Judge: Mandates for working remotely "unreasonable"! Musk: X will fight for Canadians defending free speech! Zuboff: Time to defend Democracy - now! + Other Great News from Freedom & GC nets
Other Critical News: US President Candidate Bobby Kennedy suing Meta. MP Lewes: WHO ALERT
UPDATED (17 May 2024)
Added more YouTube video links to watch interviews with the GC Data Conference 2024 Speaker: Shoshana Zuboff - GC Data Conference 2024 - calling for action to protect Democracy now.
Part I: Wins of the Week
For additional wins, see:
https://vaccinechoicecanada.com/wins-of-the-week/wins-of-the-week-may-17/
Judge: Mandates for unvaccinated working remotely - "unreasonable"!
(See also Comments sections there for reaction to this News from Canadians, some of whom had more than half a year salary stolen from them by these, now proven to be unlawful, mandates)
Published May 14, 2024
OTTAWA — A labour arbitrator has struck down part of Canada Post’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy for employees, ruling it was unreasonable to suspend staff without pay who worked remotely simply because they did not confirm they were vaccinated.
Her ruling, issued last week, could provide some indication of the potential outcomes to more sweeping grievances filed in 2021 by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) against the government’s mandatory vaccination policy for most of those members who worked remotely. The postal employee union is part of PSAC, the country’s largest public service union.
Those grievances are still in front of arbitrators. In each ongoing case, PSAC is requesting the government be forced to compensate unvaccinated members suspended without pay due to what it argues was an “unreasonable” application of the government’s vaccine mandate for public servants.
https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/cala/doc/2024/2024canlii38829/2024canlii38829.html
AWARD
1. The Union has filed this policy grievance regarding the Canada Post’s Mandatory Vaccination Practice (“Practice”). The grievance raises the following narrow issue: Was it unreasonable for Canada Post to apply the Practice to employees who worked remotely? …
DISPOSITION
131. The Practice is unreasonable to the extent that it applied to UPCE employees who worked exclusively remotely. While the Practice was in place, an employee worked exclusively remotely if: (a) they completed the full ambit of their assigned duties remotely; and (b) there was no reasonable prospect they would be required to attend work in person for operational reasons or to complete the full ambit of their assigned duties.
132. Applying the Practice to exclusively remote workers did not advance its main purpose, which was to limit the risk of COVID transmission in the workplace. There was no meaningful connection between the Practice’s objective and the measures imposed on exclusively remote workers. It is not clear that the Employer’s workplace health and safety interests extend to requiring vaccination because this could increase the likelihood that exclusively remote workers (who have no reasonable prospect of in-person work) would be available to do their jobs. To the extent that any such interest exists, however, it is significantly outweighed by the employees’ interests in their privacy and in ongoing paid employment. This aspect of the grievance is allowed.
At the same time,
Justice of the BC Supreme Court offered some BC healthcare workers a partial win last week when he ruled that Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is to reconsider her previous denials of requests for vaccine exemptions that were submitted to her by BC healthcare workers who work remotely and by healthcare workers who have no contact with patients, residents, clients, or frontline healthcare workers. The Justice Centre provided lawyers to BC healthcare workers to challenge unjust refusals by Dr. Henry to grant exemptions to vaccine mandates for workers who had no contact with patients. This court ruling is a setback for Dr. Henry. -
https://www.jccf.ca/healthcare-workers-obtain-partial-win-against-bonnie-henry-in-bc-supreme-court
Musk: X will fight for Canadians defending free speech!
Elon Musk’s pledge to pay the legal costs of people who suffer repercussions for speaking their minds on his X social media platform is drawing him deeper into Canada’s battle over free speech. Musk is funding Dr. Kaur Kulvinder Gill’s battle with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, as well as Dr. Matt Strauss against Queen’s University..
Canada now accounts for an outsized portion of Mr. Musk’s legal fight, with half of the four free-speech cases that X is currently funding globally in a push to help “people exercise their right to free speech on X -- and to also work in environments that are free from bullying, harassment, or discrimination.”
Elsewhere
Bobby Kennedy, one of the key contenders for becoming the next U.S. president, is suing Meta
Bobby Kennedy, one of the key contenders for becoming the next U.S. president, is suing Meta in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California as a result of their censorship of the 30 minute biographical film – Who is Bobby Kennedy?
The film has received tens of millions of views so far. However, supporters who attempted to share the video on Facebook and Instagram discovered their posts were censored. The reason given by Facebook was that it’s a malicious website, or spam, is flagged as containing nudity or graphic and violent content, violating community standards, or a simple warning message of ‘upload error’.
Kennedy’s Team declares that if candidates do not have equal access to the digital public square, then we are living in a democracy in name only. –
More: https://whoisbobbykennedy.com
Medical wins & “Exit The WHO!” Alerts
1.Scientists trying to re-infect people with the COVID-19 virus so they could test vaccines and treatments found high levels of immunity made it nearly impossible, according to results from the COVID-19 “Human Challenge” trials in the U.K.
Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense stated:
“The results show the power of natural immunity as compared to the many breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals.”
“Any assertion that vaccination-based immunity is more powerful than natural immunity is complete lunacy — the acquired immune system is a beautiful thing and vaccination is a much less effective substitute.” -
More: https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/natural-immunity-uk-human-covid-challenge-trials/
2. Canada has official joined the World Council of Health (worldcouncilforhealth.org) with a Canadian Chapter, spearheaded by Dr. Mark Trozzi, Ted Kuntz, Jason Christoff, Dr. Lana Nichols, and others. Canada joins 37 other countries who agree to work collaboratively to address global health concerns, and the overreach by unelected bodies as the WHO.
3. MP Leslyn Lewis issued another Open Letter to Minister of Health.
Read more at Leslyn Lewis substack and www.CanadaExitWho.org.
From May 27th-June 1st, world leaders will gather for the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 77th World Health Assembly. During this gathering, it is expected that countries will vote on a new legally binding Pandemic Accord and amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHRs). This is the culmination of the issues I have been warning about for several years now.
Repeatedly, I have raised a variety of concerns including the authority these changes give to the WHO to erode our national health sovereignty in times of emergency.
This week, I sent another letter to the Minister of Health to express my concern about Canada signing on to these amendments because the WHO has not yet released the final version of many of these amendments. This goes directly against Article 55 of the IHR (2005), which stipulates that the WHO Director-General must communicate any proposed amendment to all States Parties at least four months before the World Health Assembly for consideration.
As we await what is ahead in the weeks to come, I want to re-assert that it is undemocratic for Canada to join in this agreement without Canadians having full disclosure and understanding of what is being agreed to.
I also recommend that if you share in these concerns, you consider using your voice and influence to reach out to your Member of Parliament and Senators, who represent you in our Parliament. You can find contact information for Members of Parliament here and for Senators here .
PART II: More Calls and Opportunities for Action
GC Data Conference 2024 - Highlight Video Featuring Shoshana Zuboff
One of the greatest thought leaders of out time, Prof. Shoshana Zuboff , the author of ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ book, calls for action to protect Democracy - now, and the Canada School of Public Service (CSPS) is helping to spread her message around.
In February, three month ago, CSPS invited Shoshana Zuboff to be a speaker for the GC Data Conference 2024 (See: Speaker: Shoshana Zuboff - GC Data Conference 2024 at https://articles.alpha.canada.ca/gc-data-conference/shoshana-zuboff/). Last week, they replayed her presentation in all its entirety.
Below is a two-min highlight from this presentation and a quote from there with her main message.
You can also search YouTube for more interviews with her and calls for Action to Protect Democracy - now: e.g., here (on C-SPAN, last month interview with editor-in-chief of The Verge) and here (at Balsillie School of International Affairs, )
“The key word in all of this is power. This is not a story about data, and it's not even a story about technology, not even a little bit. Forget all of that. This is a story about power, and power is about politics.
And that's why I said to you, surveillance capitalism is what happened when democracy stood down because Democratic leaders decided that certainty and control were more important than freedom, agency, self-governance—the flawed but still best idea ever to have been produced by humanity: that people can and should have the right to govern themselves.
Democracy is not a rock. Democracy is the most fragile, delicate idea, and it requires every generation to be called to defend it, to rebuild it, to protect it, to fight for it. Every generation.”
The requirement that remote workers be vaccinated was truly one of the most bizarre aspects of the whole Covid fiasco.
Thanks for all of this. Shoshana Zuboff was new to me, and I very much appreciate learning about her. I bought her book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism". Now, if I can only find the time to read it.