Intimidation: Employers, Mandate Orders and Media

Section 423 of the Criminal Code includes:

423 (1) Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction who, wrongfully and without lawful authority, for the purpose of compelling another person to abstain from doing anything that he or she has a lawful right to do, or to do anything that he or she has a lawful right to abstain from doing,…

(b) intimidates or attempts to intimidate that person or a relative of that person by threats that, in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment inflicted on him or her or a relative of his or hers, or that the property of any of them will be damaged;

The offence of intimidation is committed if a person:

1. wrongfully and without lawful authority;

2. for the purpose of compelling another person to do anything that he or she has a lawful right to abstain from doing;

3. intimidates or attempts to intimidate by threats that punishment will be inflicted on him or her if they do not do what they have a legal right to abstain from doing.

Employers

Many employers, government and private sector, made vaccination a condition of employment. In other words, if the employee would not take an experimental treatment, they would be fired or laid off without pay. In other words, the employees were threatened with punishment if they do not do what they have a legal right to abstain from doing. This is criminal intimidation.

Some employers will say they were not acting “wrongfully” in that they were intending to protect the health of employees. However, justifying criminal intimidation to protect the health of others would require substantial evidence to justify the action. We doubt that most employers did any research or performed any due diligence to support the threat of job loss.

Businesses

Many businesses refused services to persons who were not vaccinated. This was actual punishment for abstaining from taking an experimental treatment.

Media

As discussed on the Public Messaging page, there are several Criminal Code offences that apply to the media in its reporting on Covid-19 issues. Intimidation is one of them. The media did not initiate the threats to inflict punishment. But the media was a party in relentlessly broadcasting the threats and fabricating messages and reporting to support the threats for the purpose of coercing persons into being vaccinated.

Government mandates

All levels of government, federal, provincial, and municipal, made mandates punishing those who did not comply with masking and vaccination. This led to an unprecedented loss of freedom for a large number of Canadians. In many cases there were admissions that the loss of freedom (punishment) was to coerce persons to get vaccinated.

Most governments will say that they were not acting wrongfully and that they were acting legally. They will try to justify their actions saying there was a health emergency. The difficulty the governments will have will be to prove with evidence:

• that there was an emergency to justify the unprecedented infringement on freedom, and

• that the measured taken are supported by reasonable science, and

• that the measures taken were the least restrictive to address any public health concern.

Governments will have to prove these points because of s. 1 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the “Charter”). The Charter contains many of our rights and freedoms. However, these rights are not absolute. Section 1 of the Charter allows them to be breached as follows:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Under this test, the practice is for the party alleging a violation of a Charter right to prove that there has been a violation. The burden of proof then switches to the party seeking to justify the Charter breach to show that the violation was both prescribed by law, and demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.