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Nearly six years after his defiant stand against sweeping COVID-19 lockdowns, Adam Skelly is headed back to court in what could become one of the most significant constitutional challenges to Ontario’s pandemic regime.

In November 2020, the former restaurateur Skelly reopened his Etobicoke restaurant in open defiance of provincial orders issued under the Reopening Ontario Act. The protest, dubbed the “Barbecue Rebellion,” drew crowds, media attention, and ultimately police enforcement. Skelly was arrested, his property seized, and the restaurant locked down by authorities.

This week, his Charter challenge will be heard at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto from February 25 to 27.

“We’re claiming a bunch of Charter violations,” Skelly said in an interview ahead of the hearing. “Freedom of expression, life and liberty, peaceful protest — even cruel and unusual punishment. If a breach is found, the government will argue it was justified under Section 1.”

Skelly’s legal team and his handful of experts will argue it wasn’t.

Now living on a rural farm in Alberta with his wife and four children, Skelly describes his new life as markedly different from what he experienced in Ontario.

“It certainly feels free,” he said. “We’re taking responsibility for the food we eat and the work we do. The government’s been awesome to deal with — they’ve left us alone and only engaged as far as we choose to.”

But the legal battle has been years in the making. An earlier constitutional application was dismissed on procedural grounds. Skelly says that error has since been rectified, and the current case has overcome significant financial and legal hurdles — including a $30,000 security-for-costs order.

Central to the case are allegations that public health directives lacked sufficient evidentiary backing. Skelly argues that government data inflated COVID death statistics and that key decisions were shielded from scrutiny.

“The city and the province have raised basically no evidence to support that lockdowns were demonstrably justified,” he said. “When we deposed then-medical officer of health Eileen de Villa, she refused to provide the evidence supporting restaurant closures.”

Skelly also points to internal disputes between Toronto officials and the Ford government at the time, noting that crucial meetings were held under non-disclosure agreements, even after Premier Ford said he needed “hard evidence” to justify more lockdowns.

This case hopes to lift that veil of secrecy and expose whether the sweeping lockdown decisions were grounded in transparent, demonstrable evidence or shielded behind closed-door deliberations and procedural defences.

Presiding over the case is Justice Janet Leiper, former integrity commissioner for Toronto, whom Skully is optimistic about.

“We just pray that it goes well — that we get a judge who wants to hear these arguments on their merits and not dismiss them over procedural technicalities.”

He is encouraging supporters to respect the proceedings, noting the significance of what could become a precedent-setting case. After all, if successful, the ruling could open the door for other shuttered businesses to pursue civil claims.

Supporters can donate to the nonprofit Concerned Constituents of Canada to assist with legal costs.

As Skelly put it: “The government is just a stack of papers.”

“The government doesn’t have its own will. It’s done by men and women acting, so use your free will. Repent. Turn from your sin. Do the right thing and enact the change that you want to see.”