MISSISSAUGA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — Ontario courts have waived a $6,255 ticket for a woman who would not stay in a quarantine hotel.
On October 2, the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms announced that Crown prosecutors entered a stay of proceedings, dropping charges and a $6,255 fine against an Ontario woman for not staying in a quarantine hotel upon her arrival into Canada two years ago.
“We are happy that justice has been achieved in this particular case, even if it took too long,” said John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre. “However, this victory does not undo the damage which the federal government inflicted on thousands of Canadians through its dangerous and utterly unscientific policy of locking Canadians up in prison hotels, thereby causing more contact and more interactions with more people.”
On August 3, 2021, the Ontario woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, returned to Canada after a visit to New York. Under the regulations at the time, all returning Canadians were mandated to pay out of pocket for a three-day hotel stay at a quarantine hotel.
However, the woman suffers from chronic pain syndrome and sometimes needs the assistance of a wheelchair in addition help from friends and family for her personal care. Her chronic pain had worsened before her New York trip, and she had not recovered when she returned to Canada.
Therefore, she was not able to quarantine in any of the quarantine hotels designated by the Canadian government. She chose to make alternative arrangements to quarantine for 14 days in a separate area of her home, where she could be assisted by her mother.
She indicated on her traveler intake form at the Canadian border that she had arranged a suitable alternative quarantine plan, which she viewed as a safe way to prevent her from contracting or transmitting COVID.
Despite this, she was ticketed and fined $6,255 for not staying in the government-mandated facilities.
Her lawyer, Charlene Le Beau, argued that the Ontario woman should have qualified for a medical exemption under the Order in Council. Le Beau further pointed out that her client had arranged an alternative quarantine plan.
Le Beau also argued that the court violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms since 25 months, an “unreasonable delay,” had elapsed between the time the ticket had been issued and the trial date.
“The right to be tried for a charge within a reasonable time is a fundamental principle of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and a trial 25 months after the date of a charge would not have been reasonable,” Le Beau wrote.
According to Section 11(b) of the Charter, “[a]ny persons charged with an offence has the right to be tried within a reasonable time.”
Therefore, the Crown prosecutors entered a stay of proceedings, the legal term for temporarily stopping a trial. The ticket and fine were also dropped.
Recently, the Canadian government has dropped numerous charges for breaking so-called COVID regulations.
In August, the Crown dropped nearly 300 Quarantine Act-related fines issued to 212 British Columbians for allegedly violating federal legislation.
Similarly, in September, a Canadian couple that faced charges for refusing to stay in a government-mandated COVID quarantine hotel upon their return home from a Florida vacation was vindicated after their fines were dropped by the Crown.
Thousands of Canadians were fined as much as $3,000 under the Quarantine Act, which was in place since mid-2020 before it was suspended on October 1, 2022.
The Quarantine Act was used by the federal government to enact severe draconian COVID travel rules on all returning travelers to the country. Trudeau’s use of the Quarantine Act gave his government the power to place upon Canadians “unprecedented travel and isolation” requirements. There are currently no COVID restrictions for entering or leaving the country.
The much-maligned ArriveCAN travel app was also made optional, and a jab mandate for foreign visitors to enter Canada was removed.
The Trudeau government even argued that its COVID rules and shutdowns were good for the nation despite medical research showing the contrary.
Canada’s Public Health Agency spent over $43 million hiring security guards to enforce COVID quarantine rules by making house calls on returning travelers.
In total, the agency handed out $14.9 million in quarantine fines.