Erin O’Toole slams Canada’s pandemic policies, comparing them to the UK’s "erratic" rules like pub meal restrictions, while criticizing Liberal vaccine deals—$370M for gowns from an inexperienced firm and $237M for respirators from "Frank Bayless"—and a $399B deficit. His focus shifts to Pastor Vernon Temple’s $14K fine (now $12K) for unmasked singing, despite Rebel News covering legal costs via supporters like Calgary’s Sarah Miller, who challenges Charter violations. O’Toole frames it as part of a pattern where churches face disproportionate fines while businesses like casinos stay open, questioning whether COVID laws were weaponized against faith-based groups serving marginalized communities. [Automatically generated summary]
What does Aaron O'Toole, the Conservative opposition leader, have to say about the lockdown?
Well, I'll take you through a major speech he gave on the subject just a couple days ago.
Hey, before I let you hear that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's just eight bucks a month or 80 bucks for the whole year, and you get the video version of the podcast plus extra goodies from Sheila Gunread and David Menzies.
Just go to RebelNews.com and click subscribe.
All right, here's the podcast.
Tonight, what does Aaron O'Toole have to say about the pandemic and the government's response to it?
It's December 2nd, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government.
But why I published it?
It is because it's my bloody right to do so.
The British government, run by the allegedly conservative Boris Johnson, has been even worse than Canada's in terms of its bizarre, erratic, unscientific, and punitive response to the pandemic.
Just nuts.
Crazy rules.
Like pubs are now only allowed to serve drinks to customers if they are also ordering a substantial meal.
Along with it, what's it got to do with the virus?
And what is exactly a substantial meal?
And the police are going to enforce how substantial your meal is.
Do you know what a Scotch egg is?
It's a British thing.
Their health minister is now literally taking questions on what food items are legal in pubs during the pandemic.
Are Scotch eggs legal?
This is a big Scotch egg.
Yes.
I've got it in my hands.
Is that a substantial meal?
Well, as far as I'm concerned, it's probably a starter.
But the broader and more serious point that I think we need to establish is that there are reasonable rules about hospitality, which are there in order to keep us all safe.
And they specify that in certain areas, if you are in a hospitality setting in a pub, that when you're ordering drinks, it needs to be alongside a substantial meal.
The stupid, it burns.
I don't mind my politicians stupid, frankly, because maybe they'll be less effective that way.
Alas, in the United Kingdom, they match stupidity with meanness, which is very un-British, I think.
What are those police even doing?
I'm pleased to say this week we will reveal to you that we have hired a new British journalist to cover this beat for us, like Abby Yamini is doing in Australia.
And our first British video done by a Brit should be up as soon as tomorrow or Friday, so I'm excited about that.
There is one thing I will say about the Brits, though.
They let their MPs have some freedom in parliament.
And so a few Conservative MPs have actually disagreed with Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, their laughable health minister.
Here's an example.
Freedom, Madam Deputy Speaker, is not an absolute, but it should be regarded as precious.
And it should be always the strongest possible presumption in its favour.
If government is to take away fundamental liberties of the people whom we represent, they must demonstrate beyond question that they are acting in a way that is both proportionate and absolutely necessary.
Today, Madam Deputy Speaker, I believe the government has failed to make that compelling case.
The benefit of the doubt that this House has extended to government in March and since is harder to take for granted in December.
Madam Deputy Speaker, six weeks ago, many of us made the case that the curfew policy at 10pm was not just unnecessary, but that it was counterproductive.
Today, the government apparently agrees that the 10pm curfew makes no sense.
A month ago, the government insisted that golf and tennis and bowls and gyms were unsafe.
Now, it seems that they are not.
Madam Deputy Speaker, before the second lockdown, I invited the House to consider whether government had the right to make it illegal for people to see their children, their grandchildren or their elderly relatives.
Whether government had the right to ban collective worship or to take away the right to work to support your family.
Different people, different members of this House, will draw the line in different places.
But we must all accept that these are fundamental freedoms.
Why can't we have something like that over here?
Here's another example.
Charles Walker.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I have just witnessed an elderly lady peacefully protesting with a handful of other people be arrested and carried spread eagle to a police van just outside the precinct of the House of Commons.
This is a disgrace.
This is un-British.
It is unconstitutional.
And this government, our Prime Minister, needs to end these injustices now.
Madam Deputy Speaker, will you bring the Prime Minister and all the Home Secretary here today to sort this out?
She was an elder lady robbed of her dignity for having the courage to protest about having her fundamental rights and those of my constituents and others removed.
We have 338 MPs in Canada.
Have you heard one of them raise that alternative point of view?
Surely that must represent at least a sizable minority of Canadian opinion, perhaps even a majority, but not one out of 338 MPs will muster themselves.
Well, I thought I'd check to make sure that I wasn't just relying on the untrustworthy media party to tell me what our MPs were up to.
So I reviewed an entire lengthy speech given just a couple of days ago by Aaron O'Toole, the fairly new leader of the Conservative Party, new leader of the opposition.
I'm hopeful for him.
I'm hopeful that he'll be more conservative and more feisty than the footnote in history he just replaced old what's his name, you know, the guy with the dimples who kept putting his family members on the payroll.
Anyways, I found a recent speech that O'Toole gave on Monday, I think it was, and I'd like to share it with you in some length, some excerpts.
So this is the state of the art of his thinking since it's just two days old.
Here, let's start off this way.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance has proven their government has no plan.
Without a plan for vaccines, there can be no long-term plan for our economy.
Without rapid testing in wide distribution, we've missed out on a critical medium-term tool, Mr. Speaker.
And the Minister of Finance, in her speech, seems to realize that she's putting the economy on hold.
She'll say, we'll rebuild the economy once COVID is beaten.
Well, Mr. Speaker, rapid tests could help preserve the economy, and the vaccine will help us beat it.
This government is late and has no plan for both.
Canadians should see that off the start.
This year has been a very difficult year for Canadians, Mr. Speaker.
We all know that.
2020 will be remembered as a year of global pandemic.
came to our shores and took this government completely by surprise despite many departments warning them for months.
It will be remembered as a year of foreclosures, rising unemployment and uncertainty.
Worse for 12,000 Canadian families, it will be remembered as a year of grief and tragedy.
I agree it's a tragedy that 12,000 people have died from the virus.
That's slightly higher than the normal death toll for the annual flu.
It's typically, I don't know, 7,08, 9,000 deaths.
So this is worse and every life is precious.
And now that we've all said that, let's talk about how the opposition leader is opposing.
At least in that clip, his big beef is that there hasn't been lots of rapid testing for the virus.
Is that really the problem?
Not enough testing.
Now, when you test healthy populations, especially when you set the actual test to be extremely sensitive, which is being done, you know that half or more of the results are false positives, right?
Here's the Deputy Public Health Officer of Ontario saying exactly that.
And in fact, if you're testing in a population that doesn't have very much COVID, you'll get false positives almost half the time.
Rapid tests and a vaccine?
I mean, maybe it'll be here in a few months.
And I'm absolutely sure that Justin Trudeau has botched whatever he's done with vaccines.
He actually signed a bizarre contract with a Chinese military company a few months back to get in on the ground floor of their vaccine.
He's so dumb, that Trudeau.
But look, my thesis, and I think the facts bear it out, is that the big problem now is not the virus, actually.
It's the government response to the virus, the lockdowns, the quarantines of healthy people, the travel bans, the fear-mongering, shutting down hospitals for regular operations, thus delaying countless small examinations and surgeries and tests, leading to so many more casualties than the virus itself.
I agree with O'Toole that Trudeau was sleeping at the switch.
I agree we're in a pickle.
But what is the opposition leader's opposition today?
All right, let's listen to find out.
I'm going to let this run for a couple minutes.
Take a look.
Canadians have shown courage and fortitude.
They've respected directives from our health authorities.
But Canadians are hurting.
Canadians want their lives back.
And this fall economic statement shows that they cannot rely on the Liberal government to get their lives back.
Canadians are not difficult people, Mr. Speaker.
They have complied, followed rules.
They've tightened their belts.
They're reassuring their worried children and taking care of aged parents.
And to this effect, I'm really glad the Liberal government and the minister took my proposal from this spring on support for parents by boosting the Canada child benefit.
There it was on page 10 of my leadership platform, Mr. Speaker.
And I'm so glad the Liberal cabinet was reading it, just as hundreds of thousands of Conservative members were.
Yes, I'm glad, Mr. Speaker, because this was a concrete proposal to help families, especially moms, working moms, juggling it all, helping families through the toughest time in our modern history.
But we know that Canadians need more.
As I said, Canadians want their lives back, Mr. Speaker, and they've only asked one thing from this government.
One simple thing.
What is the plan, Mr. Speaker?
For widespread use of rapid tests, what is the plan for rolling out the vaccine?
When does it arrive?
Who gets it first?
Do we have the freezers for the minus 70 vaccine, Mr. Speaker?
A robust portfolio in 2023 doesn't help us as we enter 2021.
Well, Mr. Speaker, this fall economic statement answers the question on whether there is a plan.
And it answers that no, there is not.
And as the red ink on our balance sheet turns a dark crimson, we're facing a $399 billion deficit, Mr. Speaker.
Not $400 billion.
It's a bit like 1999.
You're not spending $20, Mr. Speaker.
It's only $399 billion, Mr. Speaker.
And Canadians know that not even half of that went to the emergency programs.
Okay, good points about overspending.
Excellent.
Good point about wastefulness, about debt.
I get it.
I'm with you.
That's important stuff.
Good.
And questions about the vaccine, fair enough.
But is there a more philosophical opposition to the government's approach?
Let's listen some more.
If this government spent half as much time meeting with real Canadians, small business owners, than they spend on photo ops, they would know that workers, small business owners, are asking for clarity.
Canadians in a pandemic aren't asking them to ban single-use plastics.
They're asking for details on when the vaccine gets here, how it's being distributed, how it's being preserved at minus 70.
How can they save their aging parents from a senior's home or a hospital bed?
This Prime Minister needs to get his priorities straight, but it's hard to take this government seriously when we know how this all started, Mr. Speaker.
Think about how much better off Canada would have been if the Liberals had not shut down the pandemic early warning system.
They did that in 2019, Mr. Speaker, without any consultation with scientists or with opposition parties in parliament.
Choosing Paths in Pandemic Politics00:09:31
I don't disagree with any of this.
The government is childish and silly, plastic bag bans, things like that.
I agree with shutting down the warning system was stupid, all the botched responses, I get it.
But that was the story six months ago, right?
Is there anything more now than Monday morning quarterbacking about the past?
As in, other than simply promising to be more competent, and hopefully he would be, what would Aaron O'Toole actually do differently?
Is he a lockdown man?
Is he more laissez-faire?
Is he worried about civil liberties?
Does he really believe that this is on par with the Black Plague and we have to shut everything down?
Or is it overblown and simply being used as an excuse to build bigger government, like John Jane Fonda says?
This is a crossroads.
It's an existential crossroads.
And we are people who can help determine which way humanity goes.
What a great gift.
What a tremendous opportunity.
We're just so lucky.
We have to use it with every ounce of intelligence and courage and wherewithal we have, because you're absolutely right.
This is it.
This is it.
And you know, I just think COVID is God's gift to the left.
All right, back to O'Toole.
The Liberal government closed our borders two months too late.
They also flip-flopped on the risks of contagion in person and on mask wearing.
The Conservatives, though, have been good team players, Mr. Speaker.
We tried to work with the government as much as we could.
We tried to improve the government's erratic action.
Most importantly, the Conservatives have been there for workers who really needed our help.
We voted for emergency legislation and we voted for programs to help workers.
Again, I'm fine with this, but what's the Conservative approach?
What's the alternative?
I'm just showing you as much of his speech as I can without playing the whole long thing.
I want to show you that I'm not cherry-picking anything.
I'm still waiting for that aha moment.
Here's some more.
While Americans are talking about mass vaccination throughout all of January, our government is only speculating about getting part of our population vaccinated by September.
That means 10 extra months, Mr. Speaker, of health risks for Canadians, business closures, and economic uncertainty.
Canadians want their lives back, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister of Health talks a great deal about the whole of government effort and the robust portfolio.
But there's only one way to describe the performance of this government when it comes to vaccines.
Incompetent, Mr. Speaker.
Canadians, in the midst of the second wave, would rather have one dose of the vaccine in the next month than the largest portfolio 18 months from now, Mr. Speaker.
So he's big on vaccines.
Okay, fair enough.
I believe people should be free to take a vaccine if they want.
I don't think that's the actual issue.
What I'm worried about is whether or not vaccines are safe, especially if they're being rushed without the usual testing.
I'm worried about mandatory vaccines, not just forced by governments, but vaccine passports that corporations may try to impose to fly on a plane, to go to a restaurant, to work at a job.
Does O'Toole have a view on that?
And if so, is he afraid to say it?
Here's some more.
This Liberal government does not inspire confidence.
Let's talk about its purchase of $370 million for medical gowns paid to a company with almost zero experience or their $237 million respirator contract to their friend Frank Bayless.
The We Charity scandal revealed liberal friends who are trying to profit during a pandemic.
And at a time when the trust of citizens is so important, the Liberals continue to use their donor lists to choose future judges.
It's one scandal after another, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, yes, I agree.
It's a corrupt government.
It's getting filthy rich off the pandemic.
All of their friends are just like profiteers get rich off of the crisis of war.
Every liberal lobbyist is feasting off the spoils of this war.
I get it, but what's the alternative vision?
Well, folks, here's some more, but I don't think you're going to get it.
Take a listen.
My first job was as a dishwasher and a short order cook, Mr. Speaker, in high school.
And my last job before the military was with Trans Canada, inspecting pipelines.
Back at a time before this government, when that company was still proud to have Canada in its name, Mr. Speaker.
I respect people.
My colleagues do, that work hard to provide for their family, whether they're a uniformed and unionized plant worker or an entrepreneur, whether they work the night shift in Mississauga, Ontario, or get up at 5 a.m. to open their small business in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.
There's a nobility in that act of discipline, perseverance, and working hard for your family.
We cannot lose that in this country, Mr. Speaker.
We will fight hard to ensure that we never lose touch with that fundamental value upon which Canadian society has been built.
All right.
So you're a grassroots guy as much as a lawyer can be, but I admire his work, I think, and his military service.
But I don't think we're further along in understanding does the Conservative Party of Canada have any fundamental objection to the Trudeau Liberals approach?
Sure, they want to spend less money, and let's give them that.
That's important.
Though I note O'Toole bragged in his speech about supporting a lot of Trudeau spending, but other than the evergreen criticism of competence, is there any opposition to the state of fear and panic and the forever lockdown, the violation of civil rights?
Is there any of that?
Here's some more.
This country working again, Mr. Speaker.
Hard work emboldens the soul and builds a nation.
Hard work helps families.
Those families build communities and make us proud to be Canadian.
Got it.
I think a Liberal could say those exact words, right?
What makes a Conservative different?
I'm trying to get to it.
Listen to some more.
Canadian workers deserve a government that fights for them.
A government that is not obsessed with transitioning our industries in the midst of a pandemic, Mr. Speaker.
A government that is patriotic and not afraid to fight on the world stage for rapid access to vaccines.
A government that knows that Canada has an identity, a history, and that we can be proud of this.
More vaccine talk.
I'm fine with people being allowed to choose vaccines.
I want to make sure we can choose not to take them too, since they're so new and risky and the virus itself has turned out to be not risky for young people especially.
Is there anything on that?
And the lack of a plan to address the most critical issues facing our country in one of the most challenging years in our country's history will only fuel the fears and uncertainties facing Canadian families across this great country.
Mr. Speaker, now is not the time for experiments.
Now is the time for experience.
Now is not the time for building back with slogans.
Now is the time we show we have our citizens' backs, Mr. Speaker.
We need to have a plan for the challenges we face today so that our children will have the same opportunities we did tomorrow.
Look, I'm going to stop punishing you with more of this blather.
It's all boilerplate stuff.
I don't know what he said.
That speech could have been half as long, and I only played half of it to you to begin with.
Look, I know it's tough to take on the establishment, take on the government, take on the media, take on the public health, deep state, the experts.
I know it's tough.
The social peer pressure, all the people who are loving this lockdown because it's just a big paid staycation for them.
They get to order and take out and watch Netflix.
That's how half the world sees it.
And probably 90% of how Ottawa sees it.
But it's not how conservatives see it.
It's not how working people see it.
Most Canadians would rather take the chance of a virus with a 99% plus recovery rate and be able to have a job and live freely than to live under this perpetual state of fear and stress and disinformation.
It's hard opposing the juggernaut.
I get it.
Singing Without Masks Fined00:10:03
Look at what they did to Adam Skelly, the barbecue restaurant guy.
I get it.
But look at the job description, leader of the opposition, Her Majesty's loyal opposition.
It's Aaron O'Toole's job to oppose.
I know it's tough, but it's the job he asked for.
I think Aaron O'Toole has to oppose what's going on.
I don't think he is.
And I hope that changes.
stay with me for my friends there's an important video I want to show you Normally I interview a guest at this hour, but Sheila Gunrid has an important video about the war on Christian churches that is happening undercover of the pandemic.
You'll notice cannabis stores are open, liquor stores are open, Walmarts are open, Costco's open, and of course Amazon dominates it all.
But the one place where the crackdown is the toughest, other than that barbecue in Toronto, it's churches.
I want to play for you Sheila's story from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.
Take a look.
A Prince Albert Saskatchewan church has received a $14,000 coronavirus fine for singing without wearing masks.
It's outrageous.
It's un-Canadian.
And we refuse to let this stand.
We are helping the full gospel outreach center fight back, and we need your help to do it.
Today I'm bringing you a story about a fight the fines case that we've been working on for almost a month now.
And then after this is all over, I'm going to ask you to help us help a man who's doing good work to help vulnerable people that few people are willing to do.
And he's paying a high cost for all of it.
In early October, an inner city Prince Albert Saskatchewan church was given a five-figure COVID-19 fine by the province of Saskatchewan for singing in their church without masks on.
It could be one of the highest fines of this kind we've seen in Canada.
Look at this.
A Prince Albert Saskatchewan church was fined $14,000 after a multi-day event caused an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
A traveling evangelist spoke at the full gospel outreach for several days, according to Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dion.
Remember that name.
He said the event drew hundreds to the church, both from the city and further north.
They cross the line, said Dion, adding, he doesn't understand why the church wouldn't follow guidelines when, quote, every other place of worship in the city has.
And while it was the province of Saskatchewan that eventually issued the fine for the church, it was that mayor, Greg Dion, and a local First Nations chief who pushed the province to issue the fine to the church.
Look at this.
The mayor of Prince Albert and the chief of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in northern Saskatchewan say the organizers of Prince Albert church meetings that have been tied to a regional outbreak of COVID-19 should be fined by the provincial government.
There's got to be strict consequences, said Mayor Greg Dion.
They weren't wearing masks.
The rules say they have to.
So take action.
People have to know that we are a strong government.
Well, that was it for me.
This bully mayor had a poor church fined for singing without masks on.
It's absolutely unreal.
So I went on a road trip to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan to see this church for myself and meet with the pastor.
The mayor insisted be fined, Pastor Vernon Temple.
To get the other side of the story, I met with Pastor Vernon Temple at his church in downtown Prince Albert, where he ministers to the homeless and the addicted, where he also runs a clothing bank to clothe the cold and wary, where he feeds the hungry.
There are intravenous needle drop boxes just up the street from Pastor Vernon Temple's church.
And as you'll see, his church is not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, the church recently suffered a flood.
And that was when the city and that vindictive mayor, Greg Dion, cracked down on Vernon Temple.
Take a look at this.
There's something about it when the government intervenes like this and they kind of really put the screws down on you and put fear into, you know, and it is a serious thing, right?
It's a serious virus, very contagious, and in some cases can be fatal.
So that kind of is the faith position of a lot of faith people is that they were kind of intimidated by the, you know, the whole propaganda, all the all the media, all the government propaganda of fear.
So it's something that, you know, it's sad.
I want to learn a little bit more about your ministry here, Pastor Vernon Temple, because it appears to me that you minister to people sort of the most vulnerable.
Yeah, no doubt.
That's like we have apartments upstairs.
The city pushed hard against us to close them.
So we just, you know, figure, well, you know, like it's, it just isn't worth the trouble anymore.
So we close our apartments.
That's what we do.
So we, you know, fulfill that, one of that part of that commission at least to, you know, feed the hungry and to clothe the naked.
And then, and so we kind of given up a little bit, a little part of that in providing shelter.
But even when we're having services here, we had services for 32 days.
There's always people here that wanted, that needed a place.
These people are like second, third generation, coming from second, third generation, dysfunctional, alcoholic, violent homes.
And they need, they're hopeless.
Like they just, they can't even go back to their own reserve in some cases.
They can't go back to their families because, you know, it's just too much chaos, right?
Again, these marginalized people, they were receiving and in a process of changing their lives and surrendering their lives to God.
And then all of a sudden it just stops.
I just want to go back for a second here and come back to the point that you're making because the government did force you to shut down.
And I think you and I would both agree that church is essential.
It's an essential service.
Tell me about what services looked like during the pandemic.
Did you have hand sanitizer, offer masks?
How many people were here?
In this area, we had, I think, maybe up to about maybe 100 people.
We provided a sign-in sheet.
I think most people signed in, at least to begin with.
I guess maybe once they figured they signed in, then they're recorded as being, like if there's ever an issue, then they were on the list, right?
So they didn't have to sign in every day, or they just forgot.
I'm not sure what happened there.
And we provided masks and we provided hand sanitizer.
The problem with social distancing in a church is that a group of people come in and you're assuming they drove together, that they're a family, that they're kind of what they call a pod or whatever.
And so they want to sit together.
So you can't just put chairs six feet apart because they're actually people are allowed to sit together.
Families are allowed to sit together.
So we did, it's very difficult to monitor those, but the street people are probably the hardest to manage.
You know, like if you're used to not washing your hands more than once a day or once a week or something, you know, I don't know what the situation is, then hand sanitizer, like, you know, like, you know, like they just, you know, so how do you enforce that, right?
So, and even social distancing, we put chairs out kind of, but you know, you want to include them, eh?
You don't want to put chairs, okay, all the street people have to sit in the back here, you know, and sorry, but you know, just government regulation, you know, and, you know, like that.
How do you do that?
You know, that's a really great point.
You want to people, show you you love them and care for them, and you're really there to help them.
And you're saying, well, you know, but you've got to sit over there.
Right.
You're trying to integrate the homeless population into your regular congregation.
Yeah.
You mentioned that you already had some friction with the city because of it.
Because of the apartments upstairs where you're trying to, you know, meet your Christian obligation to put a roof over the head of the homeless.
And so even though you were holding church here and doing your best to social distance and follow the rules, you still came under fire from Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dion and the chief of Peter Ballantyne First Nation, Peter Beattie.
They called on the province to find you.
Fines And Victim Surcharges00:03:19
Yeah, apparently.
And this was after the outbreak, of course, right?
And I think maybe at the time there might have been maybe 20 cases, 20 known cases.
But Greg Dion, like he would just jump on any opportunity to come against us and to speak against us and to anything that he could possibly use to, they wanted two years ago, they wanted to take our building, close it down, take our building and demolish it for a parking lot.
Like, so that's, you know, like no consideration for what we're doing, what we're trying to do, trying to reach out to homeless, marginalized people.
How did the outbreak sort of come to light?
I know it was initially just a handful of cases that were attributed.
I know of.
She worked at the casino.
She got tested positive.
And so that was the first one that I know of.
So the casino.
So maybe it came from the casino, eh?
Is the casino still open?
Yeah.
So the church is closed, but the casino's open.
So, yeah, but then, you know, like they, again, it's just, you know, to where it came from.
Who knows?
Yeah, like, you know, it came from somewhere, right?
Came from China.
China.
So let's blame the Chinese again, right?
We should be.
That's, you know, and if we're really all in this all together, then that's probably, you know, like, should there even be tickets?
You know, like, let's try to get some money out of China, perhaps.
You know, like, I'm listening.
You know, maybe that's where we should be trying to get the money from, but no, then, but then, you know, we're afraid to challenge China, right?
And we're afraid to stand up against them.
It's easier to challenge Christians who are called the turn the other cheek.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, there you go.
How did the fines come down?
How did you find out that you were levied some fines?
You had an evangelist, Ian Lavly, he received a $2,800 fine plus a victim surcharge.
And your ministry received what I think so far is the largest fine issued in the country for the coronavirus and breaking the regulations of a municipality is $14,000 plus a victim surcharge or with 10 plus the victims.
So, yeah, I was just, I was contacted by Peter Ross from the, you know, from the health authority, said he wanted to talk to me.
And I wouldn't, even if he said, I've got something for you, I think he did say that anyways, but he didn't tell me he was going to give me a fine.
But yeah, two weeks ago, he contacted me.
And so I met him at my place of quarantining and out at the farm.
And he basically gave me the ticket.
Now, you're not a wealthy congregation, but your congregants immediately started fundraising to help you pay that fine.
Now, at Rebel News, we don't want you to pay that fine.
Gifted Minister's Dilemma00:03:09
We want you to keep that money, continue to do the good work that you do for vulnerable populations, people on reserve, Metis communities.
Are you going to get us off this?
We're going to do our best to get you off it because we hired you a really great lawyer and he's going to fight that fine for you.
And our people at home, our viewers, our rebel supporters, are going to fundraise to pay your lawyer.
And so nothing out of pocket.
The lawyer doesn't work for us.
He works for you.
We're going to pay the bills.
And that's what we're going to do because we believe that church is essential.
And I'm very disappointed that the city of Prince Albert put a stop to the work that you were doing when people needed it the most.
Yeah, you know, like I really appreciate that.
Really awesome.
Wonderful.
So we have been doing fundraising.
Not really, because people have just voluntarily given, you know, the money's gone into our savings account.
We're going to keep the money there for the fine.
Well, we'll see about that.
We'll see about that.
But, you know, it's comforting to know that the money's still there, right?
Like, and people have been so good, been so gracious and loving and caring about this and been sending us, you know, like, I think we're at $11,000, $12,000 right now.
And I so appreciate that.
And it's going to stay in the account until this is done.
But, you know, by all means, you know, We'll keep receiving, we'll keep receiving gifts for, and specifically for that, for the fine, just and maybe any other costs incurred.
But yeah, it's been pretty amazing to see the support and the help.
And it's really amazing that you've got a lawyer for us.
And it's really, really wonderful.
Thank you.
And thank you to your supporters.
We don't want to be uncooperative.
Well, we don't want to be uncooperative in the least, but the thing is, is that as a church, we're trying to exercise our rights and freedoms, constitutional rights and freedoms.
And the commission, which a lot of people actually ignore or they don't even know about, but the commission of Jesus to preach the gospel to the poor, you know, that was, yeah, that's a command, right?
That's a commission to preach the gospel to the poor.
I know that I was gifted to minister to the poor.
Not everyone is gifted to minister to the poor.
Not everyone.
And I don't judge Christians for not reaching out because they're just not gifted to reach out to people that are just like crazy lives, you know.
And so I know that I was gifted at that time.
The Lord gave me the gift of mercy.
And, you know, that's been part of the reason why I've been able to persevere because when you know you're called to do something, then there's no turning back.
You can't back down from the government.
Moving Forward00:03:01
You can't back down from their pushing hard against you.
You just have to keep going on.
You know that God is on your side.
That's part of faith, right?
I don't think this is going to happen because we've been pretty successful fighting these fines for other people.
If the government doesn't drop this fine against you, what does $14,000 taken out of your ministry mean for the people that you're trying to help?
Now, what we could do with that money.
Right, that's my question.
What would you do with that money if you were able to do that?
We do some renovations in the church.
We'll go next door there.
And we had a flood there a year and a half ago, and we were underinsured, which, you know, like, people understand that, right?
They under they, you know, you have a $3 million building and you insure it for about as much as you can afford and hope for the best.
But when something happens, then you're underinsured.
And so it paid our bill of tearing out the stuff.
But there was no money left over to do the renovations, to rebuild.
Here's another issue, right?
Like we were packed in here.
And then Ian says, we've got to move next door.
We need the space, right?
So and then, so we, we, we got, probably got the ticket because of this, but then we moved next door where there's lots of room.
There's piles of space, eh?
So, um, but it's a little rough in there.
We moved over there from there over to here so that we would be able to, you know, social distance and to comply to as well as we could, you know, to the, you know, reopen Saskatchewan guidelines.
And then they hand us a ticket a week later.
Or, you know, 10 days later, actually, you know, or actually it's about two weeks after, but we were here for, Brad, do you remember how long we were in here?
Like at least a week, eh?
Yeah, at least a week we're in here.
And we were trying to move sooner, but the problem is, is that like we weren't sure what to do with the floor.
It's a construction zone.
Yeah, basically, you know, but it doesn't, you know, I mean, it's okay.
You know, it's like camp meeting, right?
Like, if you've ever been to a tent meeting, you know, they have, you know, grass is your floor, right?
So then, yeah, so we move over here and then they, after we've moved over here, and actually complying to the regulations a lot better here than we were over there, they still give us a ticket.
So there's, you know, not saying, okay, well, we can see what you've done.
You know, you move from there to here.
You know, you're like, that's a major effort, right?
Sure.
That's a major effort on our part to comply, you know, to do our best to comply.
I didn't even realize that they ticketed you after you moved over here.
Yeah, like that's almost insane.
Like that's vindictive.
I think that's vindictive.
Sarah Defends Pastor Vernon00:12:05
That's, you know, and so here, like, again, the mayor makes, you know, he makes decisions off the cuff.
He doesn't understand, you know, like, really doesn't understand the people we're trying to minister to.
And if he doesn't understand the people we're trying to minister to, then he doesn't understand us, right?
Nick, he doesn't, he's, you know, and, you know, and that has never really made any attempt to bridge that gap of ignorance, eh?
Not that I'm calling him ignorant, but, you know, ignorance is bliss for some people.
And like he should have, he should have been, hey, and he's got my phone number.
The mayor has my phone number.
And he should have been phoning, hey, Vern, we've got to talk.
You know, but never, never is always a political agenda.
And he used to be a nice guy, but then he became a politician.
You can quote that.
Does that look to you like a church that has $14,000 just to throw around to pay a bully's fine?
Imagine what taking $14,000 out of the budget of a church that feeds the homeless really means in a practical sense to the people they help every day.
I want to tell you, I reached out to the mayor, Greg Dion, that mayor of Prince Albert, with some questions about why he was so heavy-handed with the full gospel outreach center.
Because the more I dig, the more I find out there's absolutely more to this story, and I'll share that with you in a subsequent update.
But here's what I asked the mayor to clarify.
Were any attempts made by the city to bring the church into compliance before calling on the province to levy fines?
Were any warnings issued, inspections done, advice given, supplies provided?
Question two.
Pastor Temple says that contact tracing suggests the outbreak spread to his church through a congregant who caught it on the job at the local casino.
Did the casino face any strict consequences, investigations, fines, or closures?
If not, why not?
What replacement resources are being provided by the city of Prince Albert to the vulnerable populations that usually seek food and clothing from the now closed full gospel outreach center?
Well, I'm sure that none of you are surprised to learn that this authoritarian mayor, with what I have now learned seems to be a real vendetta against Pastor Vern, never ever got back to me.
I sent that email three weeks ago at least.
Now, our regular viewers know that religious freedom and the rights of Christians in the public square to practice their faith completely unmolested by the government is something that I am deeply passionate about.
And I've raised money to help Christians return to their indigenous homeland on the biblical Nineveh plain after facing an ISIS genocide in Kurdistan.
I've walked in the bombed out churches in the Iraqi town of Butnaya, a town that sat behind the ISIS front lines.
So what I'm saying here is I'm not scared of a small town bully mayor with a mean on for a pastor who helps inconvenient people on the fringes of society so that the city of Prince Albert doesn't have to.
As I mentioned in our interview, I promised Pastor Vern that I would find him a lawyer, and I did just that.
Sarah Miller from JSS Barristers is a lawyer whom I think might feel as deeply passionate about religious freedom as I do.
She's already had some success fighting for Christians in the public square.
She was the lawyer who helped street preacher Archer Polowski beat his fine in Calgary.
Archer was given a social distancing fine for feeding the homeless on a bitterly cold Alberta winter day.
Rebel News stepped in and we connected Sarah and Archer and Sarah helped Archer fight that fine.
And now she's going to be the lawyer to help Pastor Vern beat this fine too.
I spoke with Sarah a couple days ago from her office in Calgary about how she plans to do just that here.
Sarah, thanks for taking on the case of Pastor Vernon Temple.
Why did you take on this case?
We had a little bit of trouble finding a lawyer who would.
You're based in Calgary, but you're still helping Vernon Temple in Prince Albert.
Yeah, absolutely.
So when I was first contacted by Rebel News and as part of the whole Fight the Fines program, I've been helping a number of pastors and street churches and for whatever reason, Saskatchewan, Alberta, anywhere we seem to be, the police and the professionals who are prosecuting and charging these people really target churches.
And they're doing great work.
They're helping the poor.
We've seen over and over in the media how the rules of COVID and the laws on lockdowns target and affect poor people, marginalized people the worst.
And so I decided to take on this file because that offends something deep in my core.
I think it offends most people's understanding of how law and justice should work.
$14,000 for a church that is working with the poor in a relatively small community in Saskatchewan is just frankly obscene.
And so that's why I decided to take it on.
You know, I agree with you.
I've been to see the bombed out churches in northern Iraq.
So I've seen churches that are in places where they are doing the absolute most with the least amount of resources.
And that's what I saw when I visited Pastor Vernon's church.
Now, without giving away too much of what you plan to do, because, I mean, you don't work for us.
You work for Pastor Vernon and the full gospel outreach center.
What is the vague plan of attack here?
Yeah, absolutely.
So part of what we've been doing on a number of these church defenses is first looking at the facts.
What, you know, happened around the time of the circumstances, the alleged circumstances, and does that really fit what these new laws are supposed to be doing and providing for the public?
So just doing a review of the facts and seeing if there's any way on those facts that, you know, this doesn't fit what the purpose of the law is.
And then also considering charter rights.
It's one of our fundamental freedoms in the charter to have a right to religion and a right to practice your religion.
And so that is one of the big questions that come up in all of these defenses is right to assembly, right to association, right to freedom of religion, right to freedom of speech.
So we're going to kind of attack it as a two-prong.
I think I've mentioned before in the show that we look at the facts, see if there's, you know, a factual analysis.
That's kind of our first step.
And on the second side, our two-prong approach is addressing the charter issues.
Well, Sarah, I want to thank you so much for agreeing to take on this case.
It's a big one.
It's egregious.
$14,000 is a lot to ask of any church, but especially this church that is doing such good work feeding the hungry and clothing the poor and the cold in downtown Prince Albert.
It's just egregious to see the amount that they were fined.
And I think that people fighting for their own religious freedom have a good friend with you, Sarah.
Thank you so much.
Great.
Thank you, Sheila.
Now, here's where you can help me, help Pastor Vern, continue to help the homeless, the addicted, the marginalized, and the poor in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.
Fighting this enormous fine and fighting for religious freedom in Saskatchewan is going to cost a lot of money in legal fees.
But Sarah Miller is one of the best, and she's been successful so far.
And I think she's absolutely the right person for the job.
And we are already winning these cases with your help and your donations at fightthefines.com.
If you go to that special website, fight the fines.com, you can see all of our previous cases and our current victories that are already starting to trickle in.
There's Walter Matheson, the man who was fined for eating a muffin in a Tim Horton's parking lot.
Tamara Ugolini, she's now a rebel news reporter, but at the time, she was just a lady wanting to walk on her local beach.
And the aforementioned street preacher, Archer Poloski.
These are all fight the fines cases that we won with your help and your donations.
And maybe you don't care about religious freedom.
And you know what?
That's fine too.
But maybe you care that $14,000 is an atrocious fine for anybody to be given for singing without a mask on.
And maybe you care about people who find it their calling to help those of us with nothing because that's Pastor Vern.
Please go to fight the fines.com to help us help Vernon Temple today.
For Rebel News, I'm Sheila Gunnery.
Well, let me read you my letter said.
That's Sheila video.
She's the best, isn't she?
On my show last night, John writes, cops are becoming goons for hire.
Overtime hours add up real fast for a small army standing around doing nothing.
You know, it's frustrating to me that police can be used as such political props.
I sort of don't mind the idea that you can hire a cop to guard a school or a church or a synagogue.
I remember as a kid, there were police guarding the synagogues in Calgary on the high holidays.
Just, you know, make sure nothing happened.
I think that's okay.
But for such a political muscle flexing, it gives me the creeps that you can hire police as some sort of private mercenary army.
I don't think it looks good on the cops.
Guard a school, sure, fill your boots, but be part of a political showdown between a mayor and an intransigent restaurateur.
I don't like the looks of it.
Susan writes, I just don't understand that that if places like Costco and Walmart can operate as non-spreaders of the China virus, why small businesses can't implement similar practices to keep their customers safe and therefore remain open?
Well, not just that, but restaurants actually train food safety, cleanliness, hygiene.
It's a higher standard of training and regulation than a Costco or a Walmart that's not a restaurant.
So I don't think it makes any sense other than, as we told you before, Walmart hired two in Ontario, two of Doug Ford's senior staff as lobbyists to lobby the government to let them stay open.
So I guess it's who you know.
Last letter, Corey writes, great professional reporting by Drea, a good hire, I think, Ezra.
Drea is amazing.
I'm so proud of her.
And our whole Rebel team has done very well during the pandemic, and it's growing.
I should have news for you as soon as tomorrow about a new teammate joining us too.