An Aylmer pastor whose church racked up nearly $275,000 in fines for defying public health measures is challenging Ontario’s pandemic gathering limits before Ontario’s top court Tuesday.
The Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms launched its constitutional challenge to the province’s since-lifted restrictions on outdoor gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic before the Ontario Court of Appeal Tuesday morning.
The center is making the challenge on behalf of Church of God pastor Henry Hildebrandt and his church that was ordered to pay $274,000 in fines and costs for violating gathering limits during three outdoor services in May and June 2021. Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo and its pastor Jacob Reaume is also part of the challenge.
The two churches had questioned the cinstitutionality of the provincial restrictions before a Superior Court justice in St. Thomas in January and February, but that case was dismissed.
The appellants’ lawyers claim the judge erred in assessing expert evidence, disregarding consideration of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and misapplied a legal test to find the restrictions justified, the center said.
The centre, a charity that has launched many COVID law challenges, says it will argue outdoor religious gatherings were safe and restricting outdoor gatherings wasn’t a justified public health response to the pandemic and may have encouraged people to gather indoors, where transmission risks were higher.
“The Charter (of Rights and Freedoms) states that Canadians are guaranteed the right to a robust set of freedoms, including assembly and expression. These are not meant only to be words, but are to be given practical effect by the courts, even if inconvenient for the state,” center lawyer Jorge Pineda said in a release Tuesday.