20. Leighton Grey.mp4: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

20. Leighton Grey.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Leighton Grey:
Firstly, I don't represent employers. I represent workers. I have I am sort of an accidental employment lawyer. My main interest in focus is constitutional law, and that's how I became involved in these cases. So I cannot really speak to the rights of the employer, except to the extent that those are articulated by explaining what I think the rights of employees are and workers. I'd firstly like to thank everyone for the opportunity to speak here. I think it's wonderful that this is occurring and that we're sort of acting out the title of one of Mr. Manning's better books called Do Something. It's my position that vaccine mandates have nothing to do with health, and they have nothing to do with science. They're political science. They are, in my respectful view, an orchestrated attack upon the Canadian working class. And these are people who I call the best Canadians. These are the people raising families, working hard, creating businesses, paying taxes, coaching hockey and soccer, and taking dance troupes around, occupying churches, doing all the things that we understand have made Canada great and a wonderful, really the best place in the world to live and raise a family. And I don't think it's accidental that this attack is hitting the working class. The vaccine mandates do not impact the very poor. They don't they don't impact the very rich. They don't certainly don't impact the political class or or intellectuals, as we've just heard.

Leighton Grey:
That is the intellectuals who are running universities. So. The the this this situation with vaccine mandates first came to my attention last fall when I started to get receive a lot of contact and inquiries from workers. Prior to that I have had been and I still am involved in and prosecuting civil cases involving lockdown restrictions. I'm one of the two lead counsel in a case called Ingram in Alberta, which alleges that the the lockdown restrictions that were imposed in Alberta by the chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, violate certain constitutional freedoms. That case is presently before the courts, so I'd gain some notoriety in that regard, and I think that's why people started to contact me about these vaccine mandates. It's a terrible situation, but it's also a blessing. It's a blessing in this sense that it awakened many Canadians who are within the working class about the dangers of really out of control, irrational, illogical, unscientific, COVID policies. The attack on the Canadian working class led directly to the Freedom Convoy, which of course led directly to this inquiry. So it's good in that sense, but it is terrible in the sense that it's destroying the livelihoods and it's destroying the lives of many working class Canadians and their families and especially their children. So my firm has come to represent thousands of unionized and non-unionized workers.

Trish Wood:
Okay. Just hold.

Leighton Grey:
mandated vaccine policies. Yeah.

Trish Wood:
No, sorry. We had an audio drop out, but you're back loud and clear, so keep on going.

Leighton Grey:
Okay, so. So my firm is representing thousands of workers, both unionized and non-unionized employees who are living through the really the horrors of these vaccine mandates and the intense invasion of privacy, because they're being required to under threat of administrative sanction and termination, they're being exposed to the requirement to disclose private, statutorily protected medical information, to submit to absurd concocted secular tests, to determine the the the objective validity of their closely held religious beliefs. When, of course, the Supreme Court of Canada already has an enunciated test for this, which is entirely subjective. And so these are, in my respect for you, very, very serious human rights violations before you even get to the fact that there isn't a single person on Earth who could provide informed consent to the taking of these experimental drugs, the intense dangers of which are just beginning to be understood and disclosed to the public through things like the Pfizer dump. So what's happened? What I've discovered in my work is that really the the the origin, the fountainhead of all of this all of these vaccine mandates is the prime minister's office. That's it seems to be that all of this is either coming out of that office directly through ministerial orders and regulation of federal workers, or it's being sponsored through the Prime Minister's office. And intense pressure is being placed on large companies, especially so the group of of work. That include workers from companies like CN, CP, Purolator, WestJet, Skytrain in Vancouver, Bank of Canada, Canada Post, Alstom or Metrolinx, which used to be Bombardier.

Leighton Grey:
And so right now my firm has before the courts of Alberta and also in the federal court, over $1,000,000,000 in damages claimed respecting violations of provincial federal laws and also certain sections of the charter, including Section two, A Freedom of Religion, Section seven, Right to Life, Liberty, Security Person, and Section 15. And the section fee and the section. Section 15 violation is a is an interesting one because it has it has it has many levels. On the one hand, of course, within the employment situation, employees are being subjected to the creation of this subclass of humans, the the unvaccinated. It's even been called a pandemic of the unvaccinated at certain times. Our own premier, Mr. Kenney, called it that in our province, and this is what has been happening in these workplaces, and this is exposing workers to to really, really serious harm, physical, emotional, psychological and of course, financial. But but then even even when the worker goes and and sort of walks with their conscience, whether it's religious or just to secure the integrity of their own bodies and decides not to take the vaccine, they're being exposed to these involuntary unpaid leaves of absence, which are an extraordinary thing which I found is unprecedented in Canadian law, which amounts to, in our submission, a constructive wrongful dismissal. But even after they they go and they walk with their conscience, then they're met with the additional punishment, the vindictive punishment, because the federal government has has indicated and has made it impossible for these workers to be eligible for a statutory benefit to which they are entitled as Canadian workers, so that they are dis entitled from eligibility for employment insurance, which which again, is just a further violation treatment of them as as a subclass of Canadians.

Leighton Grey:
So what do our lawsuits seek? Primarily, they seek two things. Number one is a declaration that these violations these that the that these vaccine mandate policies themselves and including the exemption policies and even accommodation policies, that they all constitute serious human rights violations, that they offend the charter, they offend provincial human rights legislation. They offend the federal bill of Rights. You're in violation of things like the Canadian Labor Code and the provincial and equivalent provincial statutes. And so we're seeking that declaration. And then from there we're seeking because once a court finds that there has been a violation of the charter in this respect, then under section 24, sub one of the charter, there is entitlement to a remedy. And the remedy that we're seeking is damages, aggravated and punitive damages arising from infliction of physical, emotional, psychological and financial harm. So it's a bit of a different strategy that has been employed by other firms, other lawyers in Canada. Of course, many of you know that the strategy of trying to challenge the constitutionality of lockdown restrictions or to have ministerial orders overturned has not been very successful. And there are different theories about that. Some have gone as far as to say that perhaps there is was bias in the court. I must say that recent statements by the chief justice of our Supreme Court about the freedom of convoy participants are concerning.

Leighton Grey:
Some of my colleagues have actually filed the complaint with the Judicial Council of Canada about that. But I tend to be optimistic, more optimistic and don't. Look, I know many of the people who populate the courts or on our on our provincial and federal benches. And I have confidence that they're good people, they're principled people who will make right decisions as we as we provide them with better information. I think that courts are going to make. I think the way I view it is is the failure of some of these cases to achieve the right results, let's say, is a call to action for lawyers like me. We have to be better. We have to work harder. We have to be more persuasive. We have to find and present better evidence. And when we do those things, if we do those things, it's it's my it's my belief and my commitment that we're going to produce results for Canadian workers. So they will get they will get justice. But the goal that that or the purpose of some of the lawsuits that I've undertaken is not to set aside ministerial orders to change the law. It's taken a bit of a different tack because all of these people are entitled, they're disenfranchised, and it's seeking a ruling that I think courts are more ready to make. That is, in fact, courts in Canada have already made that some of these covered restrictions, some of these covered policies violate violate the charter. And then from there seek damages.

Trish Wood:
And so I'm wondering if is this purely then going to be a charter argument or will you will somebody somewhere be able to get into a courtroom, experts who are saying the vaccines are waning? Why do we have to give them if they're not preventing transmission? Is someone ever going to be able to make that argument in a court of law? Because it seems to me that that would also change a lot pretty quickly, wouldn't it, if the judge accepted the evidence as as credible.

Leighton Grey:
Right. Well, that's an excellent question. And certainly within the case, it would we would be required to produce expert evidence, and we intend to that along the lines of concerning the you know, the safety and the efficacy of vaccines, which are very much in doubt, is a serious question about what the government of Canada and what these companies knew about about that. But based upon the information that's been disclosed. But it's also more than just charter violations. The these vaccine mandates even violate the criminal code. There's a very cogent argument I think can be made that they violate section 265, the assault provisions. There's also a little considered section of the Criminal Code, section 217.1, which makes it an indictable offence offence for an employer to expose employees. In fact, it's considered criminal gross negligence to expose employees to the risk of physical or psychological harm. Well, based upon what we now know, we understand even even leaving aside whether or not these vaccines are harmful. And I would think there's a very strong scientific case for making that argument. Even apart from that, the exposure of an individual to violate the the Hippocratic maxim, do no harm.

Leighton Grey:
And the other basic maxim, which is that no one can be required to take anything into their bodies without their informed consent. Even that alone, I would submit as a violation of Section two and 7.1, because even if the vaccines do not cause physical harm, the exposure, the effect of the of the mandate is such as to cause psychological harm. Think of the situation. Somebody who has a closely held, sincerely held religious belief, which prohibits the taking of of a of a genetic vaccine, which uses genetic material taken from a fetus. Just consider for a moment how horrifying it is for that person to be compelled to take a vaccine which violates their religious conscience in order to save their job, knowing that they need that job to pay their mortgage, to feed their kids, to put gas in their car, to do all the things that they do as a working Canadian. So I think it goes much deeper than just the charter. This is a fundamental violation of human rights, fundamental human rights that are guaranteed under things like the Nuremberg Code and also violations of Canadian law, including the Criminal Code.

Trish Wood:
I'll pass to the panel in a sec, but I have to ask you this question, because it's been bothering me for for a while. Is there a cause of action toward the government for mandating in the sense that just for hypothetically, if the government had mandated that women in the sixties took thalidomide, they made them take it. And then the children were born with these terrible, familiar deformities. Would they be liable? Just. Just like would they. Would they be liable in this case, if you can cause and effect, prove harm to the people. But they took it because of a mandate that would ruin their life if they didn't. Is there any culpability there legally on behalf of the mandate demands or whatever you would call them?

Leighton Grey:
I'm very glad that you asked me that question. I'll begin my answer by saying The Government of Canada has already acknowledged that liability because they've set up a compensatory scheme. The compensatory scheme is woefully inadequate. The numbers are way too low, but they've already acknowledged that these vaccines cause harm. Secondly, lawyers I can't speak for other lawyers, but I know of some lawyers, including my own firm, that are developing a class action vaccine harm class actions because these vaccines are maiming and killing human beings in Canada. I've spoken personally to hundreds of Canadians. There's a young there's a father about my age in Ontario whose 17 year old son, perfectly fit, elite level hockey player, 17 year old boy, fit as a fiddle, suddenly passed out and died from a large heart. There's no other explanation, rational explanation for that death other than the vaccine. So these cases are coming. And you mentioned thalidomide, and I'm glad you did that. Many people forget it wasn't as though we went to bed one night and. Mr. Mannix, I'm old enough to remember this. It wasn't, though. People went to bed one night and woke up the next morning and all of a sudden, well, thalidomide, it's so terrible. It took five or six years for those cases to come along down the pike. And we're in early, early days. But, you know, the evidence is there. The big impediment here is the unholy.

Leighton Grey:
Have made with Big Pharma in the form of an indemnity. But I could tell you there is there is a torpedo coming because each each stage of the Pfizer dump is arming that torpedo. And I don't think that indemnity is going to hold up to the scrutiny of law. No indemnity agreement is going to be enforceable if it amounts to if there's fraud or malfeasance. And based upon what I've read of the of the Pfizer dump so far, and I've read that very carefully and talked to other people who agree with me on this. There's already enough information in the public forum to to destroy that that indemnity. And so I happen to think that ultimately you are going to see these these class actions coming. They are going to be unprecedented in terms of their scope and their value and their impact. And I think we have to expect that, just as in the case of thalidomide or OxyContin or any of these other chemical atrocities that Big Pharma have unleashed upon the public, that they've probably already calculated the cost and understand that they've achieved the net profit regardless of what they have to pay out in settlements. But that's that's my considered opinion as somebody who's steeped in this stuff. Obviously, I'm forecasting I don't know the answers, but if I had a crystal ball, that's what it would tell me.

Trish Wood:
Okay. I'll pass to the panel.

David Ross:
Thanks very much, Mr. Grey, for your for your comments. One of the things that that particularly has grabbed my attention, and you've mentioned it, is this construct of an unpaid leave of absence, a mandated unpaid leave of absence, where it's specifically structured so that employees who lose their employment cannot can specifically not access their statutory entitlement to employment insurance benefits. So what does this say to Canadians that are politicians, federally and provincial have structured then implemented these intentionally malicious actions against a significant portion of the population?

Leighton Grey:
Well, I think that it says to Canadians that what I want to come back, what I what I said at the outset of my comments, I think this is an orchestrated attack on the Canadian working class in order to disempower and dis entitle them Canadian. The Canadian working class has had a great deal of political power in this country for a very long time. We've elected prime ministers and premiers, and I happen to think that there's an agenda here that's that's designed to prevent the working class from being able to possess and hold and retain personal property. And by by the way, the offence that you described of this involuntary unpaid leave of absence was made even worse by Minister LeBlanc recently, when now because of severe work shortages and this politically expedient suspension of federal mandates, where Minister LeBlanc came out and said, absolutely no way are we going to pay these employees who were off on these involuntary unpaid leaves of absence. And so what have you done? You've essentially some of these people have been off work since last fall. So what does that do to them? They're months behind on their mortgages. Gas prices through the roof. They can't afford to buy groceries. I think what it says and that's your question, is that this this federal government does not care about Canadians, especially the Canadian working class. I think that's what's a very clear statement to them.

David Ross:
Thank you. You know, and I included provincial governments in that because they have done the same.

Leighton Grey:
So absolutely. Absolutely, so true. And I guess I don't want to paint them all with the same brush, but if we were ranking them on a bell curve, I don't think anyone would pass the exam.

David Ross:
Thank you.

Trish Wood:
Leighton, Thank you very much. This was really, really enlightening. And I think your point about it being an attack on the working class is absolutely bang on. And I think it is because they've said it. They've used those words when they talk about our working class brothers and sisters, don't they? So we we know what they think. I think it's a brilliant assessment. Anyway, thank you very much.

Leighton Grey:
Thank you. Bye bye.

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