02. Myriam Bohemier, Richard Girgis.mp4: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

02. Myriam Bohemier, Richard Girgis.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Myriam Boheimer:
I'll try to do it in English as much as I can, because I think it's more fluid. So, first of all, thank you to give me the opportunity to be there. Today, I am very happy to speak about this situation that is very important to me. I can present myself as the lawyer for unjabbed people mostly in family law, but also in labor and employment law and disciplinary. I take the stand as much as I can because what is happening is awful right now in the law field. It's very serious and concerns me a lot. In in Quebec, in family law. I would say that parents who refused their children to be jabbed for COVID 19 have no offense, to no defense to offer unless they have a medical contraindication, I would say they have less rights than a serial killer in a criminal proceeding. The courts will only consider the public health recommendation, and those recommendations are not becoming the law between parents who are not on the same page on the question of vaccination for COVID 19. Also, those who are considered as good parents are neither. If they can test the fact that their children be jabbed, they lose part of their parental authority or their access rights to their children. The that custody of them and they are called by judges and public judgment as completists meaning conspiracy theorists.

Trish Wood:
So I think I'm just going to jump in just to get to clarify what you're saying, because it's really important. You're saying that judges, if I'm reading it correctly, are behaving punitively toward people in these family law cases because they're not. They're not completely on board with the public health policy, whatever it may be, specifically, I guess, vaccines in this case. But give me some examples of what you're seeing and hearing and how that expresses itself in these cases, right beyond the judgment itself. Are you hearing specific language from these judges that makes you think that is true or can say that's true?

Myriam Boheimer:
It's right in the judgments for sure. It's not all the judgments who say that, but there is no except for the underlying judgment that was rendered in February. There is absolutely no no of favorable favorable judgments in Quebec regarding COVID 19 vaccinations. They are they all order the vaccination of children. And sometimes they they really talk badly about their parents, sometimes not. But we see in the judgment some words as completists. So some conspiracy theorists.

Trish Wood:
So they call them conspiracy theorists. Is that correct?

Myriam Boheimer:
In French, we say completist. And in fact, in February, I did a lot of cases in family law. It was like the darkest month we had until now. I went into to appeal two times and one of my colleagues went to appeal also. There was three judgments rendered saying that the parents cannot cannot use the expertise to show that that to contest their public health recommendations. They were obliged. They they that judges were to follow the public recommendations. And they said that to contest their public recommendation. And I insist on recommendations. Parents had to. It was not in family cases, but in public law debate. But normally, a public law debate is regarding a law and it's regarding a regulation or something like that, not about a recommendation. So it's like. Like trapping people where do something that cannot happen. And the law was established by the judges themselves that they will not go against the public health recommendations. So it's like, damned if you do, damned if you don't, you don't have any exit. So I the first thing I tried was to have full hearing on the merits of the this important questions, because it's a serious decision. You cannot undo the vaccination of against COVID 19 for children. But the courts were treating the injection as an emergency. So they mostly render their decisions on safeguard orders. So in this type of of. A for procedure. They don't hear the parents. They just read affidavit affidavits and they decide. And sometimes they have some documents. And normally the documents are public health recommendations and the Facebook of their parents who are considered as accomplices.

Trish Wood:
Right. But but so so so I just want to be clear. So the parent who is not wanting the vaccination cannot lead evidence of vaccine injury or lack of efficacy or statistics about how children who are healthy don't have bad outcomes from COVID mostly anyway. They can't they can't argue the merits of the vaccination itself. No, it's okay. So. So then what are the what? Just explain for me again. So what is what is coming into court then? It's the public health guideline. And what how can the non vaccination parent fight that then on what grounds can they make their. Their appeal.

Myriam Boheimer:
No defense at all.

Trish Wood:
None.

Myriam Boheimer:
None. The only thing they can do if is to have her medical documents from the family doctor of the child. And it's important to say from the family doctor of the child, because if they find a doctor who is ready to to say that it's not a good thing to vaccinate the child if it's not the family doctor, the court won't take it into account. So they need a. A document from the doctor saying that the vaccination is not indicated for those children to be vaccinated, but those specific children and for a medical condition. So it means. It means. That. I know from my disciplinary law experiment experience that the the doctors are assignments to speak against the COVID 19 injections so it's very very difficult to have a doctor will write that it's not a good thing to vaccinate the children so their parents are left with no defence at all. And. I had in February, I was able to have two full hearing. With parents presenting their own testimony and the first one the judge was very impatient. I was online and my colleague was at the at the justice the courthouse. That courthouse. And I gave a lot of expertise against the vaccine. The vaccine, like doctor Byram, Byram Bridle's document and Charles Baron and a lot of Dr. Henrion-Caude. So many so many documents and also documents from Amnesty International talking about the the the censorship of doctors. So I gave a lot of documents like that.

Myriam Boheimer:
And the fact that Sweden refused the vaccination of children from 5 to 11, things like that. And the the the other lawyer said to the judge that she she was she was objecting on those documents and that judge answered talked to her as if I wasn't hearing that. Don't worry, I won't take into account documents coming from outside Canada and I will only take into account the public the public recommendations. So my case was last before I started. And then I had a week to prepare this hearing. I was able to find a family doctor to testify about the COVID 19 injection. But the judge refused to recognize that he was an expert. So if you're not recognized as an expert, you cannot give your opinion. And also the judge cross-examined the doctor. It was like it was asking, is it right or not? Tell me yes or no. It was talking like this, too, to the doctor. And also he said he refused to recognize them as an expert because there was no report in the file that that the procedural rules were not respected. But we had a week, and even though I would have been able to give a report, it would it wouldn't have been communicated in time. So it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. And my strategy was to have some colleagues to be there because it's à huis clos, huis clos, Richard.

Richard Girgis:
Yeah, it's a closed session.

Myriam Boheimer:
Yeah. So my colleagues who are lawyers were able to be there, but not any other public. And I went into a bit of appeal from this decision. We had three affidavits of colleagues who were saying that the, the, the, the, the hearing the hearing was not fair. But even though I had that, my appeal was refused because I should have asked the judge to recuse himself. So it's like accepting the unfair unfairness of a trial because I didn't ask the judge to recuse himself. Also, he repeated that the judge repeated what the court of appeals said first, that there by no means that parents can do a scientific debate to contest the vaccination or the context, efficacy or whatever under COVID 19. The only thing they could do is to prove that their are children had a contradiction. And they they didn't want to put on the shoulder of the poor parents who were just wanting to follow the rule. Debate, a scientific debate. So they also said it was a public public law debate.

Trish Wood:
Right.

Myriam Boheimer:
So 3 judgment from the Court of Appeal.

Trish Wood:
It sounds almost like it's an unwinnable in a sense that that's what you're saying. I want to pass to the panel because I'm sure they've got some questions about about your evidence so far. Thank you.

Preston Manning:
Well, thank you very much for making the effort to to talk to us. I guess I got two questions on the first one. Are there any references to clear references to parental rights in Quebec law, in the civil code, in the charter? Is there any place where parental rights are clearly defined?

Myriam Boheimer:
Yes, there is an article in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedom saying that the children has a right to to um to the letter to his parents. To to to his. To that surveillance. And the good care of it is parents. There is also an article we call it the article regarding parental authority. The parental authority concerns the taking, the medical questions, educational. Every important question like religious question regarding the child and both parents have parental authority. But what happened on questions of vaccination? They take some parental authority from their parents who contest and they gave sole authority to their parents to their parents who want their child to be jabbed regarding vaccination. That's why they does. And sometimes they even lose custody or access rights.

Preston Manning:
My second question is in Quebec, and this is for you as well, Richard, is it's just good to see you participating here to both of you. Is there any public movement protesting some of these onerous health protection measures? Is there any public movement among the parents, medical profession, academics, political people, unions? Is there any signs of a of a broad public protest against some of the things that you've been talking about? That's up to each of you, actually.

Richard Girgis:
Go ahead, Miriam. I think she's freezing up.

Myriam Boheimer:
Hello?

Trish Wood:
Miriam, can you hear us? Mayor. She does seem to be frozen.

Richard Girgis:
I could start until the connection is resolved.

Trish Wood:
Go ahead.

Richard Girgis:
I think that in Quebec, we probably had one of the bigger kind of resistance movements as compared to the rest of Canada. We were in Quebec. A lot of activists and even certain politicians and public figures were first out of the gates in the spring of 2020, protesting a lot of measures when it came to vaccination. Much later on, it continued on. When it came to public health measures in general, there was a great, tremendous amount of pushback. There are political parties that have gained a lot of ground as well. In Quebec, the Conservative Party, for example, gained a lot of ground, much more than would have ever been expected had it not been for their position on COVID 19 public health policy. There were also huge protests in the streets. There were protests over the curfew measure. There were protests over masking. There were protests over pretty well every public health ordinance that went arguably too far in terms of legal and governmental overreach. Some of those protests numbered in the tens of thousands. And they were they were fairly they were taking place fairly regularly. But again, what happened, I think arguably happened in the rest of the country as well. And any kind of resistance was sort of met with the same response.

Richard Girgis:
So just as Miriam was talking about how courts automatically side with public health recommendations, basically taking judicial notice of public health recommendations and not not accepting to kind of hear any broader discourse from dissenting opinions. What was the same thing with the mainstream media? And it was the same thing with government own reaction. So in Quebec, the not just the leading party, but just about all other parties of opposition on the other side of the aisle were fairly unanimous. And their conclusion being that the protest movement is represented just as as Prime Minister Trudeau would say, as a fringe minority of conspiracy theorists of in fact, in Quebec, I think we could argue that the mainstream media perpetuated the greatest disservice in Canada in the way that they characterized members of the movement and the movement in general, the way that they were salacious in their attacks, characterizing people by all sorts of different names every month that would go by, there would be another name added to the list of what they could call people who were dissenting from public opinion from from I would say, current public opinion.

Myriam Boheimer:
I would like to add some something to what she said. I first of all, I am in a in a collective organization called Rien [?] COVID. We are 10000 people in it. We I can see that almost all the experts we can have in Quebec are silenced either by universities or by disciplinary measures. And we tried a new. And your strategy. We called it in. We have it in a civil code of procedure. It's called a pursuit [?]. I think in English, it's a slapp procedure. It's a procedure to prevent someone to exercise is freedom of speech. So we are trying that in in disciplinary cases. I started to use it in family law cases. And yesterday the judge just. Then talk about this issue. I have a project called la fin des enfants, the end of children, because the Court of Appeal said three times that that we we have to do a public debate. I decided to start an injunction to stop and prevent to prevent and stop vaccination of children. I have many plaintiffs in my in my procedure. I will start it soon. Also, I decided to make a documentary of this procedure because I think we may not win in court, but we may have public opinion sort of win. And I'm starting to change the narrative, calling my clients as completists and to to replace it by question. This we are questioning this. So it's very it's a good term. And I started to use it in proceedings. And I think I don't know yet the effects, but I will see it. And we are as I can say for myself, I was treated as I completiste this in front of a judge by another lawyer, and the judge said that she didn't exceeded the limits. Also, when I said to a judge that we were in the vaccine, the vaccine, the vaccine was in the SC trial, she said to me, it was my opinion. I said, No, it's written in the public recommendations. And when I said to a judge it was a question of flight, life and death, he said, I was exag- exaggerating.

Trish Wood:
So I think the use of pejorative language is another story throughout the the COVID 19 story. Does the panel have anything else before we let them go? Yes.

David Ross:
Merci, Miriam, for your for your testimony here today, it's really, really important. Is it the government's. Policy that the courts must follow the government's policy rather than the law at all times. Like is do you get the sense that the that the government of Quebec thinks that that the laws should totally be set aside right now because their policy is more important than the law?

Myriam Boheimer:
Fortunate for the Quebec government. But we there was a lot of cases commenced and.

Richard Girgis:
Undertaken.

Myriam Boheimer:
Undertaken regarding the the measures and and also the vaccination. But nothing was. Nothing was heard on the merits since two years. Nothing. And now the government's lawyers are using motions to reject the the the proceedings because it's theory. Right now, they, they, ils ont abandonné les mesures.

Richard Girgis:
The measures were abandonned.

Myriam Boheimer:
So yeah. So because of that, they say, oh, your of course is not is not good anymore. We'll see what the judge will say about it, that there was a case. Where were you succeeded? The judge decided to hear anyhow the merits of the case. But there is no date. We don't have any dates on the merits. Also, I'm preparing a letter regarding all of the all that was said by Chief Justice Richard Wagner from the Supreme Court of Canada. He has a he has a policy since September seven saying that all his judges are vaccinated and every court staff going into the the courtroom must be vaccinated also. And he made a lot of comments on the convoy and other comments on this information again. And also he said that during that discussion on Bill C 11 that was held in the Parliament. So I'm writing a letter to all the Chief Justices asking for their own policy regarding COVID 19, because I'm asking myself and I'm not the only lawyer asking itself, does unjust people have? Still have a right to a fair and impartial trial. We are asking this question.

David Ross:
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think that that's the right question to ask. I guess it makes me wonder if the government of Quebec's desire is that for people who don't agree with their policy, should just leave Quebec and live elsewhere. Because if the government says this is our policy and we're instructing the courts to enforce our policy, so there's no there's nowhere to go other than to leave. Is do you get a sense that that's that that is the the desire of the government of Quebec.

Myriam Boheimer:
Um. I don't think they have a direct policy on the judges. If so, it would go against the independency of the. Of the courts.

Richard Girgis:
Well, Miriam, I would just add one thing that they do argue in a lot of these cases that the judiciary cannot substitute itself for executive decisions, which is right out of the gates, basically saying that the courts have no intention or interest to to decide on legislation or to act in any manner that is essentially as it's meant to be independent. That's an issue.

Myriam Boheimer:
And there is I have a concern about the new youth protection law saying that there is no more primacy. Yeah, parental primacy. So if if somebody doesn't want these children to be vaccinated, they could lose maybe a is rights on his children. But it's more that the children are losing their rights to their parents.

Trish Wood:
Yeah.

Myriam Boheimer:
It's that it's completely reversed. They I think they don't they don't look at the fact that. This question is hurting the children.

Trish Wood:
Well, I would also just say that given that family law is inherently about different levels of conflict, or can be that the way these are being adjudicated must only make that worse. I mean, how do you co-parent with somebody who's forced your kid to be vaccinated when you didn't? I mean, how do you go forward from there? I just don't. There must be a million heartbreaking stories coming out of these cases.

Myriam Boheimer:
Yeah, for sure.

Trish Wood:
Now.

Myriam Boheimer:
Hmm.

Trish Wood:
Well, thank you both. Very, very grateful for your expertise on this. Thank you.

Myriam Boheimer:
Thanks. Thank you. Have a nice day. Thank you for hearing me.

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