I have some new hope and I’d like to tell you why

Rebel News
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November 26, 2021

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We had a huge win in court yesterday. A senior court — the Alberta Court of Appeal, the highest court in Alberta. Maybe you saw my quick video about it yesterday.

And please watch Sheila’s video on the subject too.

Pastor Artur Pawlowski, his brother Dawid, and a small businessman named Chris Scott — they were all appealing an atrocious sentence handed down by a lockdownist judge named Adam Germain.

And the good guys won. Absolutely won.

Justice Jo'Anne Strekaf heard an application by the three men — all with lawyers crowdfunded by us — to “stay” the sentence against them. That is, to freeze it, to suspend it, on an emergency basis, until a full, proper appeal can be heard by the Court of Appeal.

As in — there will be a longer hearing at the Court of Appeal, probably with three judges. But that won’t happen until June.

So Justice Strekaf made an urgent ruling yesterday that, effective immediately, the most atrocious aspects of the sentence against these men are suspended.

They don’t have to live under that sentence while they wait for the appeal in June.

And let me tell you, to get a “stay”, as it’s called, is not easy.

You have to prove irreparable harm; and a likelihood of the success of your appeal. So the fact that the three men won yesterday is not only a great victory in itself, but it’s a signal, I believe, that this atrocious sentence will be properly torn to ribbons in June.

This was a quick case; the judge pronounced her ruling the same day, orally — she wouldn’t wait. She’ll put out a written statement later. But she literally wouldn’t wait an hour before freeing the men.

If I were the Alberta government, the prosecutors, and the thuggish lower court judge who made this outrageous sentence, I wouldn’t be feeling very optimistic.

On tonight's show, we'll cover the background of the case and talk about what this means for the future.

This wouldn’t have happened without our system. And by that I mean, our outstanding lawyers who were there — we were crowdfunding the lawyers for all three men. I don’t have the legal bills in front of me, but I’m certain we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars between these three men over the past year.

Against the unlimited resources of the state. We had excellent lawyers. And we won.

Those lawyers wouldn’t have been possible without our Rebel News viewers chipping in.

There’s no way that pastors or a diner owner could muster that kind of money. No way at all. And finding the best lawyers around — that matters too. And appealing every loss aggressively, even against all odds, refusing to say die, refusing to give up.

That is only possible because of our Rebel News viewers and donors. And that’s what’s so sad and scary — is that it was just us. No-one else was in court with us for these men.

No civil liberties group. No chamber of commerce for the restaurateur; no religious group for the pastors. Were it not for our lawyers — were it not for our funders, and by that I mean you — this atrocious sentence would be the law — and it would be the ongoing precedent.

Think about that. We not only set aside this sentence that was abusing these men; but we now have a judge who has seriously rebuked the idea of compelled speech! And that would have instead been an awful precedent. If we weren’t there, who would have been?

The battle is not over; it’s going to get worse yet, before it gets better. But today, for the first time in nearly two years, I can say that I truly believe in my heart that we can win. I don’t know if we will, but I again believe that it’s possible.

Thank you for being a part of this. And thanks to our great reporters on the ground in Alberta, Sheila Gunn Reid, Adam Soos and Kian Simone and the rest of our team for telling the story too.

GUEST: Sheila Gunn Reid (@SheilaGunnReid on Twitter)

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