Last week Canada’s Supreme Court opted not to hear the appeal of two Ontario churches (Aylmer Church of God and Trinity Bible Chapel) who “sought to argue that the lower courts improperly failed to assess whether the gathering restrictions infringed on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and association.” In this, they upheld the previous refusal of the churches’ challenge by Superior Court Judge Renée Pomerance in December of 2022. While Pomerance acknowledged that covid restrictions did interfere with religious liberty, she then simultaneously herniated all 23 of her spinal discs in concluding that they were “reasonable and demonstrably justified.”
It isn’t my intention here to dredge through the peat bog of bias that led to Pomerance's dismissal of the appeal in the first place. Nor do I want to get into the future implications of the Supreme Court’s dismissal, which won’t be small by the way. In the time remaining, I simply want to do two things: 1. Explain why the dismissals shouldn't surprise us. 2. Explain why they shouldn’t dishearten us.
Truth be told, I started into this topic struggling to muster up enough good humour to get through it. It wasn't that I'd lost hope. It was that what little I had in the Canadian justice system had finally hopped the last train for the coast — and I was still trying to figure out what to do in its absence.
Turns out I didn't need more cynicism. Just a better hope.
A Leaning Tower of Lies
To understand why the courts don't want to touch this thing with a 73-foot pole, we need to understand the inner workings of the collective. The collective is a beastial, mindless machine. In its infancy it may tolerate things like individual taste, nuance, and preference. As it matures, it loses its finer appetites and starts to lust after only one thing: more power. In fact, the only way for the collective to maintain its sheer metric tonnage is to ensure that each division is constantly engaged in reinforcing its neighbour. If one falls, they all fall.
Enter Canada’s public sector.
As it stands, the justice, education, political, health, and legal system in Canada have reached a critical mass in which the possibility of any one of them going astray can no longer be entertained. They move as one — to cast doubt on one part is to cast doubt on the whole. Thus, doubt itself must be eradicated. This explains the high rate of consensus among “experts” even on matters where there is wide disagreement (climate theories, vaccines, woke policies, etc.). The presence of unanimity in any complex human system tells us that a hive mind has replaced the human.
The experts who understand their function — to nourish the collective — must learn to navigate the delicate power balances at play. The experts who refuse to play nice are expelled from the hive (i.e. canceled) and assigned an extra three-million years of purgatory for good measure.
This is because the collective, like an infection, can't risk harm to itself. It is the same reason the (completely neutral) Commissioner Paul Rouleau is calling for the creation of a centralized police command in order to respond to “future national risks.” It is the same reason he is also calling for the CSIS Act’s definition of “threats to the security of Canada” to be removed. It has nothing to do with the security of Canadians. It has everything to do with the security of Canada’s corrupt political class. It has everything to do with ensuring that any future “unrest” becomes the domain of law and order, not political discourse.
Pomerance herself is a part of this system. Reading through her responses, what quickly becomes clear is that the state is to be presumed innocent until it can eventually also be proven innocent. Any suggestion that political pressure may have contributed to officials making the recommendations they did is automatically rejected. Any suggestion that the scientific basis for outdoor restrictions was more likely found on the back of a cereal box than any actual bank of data is automatically rejected.
In her closing remarks, Pomerance even attempts to portray state overreach as the actions of a benevolent grandfather, whom the big, bad churches (all eight of us) got together to bully:
I note, by way of digression, that, by breaching the law, the claimants showed a lack of respect for state authority. Their disobedience is, for constitutional purposes, beside the point. What does matter is the respect shown by Ontario to religious institutions by tailoring restrictions and easing them when it was possible to do so.
To be clear, not one of the jailed/fined pastors ever suggested Christians cease to respect state authority. What they repeatedly attempted to do was define the limits of state authority and the legitimacy of churches’ authority. We seem to have forgotten that the basic assumption behind any functional republic is not that the state needs protection from its citizens. It is that citizens need to be protected from the state.
To make the case that the trillion-dollar empire known as the Federal Government is somehow the underdog in all of this is like saying Stalin was only defending himself against persecution from the Chechens.
United in Evil
Not only is the entire public system a bonafide collective, it is collected under the godless and inhumane virus known as liberalism.
For liberals, rights are something the state may choose to endow, but are certainly not inalienable. How could they be? If there is no common identity then how could there be such a thing as common rights? If there are no self-evident truths then how can any truth be held up as universal? If one person’s truth isn’t equal to someone else’s truth — perhaps the most asinine claim in the entire English language — then how dare we hold to binaries of true and false?
Unsurprisingly, liberals are not interested in punishing crime — except “hate crime” of course. They are not ashamed of murdering babies, seniors, or the poor. They are not averse to funding or telling lies. And after all of this, they are definitely not afraid of donning judicial phylacteries and offering their vain repetitions in the public square. This is partly why Pomerance’s assurance that “the sanctity of human life is not reducible to crass comparisons” made me want to gouge my eyes out on the corner of my desk.
Because it’s a worldview that doesn’t hold up to the light of scrutiny; the only way it can promulgate is through infecting everything. Which is, in fact, exactly what has been going on:
An eight-month investigation by National Post and the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) of 1,308 judicial and tribunal appointments by the Liberal government since 2016 shows an overwhelming majority — 76.3 per cent — of appointees who had previously made political donations had given to the Liberal Party of Canada.
Pomerance herself recently spoke at a law summit, at which she stated, “a diverse judiciary symbolizes diversity and inclusion and enhances the reputation of the administration of justice.”
“Diversity” and “inclusion” no longer even resemble their humble, dictionary-based origins. Now they are simply tokens; obligatory sacrifices that must continually be made to maintain one’s shares in the progressive machine. Even if Pomerance was interested in “the adminstration of justice,” she is not part of a system that would allow her to do it. The justice system, and every other system, must dismiss the churches. Not because they don’t have a case, but because they represent a very real threat to the regime.
Rejoicing in Judgement
We are at a point in Canadian history where justice not only isn’t guaranteed, but is increasingly unlikely. Where does the Christian go when the highest court in the land refuses to hear a case so manifestly connected with freedom and justice? Very simply — and completely unexpectedly — to expectation.
Lewis, in his Reflections on the Psalms, tells us why:
Behind [the Psalms of judgement] lie[s] an age-old and almost world-wide experience which we have been spared. In most places and times it has been very difficult for the “small man” to get his case heard [. . .] We need not therefore be surprised if the Psalms, and the Prophets, are full of the longing for judgment, and regard the announcement that “judgment” is coming as good news. Hundreds and thousands of people who have been stripped of all they possess and who have the right entirely on their side will at last be heard [. . .] When God comes to judge, at last it will.
Christians can rejoice, even in the midst of injustice, for two reasons. First, the Scriptures are true. Up until recently, perhaps you read Psalm 37 with a certain degree of incredulity — do “The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at him”? Do “The wicked watch for the righteous and seek to put him to death”? Do “The wicked draw the sword and bend their bow to bring down the poor and needy”? The unusual comfort of our cultural moment had blinded us to the reality of such texts. But now we see they’re all true. And not just the reality of wickedness, but the greater reality of God preserving his people in the midst of it.
Second, we should rejoice because “judgement is coming.” Wait, what?! How could people like us — certainly as bad or worse than the most left-leaning liberal — look forward to God's judgement? The answer is that for us, and for any who will “kiss the Son” (including the most left-leaning liberal), justice has already been done. For those in Christ, there is no longer any threat of condemnation. Which means that, yes, we can look forward to the fact of coming judgement. That one day every crooked path will be made straight. That one day every crooked court, ruling, and judge will be exposed.
With this hope sustaining us, we march on. The baptisms will continue, the building will continue, the singing will continue, the proclamation will continue . . . till Christ returns or calls us home.
Yes! Praise God! "With this hope sustaining us...."
Excellent thoughts Ben.