I am writing to advise that Chief Justice Wagner has considered the certificates and letter, and has concluded that there is no actual or reasonable apprehension of bias that would require his recusal under the applicable legal test. In this respect, Chief Justice Wagner has advised that he did not, at any time, either directly or indirectly, comment on the Emergencies Act, RSC 1985, c 22 (4th Supp) or matters at issue in the proceedings
Then in a press conference in June 2022, the chief justice described the impact of the Freedom Convoy’s blockades on many Ottawa business and individuals — particularly “the most vulnerable” — as “deplorable.”
He also implemented a mask mandate at the SCOC, a complete Branch Covidian.
There is considerable hand wringing in Canadian establishment circles about the loss of faith in institutions. This is usually attributed to some vague mythical populist campaign against these institutions. The truth is that the institutions are doing it to themselves.
I can't speak to the recusal test elements or whether Wagner would meet them, but he is absolutely lying about not making negative and/or prejudicial comments about the convoy. I have not seen video, but he's been directly quoted on this matter across dozens of news platforms, right and left, for years. He may be playing pissy semantics games by making the Emergencies Act the subject of his statement here rather than the convoy, but that's just constructive lying.
Yes, he's exactly claiming he didn't make remarks about the Emergencies Act specifically, just the people it was invoked upon.
But the judicial issue isn't whether the EA is constitutional, but if invoking it ON THE FREEDOM CONVOY is. The whole point is if the FC was big & bad enough to need the EA.
As mentioned in the article, we just had a judge who initially said he wasn't going to recluse himself from another trial but did after he heard submissions:
He told parties at the time there was “no legal basis for his recusal” but was doing to “avoid his participation becoming a distraction.”
From 2006 to 2019, Jamal was on the board of directors of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), which along with the National Council of Canadian Muslims filed a legal challenge on June 17, 2019 in Quebec Superior Court to stay the application of the secularism law and declare it invalid.
In theory, he's not even directly adjudicating the invocation of the EA, rather he's reviewing whether the (unanimous) decisions of the lower courts were made properly. But considering how Canadian courts have taken hurt feelings into consideration in sentencing, who knows?
This may have been the plan all along by the Liberals; make a bunch of garbage arguments (and the were, as every judge who has seen the case so far can attest) just to get it to the Supreme Court, which they effectively control. It's not their money to waste, after all.
Realistically, the Supreme Court doesn't even need to hear this case, particularily in light of how it has gone so far (ie completely against the government). I'll be interested in seeing what happens because this really is the final test to see whether politics or rule of law holds in Canada.
Correct. 4 different judges on 2 different courts have all agreed on the same thing. The Appeals Court was 3 judges who made a unanimous decision, there was no split verdicts anywhere.
Only the Rouleau inquiry, where Trudeau literally appointed the judge, found anything different.
He also implemented a mask mandate at the SCOC, a complete Branch Covidian.
https://x.com/LitigationGuy/status/2050201317944037537
I can't speak to the recusal test elements or whether Wagner would meet them, but he is absolutely lying about not making negative and/or prejudicial comments about the convoy. I have not seen video, but he's been directly quoted on this matter across dozens of news platforms, right and left, for years. He may be playing pissy semantics games by making the Emergencies Act the subject of his statement here rather than the convoy, but that's just constructive lying.
Yes, he's exactly claiming he didn't make remarks about the Emergencies Act specifically, just the people it was invoked upon.
But the judicial issue isn't whether the EA is constitutional, but if invoking it ON THE FREEDOM CONVOY is. The whole point is if the FC was big & bad enough to need the EA.
As mentioned in the article, we just had a judge who initially said he wasn't going to recluse himself from another trial but did after he heard submissions:
And that was just because he was board president for one of the plaintiffs https://archive.is/wip/ahJ4G
This whole thing smacks of legal malarkey.
In theory, he's not even directly adjudicating the invocation of the EA, rather he's reviewing whether the (unanimous) decisions of the lower courts were made properly. But considering how Canadian courts have taken hurt feelings into consideration in sentencing, who knows?
This may have been the plan all along by the Liberals; make a bunch of garbage arguments (and the were, as every judge who has seen the case so far can attest) just to get it to the Supreme Court, which they effectively control. It's not their money to waste, after all.
Realistically, the Supreme Court doesn't even need to hear this case, particularily in light of how it has gone so far (ie completely against the government). I'll be interested in seeing what happens because this really is the final test to see whether politics or rule of law holds in Canada.
Correct. 4 different judges on 2 different courts have all agreed on the same thing. The Appeals Court was 3 judges who made a unanimous decision, there was no split verdicts anywhere.
Only the Rouleau inquiry, where Trudeau literally appointed the judge, found anything different.