Protester challenges COVID-19 overreach in legal battle, exposing sanctioned democratic erosion

The story of Graham Walker has been culminating over the last two-and-a-half years and is a direct result of the tyrannical, unjustified government-imposed COVID-19-related health protection measures that we put in place throughout 2020 and 2021.

Walker is a man of conviction and determination who is representing himself against four tickets in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. He was in court earlier this week for a ticket he received on May 8 for the crime of peacefully standing in front of Cobourg’s iconic Victoria Hall.

The town square is a highly historic and traditional place of protest which became a hub during the COVID hysteria beginning in April 2020, drawing both small and large groups. A dedicated few continued the protests through years of rolling restrictions and Graham Walker was often one of them.

Mr. Walker and like-minded individuals persisted in exercising what they thought was a democratic right — to have and be able to voice an unpopular opinion in the face of a tyrannical majority — despite harshly imposed suppressive public health measures.

Not only has this hearing far surpassed the time laid out to receive access to a fair and timely trial, but it took the Crown over two years to figure out what law Walker was being charged under.

“The tickets were written under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act (EMCPA), which didn’t say anything about the ‘stay-at-home order,’” Walker explains of his unclear fine. “Two years and two months later [the prosecution] said it had to do with the stay-at-home-order.”

“I’ve pointed out that there is an error on the face of the ticket. They’re charging me under something that didn’t relate to anything on the stay-at-home order. The actual section had something to do with some penalties so there was no offence listed on the ticket. Then I went ahead and refuted the stay-at-home order because I had legitimate things I was doing out – I went shopping, to the bank, I was also protesting, I was clear about that. Which isn’t an exemption but we’re in Canada, not China.”

One of his points in the courtroom was a concluding statement that read:

“Your Honour I was acting no less reasonably than anyone else conducting business on that beautiful spring afternoon. I just had a visible, unpopular opinion with the local authorities which is protected in Canada.”

Indeed, Canadians are supposed to have Charter rights, however the prosecution said that Section 1, the “reasonable limits clause,” was justified throughout the marketed deadly pandemic which, according to them, included the stay-at-home order implemented in the first quarter of 2021.

“Especially that day,” he says. “That was the first day of the Cobourg farmers market… the streets were packed with people walking around… I wasn’t interfering and I wasn’t harming anybody.”

Walker says that he has dedicated hundreds of hours of research to his self-defence and the Justice overseeing his case thanked him for his respectful and succinct conduct.

“I have no legal training,” furthered Walker. “I’m a truck driver and a farmer, but I’ve really enjoyed learning [the process].”

“Very peaceful protest the whole time. In the two years that we protested in front of Victoria Hall there was never an issue and we continued throughout the stay-at-home order.”

Walker’s wife Pheonix expresses how proud she is of her husband's perseverance.

“We went into this with our heads down and said ‘We’re going to do this’ and he is seeing this through,” she tearfully shares.

Despite the Canadian Civil Liberties Association asserting that “people in a democratic society have the right to protest,” and that restricting that fundamental right silences the voices of those in our society who may have limited means for making their views known, that is exactly what happened throughout the COVID hysteria.

Town council meetings were halted and forced online, elected officials responded with generic “received and noted” to valid constituent questions and concerns, if they responded at all.

Gatherings, including those outdoors, were severely limited or forbidden completely, as though outdoor viral spread was a scientific fact instead of the voodoo quackery it is.

Illogical closures included Northumberland County’s shuttering of hundreds of acres of walking trails spanning the entire Northumberland forest. This was followed by the Town of Cobourg’s closure of the local beach, a closure that would span throughout 2021, without a by-law or any legal authority to support the unjustified public access restriction.

Will justice and the law prevail for Walker? Will he be vindicated from his crime of peaceful protest in the wake of grotesque overreach, the destruction of democratic due process, police just following orders, and a largely fearful, yet tyrannical majority?

Only time will tell.