MARCH 4 UPDATE: The respondents (Dr. Henry and the B.C. government) have not yet filed documents in court.

By PAMELA FAYERMAN

The last time I communicated with former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford, he was trying to draw attention to the shortage of physicians on Vancouver Island.

Peckford, who was a Progressive Conservative premier from 1979 to 1989, moved to Vancouver Island in 1993. This week, I exchanged emails with him because I was surprised to see his support for a lawsuit against Dr. Bonnie Henry and the BC government.

The lawsuit, filed late last month, is spearheaded by Kip Warner and a non-profit group calling itself the Canadian Society for the Advancement of Science and Public Policy. The lawsuit alleges many things, like the government and Dr. Henry have misrepresented the severity of COVID-19 which, the plaintiffs contend, is no worse than seasonal influenza.

They allege public health orders are draconian and have led to economic ruin for many, with more drug overdose deaths, suicides, depression, and unemployment besides other harms. They are seeking to have the Supreme Court of B.C. certify the lawsuit as a class action proceeding and ultimately overturn emergency public health orders. The government has not yet filed a statement of response.

The group suing the government has a GoFundMe campaign and is seeking $100,000 from donors to cover legal fees. At the time of writing this post, they had raised $26,758 from 181 donors, including a $100 donation from Peckford and his wife. Most of the donations are from anonymous contributors. The single biggest is a $10,000 contribution.

I asked the former premier a few questions: why he’s aligned himself with this lawsuit by contributing money to the fundraising, what he’d be doing differently if he was still premier, and whether he thinks that pandemic public health orders and other measures have gone too far.

Peckford said:

“If I was Premier I would have been opposed to the harsh measures used. Often I was outside the mainstream of what the premiers did or said.”

Then he drew upon his involvement in the constitutional patriation process and the drafting of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, some of which, he said, came from the Newfoundland delegation.

“Charter provisions have been violated without, for want of a better phrase, due process, federal and provincial involvement, and extensive consultation with the people (and) groups affected. Additionally, much so-called ‘science ‘ was not science at all but a perversion of the same. The Great Barrington Declaration Comes to mind and the great work done by the scientists involved in that effort. The American Institute For Economic Research is a valuable resource.”

Not surprisingly, the lawsuit has spurred many to make bizarre and highly offensive allegations. One individual, who wrote to me after my first story about the lawsuit, predicted there would be a “new Nuremberg Trial” to prosecute politicians and others who are “blood guilty for all the lives the lockdowns are taking.”

The letter writer continued:

“The more lawsuits the better. It is a genuine case, by the way. When this “pandemic” is over, we’ll need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to name every official, politician, executive, medical and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this globally devastating plandemic (sic). A new Nuremberg Trial will occur eventually. All those siding with the governments’ lockdown measures, and all those being silent and all those going along to keep their jobs, or for some other reason are blood guilty for all the lives the lockdowns are taking. You have snatched our liberty and smile away and restricted our basic human right to breathe, move, mingle and work on this planet earth in the name of a re-branded flu. You do not have any valid data or logic to support or implement the current Covid restrictions. Stop this cruelty to humans. The PCR test is medical fraud. The W.H.O admits it has been misused. All the lockdowns are based on models that use inaccurate PCR data.”

So that, folks, is the rather deranged mindset of those with nothing but disdain for what governments across the country have tried to do during the pandemic in a bid to reduce deaths and hospitalizations.

EMAIL: pamela@medicinematters.ca