UPDATE: We're helping Whistle Stop Cafe owner Chris Scott appeal insane compelled speech order

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Friends, we're going back to court. We're helping Chris Scott appeal the imposed speech ruling that was handed down to him by Justice Adam Germain in a Calgary virtual courtroom just two weeks ago. This judge's order is a bucket of ice water being dumped on the flame of freedom here in Alberta.

I'll bring you an update to the case, then we're going to hear from Chris Scott's lawyer — and then I'm going to ask you to help us in two different ways.

One of those ways is holding the judge accountable, by sending an email to the Canadian Judicial Council and signing our petition at FireTheJudge.com.

Now for those of you who don't know, or who need a quick refresher, this is one of the craziest stories unfolding in the Western world right now, because of its implications for free speech. What happens to you if you use your right to protest the government's direct actions against you? And what happens when a judge in a courtroom thinks that he can compel the speech of the people he's punishing for exercising free speech? It's all very North Korean.

Small town diner owner Chris Scott, from Mirror, Alberta (population: 500) stood up to the government. He refused to close his restaurant to dine-in services when the government outlawed them as part of the Alberta government's coronavirus restrictions on public gatherings.

For that, the government harassed him for weeks, if not months, ticketed him, fined him, tried to close his business, and police and health inspectors were there nearly every day. Then came a time that the government seized his property. They put a chain around the door of the gas station and restaurant and convenience store and closed his adjacent campsite. It's the only gas station and convenience store in town, so it was a collective punishment for the entire community. So Chris planned a protest against what the government had done to him, and 1500 people converged on his property. Prior to this though, the government sought a restraining order in secret against Chris and a couple other high profile lockdown resistors, including Pastor Art Pawlowski, his brother David and Glen Carritt, a mayoral candidate in Innisfail, Alberta, to prevent them from engaging in illegal public gatherings. Which included for these men church services, protests and outdoor campaign events.

But protesting the government's heavy-handed actions against you is a right here in Canada, and Chris sought to exercise it. For it, police arrested him for contempt of a court order and held him in jail for 3 days. He was found guilty of contempt and ultimately sentenced. And his sentence included fines, costs to the government, the inability to travel outside of the province — a restriction on his movement tailored to prevent him telling his story in person to other people — and the most Draconian of all: a compelled speech order wherein Chris Scott and his fellow contemners, the Pawlowskis, would have to recite a specific script handed to them by Justice Germain before any of them made any anti-lockdown remarks in any public forum, including on social media or, in the case of the Pawlowskis, at their own church.

Well this is absolutely outrageous, and we can't let this sit for Scott and the Pawlowskis, but it also cannot rest as a precedent to be used against other Canadians where a judge could interject his own political views about lockdowns and vaccines and restrictions, and compel someone he is sentencing to parrot them. No Canadian should be forced to give the government's talking points before they express their views on the government. So we're headed back to court to appeal this decision, not just for Scott, not just for the Pawlowskis, but for all of us.

You can read the appeal for yourself right here:

All of this is made possible through your generous crowdfunding donations to FightTheFines.com. That money flows to a registered Canadian charity — none of it comes to us here at Rebel News — and that registered Canadian charity, the Democracy Fund, pays legal fees and educates Canadians on civil liberties.