OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) –– Several Canadian Christian churches have lost a court case after a provincial appeals court ruled that COVID mandates, which resulted in the lockdown of churches and all other places of worship, were a justifiable infringement of one’s constitutional rights.
“Freedom of religion can be limited when the exercise of it can interfere with the rights of others,” concluded the Manitoba Court of Appeal on Monday.
A total of seven Christian congregations launched a constitutional challenge against Manitoba’s March of 2020 order by the provincial cabinet to invoke the province’s Emergency Measures Act and Public Health Act.
This order resulted in all churches and other places of worship being forced to have not more than five people in attendance. This meant that in practice, most churches were closed.
The Baptist congregations in the legal challenge were represented by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF).
Gateway Bible Baptist Church, Pembina Valley Baptist Church, Redeeming Grace Bible Church, Grace Covenant Church, Slavic Baptist Church, Christian Church of Morden, and Bible Baptist Church, all sought a ruling that the COVID order, which is now expired, was an unlawful infringement on their right to freedom of religion under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Besides church attendance being limited to five people, the Manitoba government also limited to the same amount the number of people who could attend a wedding or a funeral.
In June of 2021, there was a full hearing on the constitutional issues regarding the court case. The result of this case was that Chief Justice Glenn Joyal of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench ruled that the COVID lockdowns of churches were justifiable.
“The pandemic’s presence in Manitoba demanded decisive action in order to reduce the spread of the virus and in order to flatten the curve,” wrote Joyal.
The churches then appealed Joyal’s decision about what it said were errors in his judgment.
In the appeal court’s decision, it wrote that the closure of churches “minimally impacted the rights in question.”
“This case is one of a number across the country where various provisions aimed at curbing the transmission of COVID-19 have been challenged,” concluded the Manitoba Court.
In a statement sent out Monday, the JCCF said it is “disappointed with Manitoba’s Court of Appeal decision in the matter of Gateway Bible Baptist Church et al. v. Manitoba et al. which was released today where the Court found no errors in the Application Judge’s decision.”
“The decision will be reviewed thoroughly, and an update will be provided in due course with respect to potential next steps,” noted the JCCF.
In the spring of 2020, then Conservative Premier of Manitoba Brian Pallister and his government enacted some of the most severe and restrictive COVID-19 lockdown measures in Canada, which resulted in not only churches being shut down, but people being forced to stay home.
In December 2021, the Manitoba government went a step further after it created new rules which restricted church attendance size based on the congregation’s COVID vaccine status.
While these Christian churches have chosen to fight back, Catholics in Canada suffered a different fate under the leadership of their hierarchy.
In fact, Canada’s Conference of Catholic Bishops fully approved of and went along with, all Canadian provincial COVID mandates affecting churches.
In March 2020, the Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a Message To Canadians that urged people to “rightly heed the precautions of physical distancing.”
Many non-Catholic pastors, however, resisted locking down their places of worship, such as Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God Manitoba.