Dr. Roger Hodkinson describes himself as an agnostic, but he stands for religious freedom.

That's why Hodkinson, the Edmonton area doctor who received international attention after a video of him telling the Edmonton city council exactly what he thought of the municipality's COVID restrictions went viral, headed to GraceLife Church the day it was being walled off by RCMP.

Hodkinson is no fly-by-night conspiracy theorist, though lockdown proponents are keen to paint him that way. He received his general medical degrees from Cambridge University in the U.K., and then became a Royal College certified pathologist in Canada.

But wait, there's more.

Hodkinson was a general practitioner in the U.K. and Canada; staff pathologist at the Misericordia Hospital in Edmonton; a pathologist with the Medical Examiner’s Office in Edmonton determining cause of death; an assistant professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Alberta; the president of the Alberta Society of Laboratory Physicians; and was previously the CEO of a large private medical laboratory in Edmonton.

In short: Hodkinson knows what he's talking about. And he knows that treating GraceLife Church like it's a nuclear waste leak, meant to be kept in a tarp and chain link sarcophagus, is an outrageous overreaction by the government.

GraceLife Church’s property was seized by RCMP and private security contractors at the request of Alberta Health Services because the congregation refuses to comply with COVID lockdown restrictions that limit attendance to 15 per cent of fire code capacity. The church also does not require congregants to wear masks or social distance from each other, in direct contravention of public health orders. GraceLife Pastor James Coates recently spent 35 days in jail for violating public health restrictions on places of worship.

In my exclusive interview with Hodkinson, he told me about his show of support for the church in the congregation's battle with the health bureaucracy. He's very concerned that there is no balance being struck between public health, civil liberties and the economy.