The Citizens’ Hearing took place from June 22nd to 24th, 2022 in Toronto, Canada, and marked the launch of an historic documentation of Canadians negatively impacted by government responses to COVID-19. Frontier is featuring extracts weekly.
Leighton Grey is a labour lawyer in Alberta. His position is that “vaccine mandates” have nothing to do with either health or science, but are instead political. Specifically, they represent a political attack on the working class.
He currently has a case in court against Deena Hinshaw over lockdown restrictions, which he is targeting as unconstitutional. As for the working class, and mounting frustrations, the Freedom Convoy was the culmination of that reality, he explained. His firm is representing thousands of workers, both unionized and non-unionized, who are being forced to disclose statutorily protected private medical information, or forced to take questionable and intrusive tests. He identified the Prime Minister’s Office as the fountainhead of all these mandates. His firm has cases in provincial and federal courts that involve over a billion dollars in damages claims.
Within workplaces, some are targeted for treatment as inferior, dangerous beings—“the pandemic of the unvaccinated,” being one way they are stigmatized. Involuntary, unpaid leaves of absence are wrongful dismissals, he argued. The federal government further violates “unvaccinated” workers’ rights by denying Employment Insurance payments. He listed a slew of bills, codes, and statutes that have been violated by such policies. He is seeking aggravated and punitive damages for emotional, psychological, and physical harm. He still has come confidence in the legal system, despite known biases (such as those of the Chief Justice who is being challenged by a judicial complaint).
In response to questions from the moderator and the panel, he noted that “vaccine mandates” even violate the Criminal Code, as an assault, plus exposing persons to physical or psychological harm (and he cited the relevant provisions). The effect of the denial of informed consent amounts to psychological harm, to say the least. Are those who issue the mandates liable for damages caused by the “vaccines”? His answer was yes, and there is a (woefully inadequate) compensatory system which at least confirms the liability of the federal government. He says we are still in “early days” of determining the harms caused by these shots, and there is more coming. He expects class action suits will come, and that the pharmaceutical companies have probably already factored in the cost of eventually paying damages, into their calculations of net profit. On the issue of unpaid, mandated leaves of absence, he reiterated that this an orchestrated attack on the working class, and to diminish its power. The refusal of the federal and provincial governments to pay back wages, is further evidence of that deliberate malice. (27 minutes)
