Ezra Levant updates on The Democracy Fund (TDF), now handling over 2,500 cases—lockdown tickets, fines ($5,750+ per violation in Ontario), and criminal charges—from pandemic restrictions, including Quarantine Act violations and protests under the Emergencies Act. Lead litigator Adam Blake Gallipo notes flaws in prosecutions, like pre-November 26, 2021, ArriveCan tickets, and missing officer disclosures, with TDF securing stays for protesters facing jail time. Fines disproportionately targeted low-income, racialized, and elderly individuals, while student mandates risked education loss, such as a single mother’s four-year program termination. TDF’s growth—three lawyers, four paralegals, $100 avg. donor contributions—underscores its role in defending civil rights amid unclear post-mandate prosecution criteria, with trials looming next year. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, a special interview with Adam Blake Gallipo.
He's one of the litigators at the Democracy Fund, the Canadian Civil Liberties Charity.
We'll talk to him about some of the 2,500, I thought it was just 2,100, 2,500 cases they're still defending of lockdown tickets and fines and criminal charges.
It's a fascinating and slightly depressing conversation, but it's also hopeful because he's fighting the good fight that's ahead.
But first, let me invite you to subscribe to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
It's eight bucks a month, and we really rely on that because we don't take any money from Trudeau.
We rely on you.
Go to rebelnewsplus.com.
right here's today's podcast tonight what's the democracy fund doing How are all those 2,100 pandemic court cases going?
We'll have a feature interview with Adam Blake Gallipo, a lawyer at TDF.
It's March 15th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Well, as you know, our first client in our project called Fight the Fines was Pastor Arthur Pawlowski.
It was very early in the pandemic, March or April 2020.
I can't remember which.
And I saw this photo, this sort of this video of Arthur who does what he does.
He feeds the hungry, homeless on the street.
It was very early in the year because it was snowing.
So these people were cold and hungry, and Arthur was doing what he did.
And the police aggressively accosted him, pushed him.
And what really bothered me is the cop, one cop pushed him and said, stay six feet away.
And then the cop moved closer and pushed him again.
Like the cop was being provocative.
He was being a bully.
And, you know, no one likes a bully, but you're bullying a man feeding the hungry, homeless.
I can't tell you the feeling that washed over me of anger.
And I know what we can do.
And my idea was that we would crowdfund a lawyer for Pastor Arthur.
I phoned him up.
We were casual acquaintances.
I said, here's my plan.
He said, sure.
I mean, what has he got to lose?
That became client number one in our Fight the Fines project.
Client number two, you've heard his name also, Derek Reimer, who was arrested or ticketed for doing the exact same thing three years ago, feeding the hungry, homeless.
Well, soon we had 10 cases and then 50.
And I realized that fighting the civil liberties battles of the pandemic would be as large a business as running the news organization called Rebel News Network.
And so allies applied to the Canada Revenue Agency.
I myself am not a director and I'm not a staffer of the Democracy Fund.
It's at arm's length from Rebel News.
But allies applied for charitable status for a civil liberties project to promote and defend constitutional rights like freedom of association, freedom of mobility, things like that that were infringed during the lockdowns.
And would you believe it that the Democracy Fund has taken 2,100 cases in the two years since it really debuted?
In fact, it just turned two years old this month.
2,100 cases, not all of them as spectacular as Pastor Arthur's, but some of them have been.
Well, we're out of the worst of the pandemic and the lockdowns, although I still see people on the street wearing masks and I still see panic fear doctors being interviewed on the news all the time.
It's still extremely difficult to get into the United States if you are unjabbed.
It's possible, but difficult.
And there remain universities and other workplaces in Canada where they insist on a jab to their disgrace.
But the intensity of the moment has passed.
And thank God we're out of that and Justin Trudeau's martial law.
But what about the 2,100 people who got charged?
Some of them, it was like a ticket.
Some of them, it was a criminal charge.
Some of them very complicated matters indeed.
What happened to those 2,100 cases picked up by the Democracy Fund?
Well, the answer is that those cases continue, that the long arm of the authoritarian law continues to prosecute those people.
And I thought it would be a good time to sit down for half an hour with the lead litigator of the Democracy Fund.
The director of litigation is a friend of mine named Alan Honer.
But the man who's in the trenches every day is our guest today.
We have an army of paralegals.
We have three staff lawyers.
We have other lawyers across the country.
When I say we, I mean the Democracy Fund.
I'm a donor.
I'm not a staffer or an officer.
But Adam Blake Gallipo has been fighting the good fight every day.
And I thought, well, let's bring the lad in now to get an update straight from the horse's mouth.
Adam, great to see you.
And before I go any further, let me say congratulations.
You and Alan and Mark and the paralegals have really helped bring balance back to our justice system over the last three years.
Thank you for that.
Hey, I appreciate that, Ezra.
And I noted you mentioned we've got over 2,000 matters.
I can tell you it's now well over 2,500.
I've had a conversation very recently with our lead paralegal for Ontario, and she's given me an updated, her updated numbers, and we're looking at well over 2,500 matters been able to assist people with.
Some of these include just anti-gathering laws.
Some of them, people not six feet, some of them are mask cases.
Some are ArriveCan app cases.
Tell me some of the other, some of them are criminal charges for us involving the, give us a sample of some of the cases the Democracy Fund is fighting.
No, you're right.
I want to lay out there, just to show that our success, we have been able to save Canadians over $12 million to date as a result of our efforts against these fines.
With respect to, if you're, you know, we've got, as I said, 2,500, the vast majority there, Ezra, is our ticket-related matters.
Like you pointed out, these are our social gathering tickets that were issued during the lockdowns and during these mandates that were implemented prior to them being lifted.
But also, we've got the Quarantine Act tickets that we've been facing, which are border crossing, typically border crossing.
We've got hundreds of them in Ontario, obviously.
200, I can tell you alone, as I've had carriage of them alone in British Columbia.
So this is something that We've been pursuing.
I can tell you, with respect to the British Columbia files, we've received 100 withdrawals of the over 200 matters that we've taken on to date.
So as it stands, I hope that gives our donors some confidence in the work that we're doing and the effort that we're putting into these.
We do have a good record of success there.
You touched on criminal matters.
We took on at the outset.
Well, I guess let's rewind a little bit.
We were there in Ottawa, the Democracy Fund.
All three of our lawyers were there for six days during the protests as charter scrutineers.
We were there to provide legal information to individuals who were peacefully protesting and make them aware of what their rights were.
Subsequent to those events, as we saw, the Emergencies Act was invoked.
The arrests were made in, we can get into that, I guess, a little bit later, but there were a number of arrests made.
And we have been retained by about 30 individuals, give or take, including our external counsel for those arrests.
And I should tell you, Ezra, I don't want to draw on too long here, but we've received seven stays to date and one withdrawal, which actually occurred this week in relation to an individual who was charged with mischief and disobey a lawful court order for peacefully protesting in Windsor.
He was facing 45 days in jail.
We were able to, through our efforts, point out to the Crown that there was a lack of prospect of conviction and the Crown ultimately, because of the strength of our case, because of our efforts, was forced into a position to agree and withdrew actually just this past Wednesday.
Wow.
Now, you said so many things that I've been taking notes.
First of all, I'm glad you told me we have 2,500 cases.
And when I say we, it's because I'm a supporter and a volunteer.
I'm not an officer or director and employee, but I have a great affection for the project and I believe in it.
And of course, it's our rebel news donors who have breathed life into it.
So that's why I speak in the first person when talking about it.
But as I mentioned earlier, it is an arm's length organization, separate board of directors, separate bank accounts, separate everything from Rebel News.
Now, you mentioned 2,500 cases.
That's incredible.
You said that in BC, if I heard you right, there's 200 cases, but 100 of them have been withdrawn.
Did I hear that right?
You did.
You did.
Yes.
So, that means that the police and the prosecutors say, oh, we're not going to actually follow through with it.
Health Minister's Authorization00:03:47
Is that what that means to be withdrawn?
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.
So the tickets have been canceled, right?
So we were actually, look, and it's difficult because the Crown is under no obligation to provide you with reasons as to why a ticket has been withdrawn.
They can just withdraw.
They don't have to give you any explanation.
So it's just, you get a letter one day, it's withdrawn.
They didn't say it's because it was too much hassle.
They were worried about losing.
They didn't have the manpower to prosecute hundreds of cases.
They realized that the police overcharged and it was a foolish.
So, there could be any reason.
What do you think the reason was for half the tickets in BC to be withdrawn?
Is it just simply the prosecutors have more important things to do?
Well, look, I hope they do, is part of my answer to that question.
I hope they do have more important things to do, as these are federal prosecutors.
These are people who are charged with the task, the very important task of prosecuting individuals who are trafficking in illicit substances, among other things.
But when it comes to these particular withdrawals, I have a hunch, Ezra, and I believe it is because our legal team here, and specifically actually our litigation director,
Alan Honor, was able to point out the fact that a number of these charges were resulting from violations that predated a declaration made by the health minister.
It gets into a rather complicated area of law, but the order in counsel, just to try and give it a very brief overview,
the order in counsel here specified and the orders in council specified that the health minister or the health minister's delegate was to instruct as to the electronic means that should be filled out when crossing the border.
This electronic means since has been declared to be the ArriveCan app, right?
So, however, this was not announced as far as our records are concerned, as far as what I'm seeing on their website until November 26th of 2021.
So, all of the tickets that were in relation to failure to comply on an ArriveCan app basis to November 26, 2021, our position was these tickets are bunk because the law is incomplete.
You don't have a health minister or a health minister's delegate stating that this law has been declared.
So, let me just pause for a second.
So, you're saying that the ArriveCan app, which was this odious privacy-busting, share the data with the World Health Organization malware, awful app.
Everyone hated it, barely worked, but mostly it was an imposition.
You were forced to give your health info.
You're saying that until that date, November 26th, 2021, it actually hadn't been given the authorization by the health minister or the delegate of the health minister that any charge before that arrived can wasn't an official thing.
It wasn't the government thing.
It was out there.
The app was out there.
Speedy Trials Interrupted00:04:49
We've since learned how corrupt the bidding process was to make it.
So, any charge before November 26, 2021, the Arrive Can app simply was not the law.
So, cops might have said fill it out.
Airport busybodies might have said fill it out.
The media might have said fill it out, but there was no legal requirement to fill it out till November 26, 2021.
So, any charges before then are empty.
Did I hear you right?
Did I restate it correctly?
You did.
You did.
And you heard me correctly, Ezra.
And that's certainly our position.
And so they've withdrawn 100 of these cases.
We've had in numerous jurisdictions in British Columbia alone.
I can state that as a matter of firsthand experience.
Is it shows you that if you just stand up and fight, and I'm talking about the hundreds of people who said, I'm not, like, I think a lot of people paid these fines out of fear and out of fatalism.
But for the hundreds who said, you know what, I'm gonna fight this.
And the fact that they didn't have to hire a lawyer because the Democracy Fund was there, that's great.
But the fact that it was a flawed ticket, and if they just resisted long enough to not plead guilty and not pay the fine, there would be that flaw that you guys found, Alan Honor, director of litigation.
That is karma.
I think that's wonderful.
And I salute the hundreds of people who said, I'm not paying.
I'm fighting.
And would you look at that?
Anyone given that before November 26, 2021, according to your contention, which obviously the Crown must agree with if they're withdrawing these things, that's, you know, the best way to win a fight is for the other guy to run away.
That's the best kind of win.
Well, and I agree 100% with you there, Ezra.
I can't say for sure that that's why these tickets were dropped.
But, you know, I've got to put it in the middle of the day.
But if that's your argument, they get some to withdraw.
That's wonderful.
Now, thank you for that information.
But let me ask another question because November 2021, well, that, you know, December, January, February, March.
So that's 16 months ago now.
But the case I mentioned about Arthur Pavlovsky, that was March or April 2020.
So we're literally 36 months, 35, 36 months.
Now, that case is over.
He won that case finally.
But I think we have other cases at the Democracy Fund that are two years old, two and a half years old.
Some of them are almost three years old.
And I know from years ago when I was a lawyer and in practice that there are different court rulings that say you have the right to a speedy trial.
You don't want this hanging over you.
People's memories fade.
People have to move on with their lives.
People can't have distress in their lives.
You know, the government has some sort of duty to hustle things along.
At what point, you said we got 2,500 cases in the hopper.
At what point do these start going stale by the 100?
And at what point does the government say, you know, we haven't got around to these in three years?
It was a particular political moment.
Can we please move on and prosecute drug crimes instead?
Or at what point can a victim say, you know what, you've taken your sweet time.
It's been two years, Your Honor.
I want the case dropped because this is violating my right to a speedy trial.
At what point, Adam, is the government out of time?
Yeah, well, I mean, that's actually an excellent question, Ezra.
And that's something that we're currently canvassing in relation to a number of our upcoming criminal trials.
That's the Jordan ceiling you're referencing there.
It's in most cases, you've got an 18-month window between charges and the trial being commenced.
A number of things can come up and interrupt that.
That's certainly an issue that we're live to, especially related to our criminal trials, but also with our ticket matters.
We do have a number to date outstanding tickets that our clients have received that have not been pursued.
And they do date back to 2021.
So we have those currently, Sort of on the back burner, it's just it seems to be something, it's an administrative issue, and it seems to be something that isn't being proactively engaged by the crown.
Unusually High Ticket Amounts00:03:16
So, so at this point, as you rightly pointed out, we'd be in a position where a charter challenge would be available to all of these individuals.
One thing that I did want to note before we moved on from the ticket matters into criminal matters is that these ticket amounts are unusually high, right?
For crossing the border into Canada, we're starting at nearly $6,000.
It's $5,750, and that's before we factor in the victim surcharge fine.
So, a concern of mine and a concern that I've had for the last 10 months since we've received these files is the chilling effect that this has on individuals who are wishing to reserve their right to a fair trial.
You know, if you're in a financially difficult situation, how can you risk $5,750 at trial?
And these are tickets that we, look, the vast, far and away majority of the tickets that we've received recently that we're representing individuals on are these quarantine act tickets.
And they have a minimum, the minimum fine amount is $5,750.
Look, if we can compare this to an egregious speeding ticket, right?
If you look at a speeding ticket for $150, let's say 100, you're doing 150 in 100 zone or 160 in 100 zone.
You're on the highway.
You're looking at about a $500 fine.
$500?
$500.
Okay.
If you're going to be doing 250 kilometers over the speed limit, 150.
I don't even know if my car could get up to 150.
You would start to.
That's so fast.
That's like autobon fast.
And that's 500 bucks.
But coming across the border and not wanting to tell Justin Trudeau your intimate health details, 10 times that.
This is exactly it.
This is exactly it.
You can even take it to impaired driving.
You got $1,000.
$1,000 is the minimum fine amount for a first offense for driving under the influence.
Why?
How?
I'm very confused as to how this is at a magnitude of six times this amount, this first minimum fine amount of driving while impaired for everybody who comes across the border who doesn't properly fill out the arrangements.
I think I know the answer to that question.
And it was shared with me early when there were so many awful things to travel.
They had these airport quarantine hotels that you had to go to that were thousands of dollars.
And just really, there was no health explanation.
Like we had a reporter who went through one.
He counted 14 different people he interacted with before he got out, like as opposed to just getting in his car and going home.
Why These Rules Are So Stupid00:07:47
Like, how does that make sense?
And another lawyer said, Ezra, that's the point.
The government is trying to make these so stupid, so embarrassing, so humiliating, so expensive, such a trauma that word gets out.
Don't even try and travel.
Don't even try and leave your house.
Don't even do anything because the government is so malicious and stupid and mean and punitive.
Like that the process was the punishment and they were terrible on purpose.
So I think that this trivial offense of not filling out this government app, $5,750, so obviously unjust, you know, cruel and unusual treatment is what the Charter of Rights would say.
But I think that that's the point.
The government said, how can we get people scared?
Well, just by being our worst selves, our most unreasonable selves, we'll fine thousands of people, but for every person we find, we'll scare 10 people into staying at home and locking their doors and drawing their window blinds.
I think it was mass psychological abuse, psychological conditioning of the population.
It was awful on purpose.
That's my theory.
Well, and Ezra, to your point there, let's have a look at the type of people who receive these tickets, at least in our experience.
Often it's low-income and working-class households, families with young children, single mothers, racialized minorities, and all of these people are ineligible for legal aid certificates.
So we've got a real and a number of them.
I mean, look, we had an individual recently, which we fortunately had a successful result with.
Two individuals, I should say, were facing more than $14,000 in fine amounts.
They were in their 80s.
We were able to put to the crown, you know, prior to trial, and this was a few days prior to trial, we were able to speak with them and tell them, look, I mean, what is the public interest here in pursuing this?
You know, you've got people in their 80s that are facing these tickets.
I don't know if you know any, you know, if you have familiarity or if you have dealings with people in their 80s, are they people that are typically savvy with new technology and technology by way of applications on their telephone?
these sorts of cases and elderly individuals are not an uncommon theme this is not an uncommon uh if you don't have a smartphone if you don't there was a incredible case I think it was either a scout troop or a hockey team that they couldn't get on Wi-Fi in a particular airport.
So the whole, like, just, and it was an awful app.
And yeah, you know what?
Not everyone who's 85 years old has a smartphone.
They might have a cell phone that's an old cell phone.
It was so abusive.
But not just that, what's incredible to me is, you know, you get a $50 ticket, $100 ticket, that stings.
You're upset about it.
Maybe you complain to your husband or wife about it when you get home.
But a $5,750 minimum fine for not having an app.
You know, how many people in this economy are a paycheck or two away from not making rent or groceries?
I think it's an enormous, I mean, a $1,000 fine is probably a burden for most families.
$5,000.
That's, I'm just doing some math in my head.
That's like $8,000 or $9,000 pre-tax.
That is like two or three months pay for an ordinary family.
That's enough to destroy a family's household budget.
That's enough to cause such trauma in a family about you'd have to cancel your vacation.
You'd have to cancel sports for the kids.
You'd have to skip getting medicine.
And you'd have to, this would devastate a family.
And what's one of the chief causes of divorce?
Financial discord, financial troubles.
These were family busters.
These, you know, I'm sure there were some rich people who just sucked it up and paid the $57.50.
But even, I don't, you'd have to be pretty rich not to notice $5,750.
And like you say, I mean, I remember one family, Democracy Fund case.
It was a big family.
They had a birthday party.
The cop didn't believe the family that was that big gave each of them a $1,500 fine.
No, it's just a big family.
You're just stupid.
You don't realize that.
So you're charging the family with anti-gathering rules.
This is not a Rifcam.
This was, you know, and it was the family wasn't even working.
The family was on social assistance.
I don't know how they were going to come up with the seven grand or whatever for them all.
I have no idea how that was even supposed to work theoretically.
I think this was just the government and the police abusing people to get word of mouth going.
Don't break the rules.
Well, I've got a yeah, you drive a hard point there.
I mean, I have a hard, I can't, I can't push back against that.
Look, you've got people who are in debt.
They've got, they're paying off lines of credit with credit cards.
Okay.
They're facing these fines.
Like you said, $5,750, and that is before the victim fine surcharge, which in Ontario, I believe, is 25%.
So you're well over $6,000 for these fines.
So if that doesn't have a chilling effect on pursuing a matter to trial, irrespective of whether you've got a case or not.
If that doesn't have a chilling effect on whether you pursue a matter to trial, I don't know what does.
And I just, I have not heard an explanation as to why these, how was that number arrived at?
$5,750.
You know, I'm trying to remember how much Justin Trudeau was fined for violating the Conflict of Interest Act.
I think it was $500 by contrast.
Now, let me ask you a question.
By the way, that doesn't even, like to hire a lawyer to fight it.
You know, you hire a private lawyer because you say these are not legal aid eligible, which again, why is that?
Why can't you get legal aid for these?
Again, it's punitive.
Hire a lawyer.
That's thousands more.
That's right.
Like, look, if you're looking at a lawyer, I mean, you know, the bare minimum here, especially if it's going to trial, the bare minimum would be $1,1500.
If you lose, you're looking at $1,1500 on top of the $5,750 that your ticket lays out for you.
So it's an amount of money that people just aren't able to afford.
And it just to emphasize again, it seems to be working class people that were most affected, at least in my experience, by these tickets.
Willing Witnesses Withdraw00:12:39
Yeah.
Oh, sure.
I mean, the whole pandemic, I mean, I'm not a Marxist, but the whole pandemic had a class structure to it.
Some people had big backyards.
Some people had country cottages they could go to.
Some people live in a small condo downtown without even a balcony.
Oh, go to the park.
Well, guess what?
They closed those.
Oh, go to the gym.
Guess what?
They closed those.
Oh, well, hey, just work from home on Zoom.
Yeah, I'm a waiter.
How do I work as a waiter from Zoom?
I'm a bartender.
I'm a shopkeeper.
Well, just the shop is closed.
Well, just buy from Amazon.
Well, actually, that's, you know, we doubled Jeff Bezos' wealth, but we put out every mom and pop retailer.
Well, go to church.
Well, that's closed.
Well, at least the Walmart and the Costco is open, so you can go there.
You know, there was a classism to it that's infuriating.
Hey, I want to shift subjects for a second.
I know one of the things that happens when you lawyer up, the lawyer asks for disclosure, which is just simply a term for the government to disclose what their evidence is.
And they have a special duty to disclose exculpatory evidence, which is a lawyer's way of saying they can't just give stuff that's embarrassing to the suspect.
They have to give stuff that puts that might excuse the suspect too.
So the police and the prosecutor can't just give you what they pick.
They have to give you everything, including the stuff that shows maybe you didn't do it.
So again, that's something I think a layperson might not know to ask for disclosure, and they might not know how to go through it.
But when you and the rest of the Democracy Fund team lawyers up, you ask for disclosure.
And that's been an interesting thing, too, because some of what you've seen has been drone footage.
Tell us about some of the interesting disclosure, including disclosure that has managed to beat some of these charges for people.
Well, you know, Ezra, a number of these are still live.
So I don't want to get too far into the weeds here, but I can say with relation to a matter that was just withdrawn on Wednesday, this was a criminal file.
And this is in distinction from the ticket matters that we were talking about earlier.
This is a matter where an individual is facing 45 days in jail, along with a permanent criminal record.
And we were able through pre-trial appearances, court appearances, and several appearances before a judge, we were able to put our case to actually, and most recently, earlier in February, to a judge to the effect that the Crown was put in a position where they had to, or they didn't, you know,
I'm going to say that they had to withdraw.
They didn't have to, but they were, they didn't really have many other options.
Let's put it that way.
And this was because of, as you rightly pointed out, the disclosure issues with the disclosure.
In this particular case, we did not have an arresting officer.
Okay.
So our client came to us seeking help for charges under mischief charges and charges for disobeying a lawful court order.
Both of these charges were dropped actually just this past Wednesday.
And this is due to the fact that we were able to point out flaws in the Crown's case, flaws in the disclosure such that they were not able to make out these particular charges.
I wish I could say that this was specific to this particular case.
I can't.
It's a problem across the board.
And it's something that we're, especially with trials looming, we have trial dates set now.
And this is part of the public record, so I can talk about it.
We've got trial dates set now for the end of this year, beginning of next year.
We still have, we have, we are seeking, we're not done seeking disclosure.
We are canvassing what's called a stinchcomb application in relation to a number of our files due to missing disclosure here.
I wish I could, you know, I can't really speculate as to why we don't have this disclosure, but I'm happy to say that I'm willing to say that it is.
Uh, necessary disclosure in order to proceed to trial.
All right, so you use some legal jargon there, and that's fine, you're a lawyer, but I?
I want to just try and use plain english for a minute.
So in some cases you're saying there's not even a cop who's willing to show up in the trial.
And, of course, even before I was a lawyer, I knew if you fight your, your traffic ticket at City Hall, if the cop didn't show up, you were, you were in the clear because there was no one leading the charge against you.
The judge would just immediately throw it out, and that was always a happy lottery moment.
If you start, you know if the cop was too busy to make it.
So you're saying that in some of these cases that you've been preparing for, there's no cop involved, no cop is identifying and and yet these cases seem to be slouching towards trial.
That's going to be weird.
It is, um.
So I I can say that they do have officers that are willing to to show up.
Um, I I you know in in, in this case in particular um, that we had just recently withdrawn, there was an officer that was willing to show up to trial.
The problem Ezra, is that it wasn't the arresting officer.
So it's just some guy who was going to show up but had no first-hand knowledge.
What could he possibly say?
He couldn't be a witness, he wasn't there, it would.
It's the definition of hearsay.
I mean, the judge would say, what are you doing here?
What are you doing?
That's just so I I think it comes back to what I said earlier, which is a lot of this was abusive policy making.
A lot of these tickets were just like a pr move to scare people, or maybe some cops were didn't know what the rules were, or or or just trying to do something.
Some cops, I think, are bullies.
But now things have sobered up.
It's one two, three years later and again prosecutors and even police are saying, really, you want me to talk about that person I gave a ticket to two and a half years ago because they didn't have a six feet separation, and you want me to take a half a day out of my schedule and go to court so we can get this guy?
So I can just imagine that unless you were some extremist lockdownist zealot, you've probably moved on and the idea of spending half a day in court and uh is is questionable.
I guess cops get paid no matter what, but for a prosecutor again, they get paid no matter what, but they probably have something more urgent than to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if most normal prosecutors would want to just drop all these, and if there's any prosecutions going on, it's probably some politician who's insisting on it.
When you say half the cases were withdrawn in Bc, it makes me think that that they realize they don't have to do it, but other jurisdictions, you know, there's probably some lockdownist politician who's shouting at the prosecutors, damn it, go after those people, don't you know?
They weren't wearing their masks.
I think this is so political um, and different parts of the government machine want out and other people are sort of forced to stay in.
What do you think?
Well look, I mean look I I, I can talk about the numbers we've got.
Probably what, looking at over at least over half of these matters are proceeding to trial, So, you know, we're finished with the preliminary work, I guess, at this point, but we still have really the brunt end of the workload is ahead of us.
The matters that we were able to get withdrawn have now been withdrawn.
And now we're looking at trial.
And again, that's next year.
We've got a number of applications we're planning on making in advance.
I don't want to get obviously into details with respect to those, but it's, yeah, as far as, and then, and then I think you touched on the tickets there a bit.
It's as far as the public interest in pursuing these at this point, it's, you know, and that's a little confusing to me as well.
I don't really see what the public interest is at this point.
The mandates have been lifted, but here we are.
You know, I know there's two rules for prosecutors.
Number one, is it in the public interest?
And number two, is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction?
And I tell you, in so many of those cases, one or even both of these are missing.
Well, listen, Adam, it's great to catch up with you on all these things.
There are other things the Democracy Fund does.
For example, it's not all defending tickets and charges.
You guys sent a lot of letters to universities that were trying to keep vax mandates for students or mask mandates.
There's other civil cases, for example, WestJet and Air Canada.
So there's other litigation afoot too.
You guys are really busy.
It sounds like the hard work's just about to begin for you.
That's right.
Yeah.
And just, yeah, I can touch on some of the students.
You know, again, these are another instance of vulnerable population, a vulnerable population who's facing these mandates.
I understand that it's, you know, these mandates have been lifted and your viewers are probably thinking, wait a minute, none of this should apply now.
Well, these mandates were in place previously and they carry over.
The courts move like molasses.
So we're dealing currently still with students who have incurred obviously tens of thousands of dollars in loans, facing termination of their studies if they would or could not comply with vaccine booster mandates.
We've met with our legal team has met with hundreds and hundreds of students facing life-altering circumstances and have assisted and personally we've been retained by more than 40 over the last 14 months.
Again, in relation to these mandates that have been imposed over the last 14 months with post-secondary institutions.
We were able to, I guess, as an example here, and again, very recently, there was a 40-year-old racialized single mom who was facing the loss of four years of education, along with any prospect of postgraduate studies.
She couldn't get an exemption to the vaccine mandate and came to us for help.
And this was actually just three weeks ago.
She reached out to us: hey, I need some help with respect to this.
We were able to send off a letter to her school, enter into negotiations with the on-staff lawyer with the school and obtain an exemption for her.
So she has now gone from, I am no longer able to complete my studies, to not only am I able to complete my studies, but I am able to maintain my postgraduate aspirations.
Gratitude For Support00:02:56
I have to say for that particular matter, the credit there goes to one of our senior litigation lawyers, Mark Joseph.
Yeah.
Well, that's great to hear.
So it's not always a ticket or a charge, but haggling with these authoritarian, bureaucratic, Kafka-esque sets of rules, universities can be the worst for that.
Well, listen, Adam, I'm very proud of the work that you've done.
I think back three years ago to that first case of Arthur Pavlovsky, and I would never in a million of years have thought that we would have 2,500 cases, a full-time staff of three lawyers, four paralegals, and tens of thousands of supporters.
And I'm one of them.
Tens of thousands of supporters chipping in.
I think the average gift to the Democracy Fund is only around about $100.
Amazingly, the Democracy Fund can issue charitable tax receipts, which, of course, Rebel News could not do.
That's one of the reasons the Democracy Fund was set up to issue charitable tax receipts because it is charitable work.
Defending people who can't afford their lawyers is charitable work, not just to help that individual, but to defend civil rights.
That is a noble charitable purpose.
You're doing a great job.
I feel a lot better briefed and smart on the subject.
And it's good to know that the work actually is not just going on.
It's about to hit its most important part.
Hundreds and hundreds of trials.
You're going to be busy.
And same with the rest of the team.
So good luck with that and keep it up.
Thanks, Ezra.
And look, I think we could probably do this again.
We've got a lot of work ahead of us, like you said.
All I can do is thank the donors for their very generous support.
It's because of them that we're able to do this and get the successes.
Look, I think the successes here speak for themselves.
And that's because of our very generous donors.
Well, isn't that the truth?
And folks, you can find out more at the democracyfund.ca.
And we didn't even talk about the work the Democracy Fund did at the Emergencies Act Commission of Inquiry, where the Democracy Fund was accredited as an intervener.
You guys were accredited as an intervener in a court case in Windsor.
So you guys are really doing important work.
Well, maybe we can catch up with you in another month or two, especially as some of these cases start to go through a trial.
If the prosecutor doesn't blink, I'd love to see how these go.
In the meantime, keep up the great work and thanks for your service.
Thanks so much, Ezra.
Thanks very much for having me.
Our pleasure.
There you have it.
Adam Blake Gallipo, a litigator with the Democracy Fund who works on the projects that took over the Fight the Finds project.