Interview with Chris Weisdorf
On legal battles, judicial notice, Quarantine Act, government overreach, class action and much more.
I’ve only just come across the incredible work and story of Chris Weisdorf.
In this interview we cover quite a bit of ground.
Legal Expertise Without Formal Training: Chris Weisdorf, with a background in finance, gained substantial legal knowledge through his personal court battles, particularly after suing the City of Toronto, which laid the foundation for his legal victories in COVID-related cases.
Fernando Appeal Victory: He successfully argued the Fernando appeal by focusing on the plain English interpretation of Section 14 of the Quarantine Act, using statutory interpretation and the conflict of law doctrine, despite the prosecution submitting no written evidence.
Challenges with Judicial Notice: Weisdorf criticizes the use of judicial notice in COVID cases, which allows courts to accept government claims without requiring proof, stating that this practice eroded the courts' truth-seeking role.
Common Legal Pitfalls: Many legal challenges to COVID measures failed because they were outside the court’s jurisdiction, brought too late, or didn't use expert evidence effectively. Weisdorf stresses the importance of correct legal strategies and the proper deployment of experts.
Ongoing Legal Efforts: Weisdorf is currently focused on a class action lawsuit and the Adam Skelly case, which challenges the pandemic narrative, while continuing his fight against government overreach and seeking support for his legal efforts.
With thanks to Chris Weisdorf.
1. Chris, can you please tell us about your background and what led you to become involved in legal challenges related to COVID-19 measures?
I've been in finance for the past 25 years. Back in 2017/2018, a confluence of events involving legal matters thrust me into that world. The City of Toronto picked a fight with me and I ended up suing them all the way to the Ontario Court of Appeal. I received no help. The entire story behind that was very well researched and published in OffGuardian in July of 2020 here:
“Honey, I Shrunk the People’s Constitutional Rights!” – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org)
I read through over 300 cases and cited 48 on appeal. I spent over 250 hours researching and writing throughout that challenge. It cost me over $5K in printing and court costs and another $5K was ordered against me on appeal because I lost. This is the legal education I received that allowed me to prevail in the Fernando appeal.
2. Despite not being a lawyer, you've achieved significant legal victories. How did you develop your legal expertise?
My legal education truly began with my battle against Toronto. However, I was a Mises Canada lecturer from 2011-2014. I had a financial and economic education in that vein (the Austrian school, a major branch of free market economics) and talked about it publicly, at length. With finance, comes the law. Capitalism can't exist without a legal system to protect it, particularly contractual and property rights. It was my reading and thinking about governance and government, the US Constitution, British common law, and how all of that developed over the centuries, that prepared me for my true, legal education. And to be absolutely clear: I never wanted to become a lawyer or paralegal, and have never attended a single minute of law school. I still don't. I'm doing this to fight for my country. Why? Because, it seems, no one else with actual legal training has, would or could.
3. Could you walk us through the key aspects of the Fernando appeal case and why it was so significant?
I was never too hot on the idea of a Quarantine Act challenge in Ontario. The reason is because everything would almost certainly stay in provincial court, which is low court. This is opposed to Superior Court, which is high court. The difference between the two is in jurisdiction, power and authority. Superior Court can grant all sorts of remedies, particularly declaratory relief, meaning they can declare laws invalid. The provincial court (Ontario Court of Justice) may only convict, acquit, or vary in terms of offences. Moreover, an appeal in provincial court would stay in the same court; it would just be heard by a judge instead of a Justice of the Peace (JP). A judge outranks a JP, and must be legally trained and a previous member of the bar, unlike a JP.
The key aspects regarding the Fernando appeal were the applicability of the Canadian Bill of Rights, section 14 of the Quarantine Act, the plain English language statutory interpretation of s. 14, the doctrine of the conflict of law, the derogation clause at section 6.1 of the impugned order (made under s. 58 of the Quarantine Act), the centuries' old common law right to bodily autonomy, and that rights may only be removed by Parliament or the legislature, with express statutory language clearly indicating the intention to interfere with said rights.
The Canadian Bill of Rights didn't really figure into the judge's decision because we didn't want a new trial, but a decisive victory on appeal. The judge picked up on this and asked if s. 14 was what the appeal really revolved around, which I agreed it did.
In order to win an appeal like this, you would need to demonstrate all of the above in writing, with very well cited and valid authorities. 29 such authorities were submitted spanning nearly 2200 pages. This was in addition to the Appeal Book, Factum and Reply Factum- the latter two of which were about 10 pages each. The factum is a document containing written arguments and citations. It's the meat of the matter. I followed the Superior Court's Criminal Appeal Rules, which is a higher standard than the Court of Justice's rules. I knew this had to be done in writing to hold up should a further appeal be needed to the Superior Court, or the Court of Appeal by way of special application.
The prosecution didn't make a single written submission. Not one document. Not even one page. It was very clear they could not appeal, given this reality. I was surprised and so were a couple of lawyers I told about this at the time, prior to the conclusion of the appeal.
This is a significant win because out of a population of about 41 million people, there wasn't a single challenge brought in Canada which argued any of this properly. Most were by self-represented litigants who had no legal training or experience. Apparently quite a few cited s. 14, but got nowhere. Lawyers wouldn't touch it. This win proves that one can win in a COVID-related case, despite the extreme political pressure and even potential interference behind the scenes. We just have to work 10x harder.
While nothing may change immediately or automatically because this was a low court victory, this opens up the route to a high court challenge. In this case, that would be a class action lawsuit. I am working with counsel right now to serve and file a class action shortly. We are looking for litigants. That is, those who were convicted and/or reached a plea deal to pay a lesser fine within the past couple of years due to a refusal to test, which is a statutory right under s. 14.
4. What was the main argument you presented in the Fernando case, and why do you think it was successful where others had failed?
Statutory interpretation, i.e. the plain English language wording and meaning of s. 14, as well as s. 6.1 in the order which stated that nothing in the order may affect a power or obligation of the Quarantine Act. Section 14 is both a power and an obligation.
I gave the judge a major way out in terms of overturning the appellant's conviction by walking him through the doctrine of the conflict of law. This may very well be the first time this has ever been argued in the Ontario Court of Justice. He didn't weigh in on this in his decision, but it really protected the judge. No judge will stick their neck out in such a politically-charged environment without such protection.
He really drilled down into this at the first hearing and asked me if I meant the government didn't have the authority to test, or that their exercise of said authority was beyond their powers. I said it absolutely was NOT- because that would have placed it within the subject matter decided in the Spencer challenge, decided by the Chief Justice of the Federal Court in June of 2021. I made it crystal clear that conflict of law had never been argued or decided upon with respect to any COVID-related matter.
Ultimately, I did the equivalent of $30-50K worth of work on this appeal had a lawyer undertaken what I did, given the research and time needed to construct the same arguments. With the ticket being for $5K and no chance of any lawyer spending that kind of time, charging for it, or any appellant paying for it, the math is upside down and an appeal like this was never expected to be brought, let alone won.
5. You mentioned the importance of the "plain English interpretation" of Section 14 of the Quarantine Act. Can you explain this concept and why it was crucial to your argument?
This is governed by both statute, i.e. the federal Interpretation Act, and the common law by way of some oft-cited Supreme Court decisions. Statutory interpretation is not brought up often in provincial court, except to the extent that an offence as described may not fit what a prosecutor is asserting, or what a trial judge convicts a defendant for. Otherwise, the law is very rarely challenged outside of a Charter-related context because the provincial courts only have the power to strike law through the Charter. This is why the Charter was heavily targeted from the very beginning- and why British common law jurisdictions, starting with the main ones, the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand- were very heavily targeted regarding emergency measures. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the most powerful piece of legislation that exists on the planet. They could never allow courts, especially the lower courts, to strike law based upon it. Another approach was needed. My approach.
6. How did you approach the concept of "conflict of law" in this case, and why was it important to distinguish it from arguments about government authority?
Once you're outside the bounds of the Charter, there are very few and highly limited ways of arguing a question of pure law to overturn a conviction in provincial court. Normally, this is a legal forum that relies very heavily on evidence brought by the prosecution to demonstrate the guilt of a defendant beyond a reasonable doubt. The evidence in this case, and so many others, was never really in any dispute. Everything came down to questions of law, and law only. Not a question of fact, or mixed fact and law.
In this appeal, the only argument could be made on this basis by arguing the doctrine of the conflict of law. It couldn't be whether the testing requirement in the impugned order was ultra vires, or Latin for "beyond its powers" as stipulated by Parliament in s. 14. This had already been clearly decided (albeit without mention of any specific section of the Quarantine Act) by the Chief Justice of the Federal Court in Spencer in 2021. I made the distinction abundantly clear and had to go over it several times with the judge so he understood it fully. It's a completely separate doctrine of law. Had I not known this, it would've given the judge an easy way out to dismiss the appeal.
7. You've mentioned that "the law went silent" during COVID. Can you elaborate on what you mean by this and its implications?
There is a Latin phrase, inter arma enim silent leges which translates to, "in times of war, the law goes silent". I would add, given the COVID insanity, another Latin phrase: inter peste enim silent leges, or "in times of plague, the law goes silent". Emergencies have been used by governments throughout the decades and centuries to seize or solidify their powers. The "fog of war" has been similarly used to justify all manners of atrocities committed in the name of the state. It just hadn't really been done in the public health sphere before.
Hitler's original declaration of emergency less than one month after being made the Chancellor of Germany was cemented by the passage of the Enabling Act by the Reichstag a month later, in turn, after the emergency. This fits well with respect to the legal footing regarding what we've gone through, and are apparently still going through. The mindset and playbook governing society, however, has apparently been borne out of communism.
Lenin's Red Terror was a murderous rampage in the early days of his reign by the Cheka security forces, which would morph into the internal security goons that would become the NKVD. Seemingly normal men joined their ranks and slaughtered anyone who was labeled an enemy of the revolutionary regime. This became even more systemic under Stalin about 15 years later with the Holodomor in the Ukraine. And that was repeated with Mao's Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution with the help of his wife, Jiang Qing who was absolutely instrumental in the latter in order to bail out the disaster of the former. Another decade later, the Khmer Rouge toppled the regime in Cambodia made possible by the participation of mainly young, military-aged men on jeeps, armed with AK-47s.
The Great Reset is a fascist plan modeled ideologically upon socialist/communist/collectivist principles. When one views the interview of Yuri Bezmenov by G. Edward Griffin in 1984 regarding ideological subversion, this becomes clearer than ever.
Yuri Bezmenov: The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion
FULL INTERVIEW with Yuri Bezmenov: The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion (1984)
8. How do you view the role of judicial notice in COVID-related cases, and why do you think it's problematic?
Had Melani Fernando or I argued the efficacy of the PCR test originally during trial, or upon appeal, we would have lost. Instantly. This is due to judicial notice taken of anything and everything regarding COVID. The Supreme Court defined judicial notice in R. v. Find in 2001 at paragraph 48:
"...a court may properly take judicial notice of facts that are either: (1) so notorious or generally accepted as not to be the subject of debate among reasonable persons; or (2) capable of immediate and accurate demonstration by resort to readily accessible sources of indisputable accuracy..."
R. v. Find, [2001] 1 S.C.R. 863, 2001 SCC 32
Previous to COVID, judicial notice had only been used in cases that concerned social science or racism. It would have likely been used in climate change/global warming cases, but judicial notice was not used in that context in Canada, as far as I'm aware.
Judicial notice has never been used in a medical or scientific context previously. And it must be banned by way of constitutional amendment. There is no other way. Science and medicine are always evolving- or devolving, as they've been recently. The government is not always right. They're almost always wrong, particularly historically. The credibility and authority of the courts will be severely, and perhaps irreparably, undermined as the fraud of everything COVID-related is exposed over time. They should have never sided with government unequivocally, without demanding evidence. NEVER. That eviscerated the truth-seeking function of the courts, which is absolutely fundamental to their existence. It also annihilated the separation of powers between the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government as the politicians and judges both "deferred" to the executive branch, or the "experts". The separation of powers was defined in the Federalist No. 47 in 1788 by James Madison:
"The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny."
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0266
By definition, the COVID emergency measures were all textbook tyranny as defined by one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.
9. Can you explain the concept of "union court" and why it's significant for many Canadians challenging COVID measures?
There are the courts, and then there are the tribunals. What's the difference? The courts occupy their own part(s) of the Constitution. The tribunals are creations of statute; by Parliament, or the legislatures. Unionized workplaces all fall under labour relations regimes created by statute. Said statutes or Acts of Parliament or the legislatures contain "privative clauses" which preclude union-related matters from being heard in court. The only practical exception would be when there is a judicial review of a decision in the labour relations regime. The labour boards and arbitrators receive significant deference from the courts due to their regimes as defined by statute.
These adjudicators and unions really took advantage of union members for all COVID-related matters. According to the law as defined by statute and upheld by the Supreme Court, union members have no legal recourse or access to justice at all if the union refuses to grieve on their behalf. Why? Collective rights trump individual rights. All members sign away their individual rights when joining a union in solidarity with their brotherhood and sisterhood of workers. The individual worker is completely expendable and may be sacrificed on the altar of the needs of the collective. There have been no notable victories in the labour relations regimes or courts in Canada for this reason.
The most damaging decisions in the history of Canadian employment law were in the National Organized Workers Union decisions in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the Ontario Court of Appeal, respectively. Four judges quite literally disappeared 127 pages of unrefuted expert evidence by ducking both cases on jurisdiction. This was an absolute travesty and legal atrocity. They are binding precedents and it is unclear how they can ever be overturned.
Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113 v. Toronto Transit Commission, 2021 ONSC 7658, https://canlii.ca/t/jklr9
National Organized Workers Union v. Sinai Health System, 2022 ONCA 802, https://canlii.ca/t/jt3x0
10. What advice would you give to Canadians who want to challenge COVID-related measures but are part of a union?
Keep pushing your union to grieve on your behalf. Your only other options are to find another job outside of the union, take over your union, or to move to a more favourable jurisdiction for unions litigating labour relations matters, but are not barred from court. The best example is the New York Supreme Court delivering two, separate devastating defeats to the state and NYC vaccine mandates in the fall of 2022 to union litigants. In general, however, a collective rights environment weighs very heavily against individual rights. I've heard of members actually paying dues for the time they were locked out of their work for non-compliance with the mandates. That is quite literally slavery. What do you think will happen next time around? If you're a union member, you are expendable and may be sacrificed at any time. Bottom line.
11. You've mentioned the importance of expert evidence in these cases. Can you explain why this is crucial and how it should be approached?
The only way to legally displace judicial notice is by way of properly proffered expert evidence. This has either been non-existent, or executed very badly thus far. The reason is because the pool of available, competent legal counsel is limited for COVID-related matters. Many were conflicted out early on by government retainers with their firms, likely very deliberately. Others were too afraid to stick their necks out. The remainder specialize in areas of law that are not normally concerned with utilizing or challenging expert evidence.
The same problems have plagued experts, themselves. Most have been bullied into silence and compliance. Those who've stuck their necks out have been severely punished by being banned from campus for over 1000 days, such as Dr. Byram Bridle, or had their medical licence revoked, such as Dr. Mark Trozzi. The pool of available experts is limited, but has expanded over the past four years. A broad variety of experts is needed to challenge every facet of judicial notice and to call out the Great Lie of the pandemic narrative.
The problem today is it's too late to challenge any mandates as they've long expired. The only way forward is to sue for damages as discovery of what led to those damages becomes clear, convincing and connected to the mandates. Experts must be used to displace judicial notice by opining in various, different fields of their expertise. They must be asked to opine on the most relevant questions of fact to attack every element of judicial notice and to impugn every measure imposed.
The most important questions would be regarding reasonable alternatives to said measures at the time they were imposed. This could be any pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical intervention that was precluded by the government. The existence of any reasonable alternative would preclude the imposition of a single emergency measure in many jurisdictions. Under United States Code (federal law) the EUA, or emergency use authorization, could not exist. That means no testing, no remdesivir, no vaccines and ultimately no mandates. Under the Quarantine Act in Canada, that means no orders regarding testing, vaccination, or documentation. And under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act here in Ontario, Canada that means no lockdowns, no distancing, no testing, and no vaccine mandates. Mandatory masking would have likely been precluded, as well.
The Adam Skelly / Adamson Barbecue challenge, in which I originally acted as advisor and coordinator of evidence, has six experts who have already opined in the areas of public health, pharmacology, economics, statistics, pulmonology, epidemiology, virology, immunology and reasonable alternatives. This case has yet to be heard, but has the standing to do so. There is no other such case anywhere that I'm aware of and is the only case that challenges the Great Lie, as I refer to it. That is the pandemic narrative.
The Concerned Concerned Constituents of Canada, a not-for-profit corporation was formed to ensure this case, and potentially others, are heard in the public interest. I am a co-founder and director. Our site and the GiveSendGo for the Skelly challenge are as follows:
https://www.givesendgo.com/bbq_rebellion
12. What are some common pitfalls you've observed in legal challenges to COVID measures, and how can they be avoided?
They brought challenges outside of the court's jurisdiction (labour relations, human rights, etc.)
They brought applications to strike laws that had already expired or been repealed, making them moot
They didn't bring actions to sue for damages
They didn't attempt to displace judicial notice
They brought challenges that were too narrow
They invoked the Charter when a higher court had already precluded its invocation
When employing experts, the experts were not deployed correctly
When employing experts, not enough of them were retained per challenge
Lawyers have been very hesitant to challenge the narrative in general
The only way to avoid these problems would be to plan for the future because there are very few outstanding challenges that can correct past wrongs and evils. I will say at this point that the most egregious abuses and negligence by counsel have involved labour relations challenges. It is inexcusable that so many were attempted in court in 2022 and beyond, despite our Supreme Court ruling very clearly that union-related challenges cannot be heard in court in the Horrocks decision near the end of October, 2021.
13. Can you discuss the significance of the Adam Skelly case and why you believe its evidence is so crucial?
Simply put, this challenge is the only one that may still actually be heard in court due to the passage of time. The expert evidence has been before the court since April/May of 2021. Every other challenge is moot, doesn't have standing, or is out of jurisdiction. Even if something else could be heard and money was not an object, the government would simply respond by saying hindsight is 20/20 and that they always acted in good faith.
There is the description of the case at the GiveSendGo, that I wrote, it remains intact, other than the expert reports listed. They can be found here: https://canucklaw.ca/adam-skelly-part-1/
14. You mentioned several recent Supreme Court decisions, including the Power decision. How might these impact future legal challenges related to COVID measures?
Canada's Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of the US have rendered decisions that I didn't think would come anytime soon. The Power decision was not something I thought possible here, given the 6-3 majority-appointed Justices from the current Liberal, basket case government. Read: led by Justin Trudeau. It was the Liberal-side that rendered the decision. The Conservative-side opposed. I never saw that coming.
With respect to the US, there were three decisions: one overturned most of the grounds for convicting the J6 protestors, one overturned the SEC's tribunal jurisdiction in favour of a jury trial, and the other overturned Chevron deference which had been in place for 40 years. Perhaps the Power decision was a fluke, but there was another recent decision in June regarding a school board that changed their longstanding Charter rights-based analysis. The US decisions were definitely no fluke. The Court is fulfilling its function within the separation of powers. These are the most significant decisions in nearly a century.
People are mostly pessimistic about the courts, but I am optimistic. Anyone who watches sports will see instances of referees or umpires making bad calls, then attempt to "even the score" with a favourable call later. This is definitely as far as possible from how the law is supposed to work, but it happened in those cases. Some bad precedents were overturned and that's a good thing.
That said it's ultimately not up to the courts to make political calls. It's up to enough individual people to stand up and defy patently unjust laws. This is especially important with hostile and/or outright compromised politicians. The World Economic Forum has openly bragged about controlling our politicians and the Chinese Communist Party has been directly implicated over the long-term in terms of having control over our lawmakers.
Less than 5% of the population, as an intransigent minority, is enough to move the courts, the legislatures and the rest of society, itself. The belief that a majority is needed to decide anything is one of the greatest lies ever told. Please see the attached, related chapter from Nassim Taleb's iconic 2018 book, Skin in the Game.
15. What are you currently focused on, and how can people stay informed about or support your work?
The class action against the government, the Skelly case, and business matters that demand my attention. My efforts may have been successful and are otherwise making progress, but they have been a huge financial drain. Here are my contacts:
E-mail/e-transfer: breathefreeontario@protonmail.com
Website: Home Page - Concerned Constituents of Canada (cccan.org)
Telegram: @BarakaX and the Oppose Vaccine Mandates group
Twitter: @CanaryFFF
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weisdorf
If you wish to support me directly, you can donate via e-transfer or contact me for cryptocurrency and other options.
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God bless this courageous man! He is truly a brave, moral man willing to take on the powers that be, with no law degree and no compensation. We are all lucky that people like him exist to win victories for us. This is the first I’ve heard of him. Thanks for this enlightening interview.
I do wish I understood the legal stuff better, but thank you for this interview.