologicallines with those who feelpandemic enforcement measures contradict their oaths as peace officers at odds with officers who don't have that belief.

"The divide that we're seeing is very visible," said Vandenbos.

The court application sayspolice supervisors pressurefront-line officers to enforce what Galati called "blanket orders" when it comes to wearing masks, physicaldistancing and limits on public gatherings.

In fact,Evans and fellow Toronto police Sgt. Greg Boltyansky, also a plaintiff in the legal action, areunder investigation by the city law enforcement agency'sprofessional standards branch for allegedly attending a public gathering that contravenedOntario's Reopening Ontario Act.

WATCH | Police respond to large gathering at Aylmer, Ont., church:

Toronto police are investigating this social media video

4 years ago

Duration 3:48

Investigators are looking over this video circulating on social media to see if two Toronto police officers were among the four people charged for allegedly violating pandemic health restrictions at an Aylmer, Ont., church.

The probe was opened followingreports they were among four people charged by the Aylmer Police Service in connection witha mass gathering at the Church of God at Aylmer, a southwestern Ontario congregation known for its rebellious stance against coronavirus restrictions.

Evans and Boltyansky were reportedly off duty while allegedly captured on a video taken in the church's parking lotthe night of April 20. The two accusedlocal police of failing to uphold their sworn oath to the Constitution by enforcing provincial pandemic laws.

"Many of these police officers that take it unto themselves to barricade and put an army line between a church and the street and in factwalk into churches unannounced, without a search warrant, onto private property restricting parishioners are breaching 176 of the Criminal Code,"Galati said, referring to the section thatsays stopping or interfering with a religious gathering is a crime.

"Why? Because they're taking their cues from the moron politicians and supervisors."

Challenge argues restrictions are too broad

Galati said officer discretion is being undermined, subverted, and in some cases removed by politicians and police supervisors who requirefront-line officers to enforcepandemic restrictions that are too vague and broad, especially when it comes toin-person social gatherings, communal prayer or protests.

"How do you ascertain the gathering is social? How do you ascertain numbers without calculating space?

"You got people like Doug Ford who talk out of their side and mistake the regulations," he said about the premier. "Then you get a lot of police officers who are getting their cues, not from reading the regulations, unfortunately, but actually from the politicians and supervisors who bring down the law as they see it."

The legal challenge comes two weeks after the Ontario government extended and expanded its pandemic stay-at-home order to curb rising case numbers and hospitalizations.

The order included sweeping new police powers that the provincewalked back after a backlash from policewho refused to stop people randomly to ask if trips outside their homes were essential.

While police have checked their own power in certain cases, Galati, said there have been reportsof officers going too far. In Calgary, an officer used a stun gun on a 21-year-old man skating on a community rink; inMontreal,a man wasrestrained and punched in the head by police in a suburban park, he cited as examples.

Both instances were captured on video and shared widely on social media.

"They're abusing their authority," said Galati of the two incidents. "They're beating up on citizens."

Ontarioserved with notice of action, AG says

No date has been set for when the constitutional case may go to court, and it's unclear whethera judge will allow it to proceed.

On Tuesday, the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General told CBC News that the province was served with a notice of application on April 29.

"Ontario's position is that the application is entirely without merit and it is asking the court to summarily dismiss it," a ministry spokesperson said in an email.

This marks the second time in a year Galati has represented clients filing a constitutional challenge ofgovernment pandemic responses.

In August last year, he announced an action byVaccine Choice Canada, againstthe governments of Canada andOntario, the City of Toronto, senior politicians, a number of Ontario health authorities, health officialsand the CBC over their response to the pandemic.