May 31, 2022: Action4Canada finally had a hearing over its August 17, 2021 lawsuit against the B.C. Government, Canadian Government, and various other named and unnamed parties. The decision is reserved, and will be issued sometime in the future.
This session was based on multiple applications filed by Defendants to strike the pleadings as being frivolous, scandalous, vexatious, prolix, and otherwise an abuse of process.
Striking differs from dismissing in that the Court is not being asked to make a determination on the merits. Instead, the documents themselves are challenged. In this case, it was argued that the 391 page Statement of Claim was so convoluted and poorly written, that it was impossible to determine what the case was.
As painful as this is to admit, they’re not wrong about this.
Without completely rehashing the original assessment, here are the major parts of the civil procedure that are worth noting:
Rule 3-1 — Notice of Civil Claim
Notice of civil claim
(1) To start a proceeding under this Part, a person must file a notice of civil claim in Form 1.
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Contents of notice of civil claim
(2) A notice of civil claim must do the following:
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(a) set out a concise statement of the material facts giving rise to the claim;
(b) set out the relief sought by the plaintiff against each named defendant;
(c) set out a concise summary of the legal basis for the relief sought;
(d) set out the proposed place of trial;
(e) if the plaintiff sues or a defendant is sued in a representative capacity, show in what capacity the plaintiff sues or the defendant is sued;
(f) provide the data collection information required in the appendix to the form;
(g) otherwise comply with Rule 3-7.
Rule 3-7 — Pleadings Generally
Content of Pleadings
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Pleading must not contain evidence
(1) A pleading must not contain the evidence by which the facts alleged in it are to be proved.
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Documents and conversations
(2) The effect of any document or the purport of any conversation referred to in a pleading, if material, must be stated briefly and the precise words of the documents or conversation must not be stated, except insofar as those words are themselves material.
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When presumed facts need not be pleaded
(3) A party need not plead a fact if
(a) the fact is presumed by law to be true, or
(b) the burden of disproving the fact lies on the other party.
This isn’t hard. Broadly speaking, a lawsuit must do 3 things:
[1] Briefly set out the facts as alleged
[2] Set out what remedies are being sought
[3] Briefly list what important laws will be relied on
Instead of following these simple rules, a 391 page mess was dropped on the Courts last year. Even someone researching for the last 2 years would have considerable difficulty following along.
Rule 9-5 — Striking Pleadings
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Scandalous, frivolous or vexatious matters
(1) At any stage of a proceeding, the court may order to be struck out or amended the whole or any part of a pleading, petition or other document on the ground that
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(a) it discloses no reasonable claim or defence, as the case may be,
(b) it is unnecessary, scandalous, frivolous or vexatious,
(c) it may prejudice, embarrass or delay the fair trial or hearing of the proceeding, or
(d) it is otherwise an abuse of the process of the court,
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and the court may pronounce judgment or order the proceeding to be stayed or dismissed and may order the costs of the application to be paid as special costs.
In short, the Defendants alleged that the Plaintiffs failed to meet even the basic requirements of a pleading, as laid out in Rules 3-1 and 3-7 of the Rules of Civil Procedure for B.C. The remedy sought was to strike the case, as outlined in Rule 9-5.
There is considerable vindication for the previous critique of this lawsuit, for what it’s worth. One doesn’t have to be lawyer to see how plain and obvious the defects are.
Yes, there was a considerable amount of truth in the Statement of Claim. However, it was such an incomprehensible mess that it would be next to impossible to sift through. While a bitter pill to swallow, the various Defendants had valid reasons to try to strike it. That’s what any sensible person would have done in that position.
At the hearing, the Government lawyers essentially argued the points in the Notices of Application, outlining why this Claim was so poorly written.
The issues with the Claim:
- It is 391 pages long
- It has over 1300 paragraphs and subparagraphs
- It seeks over 200 declarations
- Its rambling and disjointed nature makes it difficult to follow along
- It’s impossible to separate fact from speculation or conjecture
- It contains mostly irrelevant or redundant material
- It goes on at length about non-parties
- It seeks criminal remedies (improper for a civil case)
- It seeks the kind of international relief a B.C. Judge can’t provide
- Its tone comes across as unhinged and ranting
The Claim contains many footnotes from various media sources, which is improper to include in a lawsuit. While the content is interesting, that alone could lead to the Claim being struck.
The Governments also argued that the case was brought for improper purposes, such as causing harassment to various Officials. As proof, they introduced the Notices of Liability that had been downloaded from the Action4Canada website.
It was confirmed that Action4Canada had raised in excess of $750,000 for this case. It was pointed out that despite this amount of money, there was no activity besides the convoluted Statement of Claim.
Action4Canada accepts no responsibility or liability for any harms or losses that occur as result of delivering this notice. If you do not agree to these terms then please do not use this notice. We do not make any representations or warranties about the potential consequences of delivering this Notice of Exemption/Non-Consent (eg. removal of child from a private school). A parent/legal guardian must decide what is in the best interest of their child.
It’s darkly amusing that there is a portion on the website that explicitly states Action4Canada assumes no responsibility or liability for using their forms.
The Responding Parties (Plaintiffs) essentially had one main argument: a case shouldn’t be thrown out just because it’s complicated or difficult. People reading this article should see the Claim itself, and come to their own conclusions.
The Plaintiff’s arguments for the Application (overall) actually weren’t that bad. However, considering how shoddily the Claim was written, there’s likely no saving it.
The Application was supposed to have been heard on February 3rd, 2022, but an alleged illness from the Plaintiff’s lawyer pushed that back until April 5th. That was again delayed for medical reasons. Interestingly, it was admitted that the only reason it was heard on May 31st was that the Defendants’ lawyers refused to consent to further extensions of time. Perhaps they thought a 4 month delay was long enough.
It’s still unclear why co-counsel Lawrence Wong couldn’t have taken the case. He is a B.C. lawyer with 35 years experience, and was called to the Bar in 1987.
One has to wonder what’s even the point at this stage. Even on the remote chance this suit were successful, what good comes from it? It’s been 2 years, and some 90% or so of the country has taken the shots (for a non-existent virus). Was the goal to run out the clock?
Do the Plaintiffs not know that they will be on the hook for very substantial Court costs once this case is thrown out?
It was interesting that the B.C. Government referenced the recent defamation case of Kulvinder Gill. This was a $12.75 million lawsuit filed in late 2020. It was found to be completely baseless, and dismissed as a SLAPP, or a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.
Side note on that case: despite the suit being thrown out as having no merit, a Notice of Appeal was filed. However, it seems that the Appeal Books themselves never arrived. On May 12, 2022, the Registrar’s Office issued a Notice of Intent to Dismiss for delay. The new deadline was May 31. The Respondents/Defendants say they still received nothing, so, presumably that Appeal is over as well. It’s alleged that getting the original SLAPP decision cost over $1.3 million, or about $55,000 for each Defendant. If this is true, Gill and Lamba will have to dig deep.
As for the Vaccine Choice Canada suit from July 6th, 2020, that’s going nowhere as well. It’s been left to sit for 2 years, and can be dismissed for delay at any time. No Default Judgement was ever sought. This is in addition to many other serious defects. The Police On Guard and schools cases could probably also be dismissed for delay, as they’ve each sat dormant for over a year.
The B.C. Court has reserved the decision (deferred it), and this is pretty typical. It’s unknown when the ruling will be handed down for Action4Canada, and the other Plaintiffs.
Prediction: the Action4Canada case will be struck in its entirety, without leave (permission) to amend. We can expect appeals after that, though it would be far more productive to have just done a proper Claim from the beginning.
It’s disheartening to have to cover content like this. That said, far too few people do any due diligence before handing over money. And many don’t seem to care even when the facts are laid bare.
It’s curious that none of the “freedom lawyers” will call out the nonsense that others put out, no matter how poorly written. What, is there some gentlemen’s agreement in place?
Of course, the requests for donations are still ongoing, which isn’t surprising. Despite the fact that this case is supposedly 100% funded, Action4Canada continues to ask for money. And when the Claim is struck, there will probably be more requests for help to finance appeals.
COURT DOCUMENTS
(1) A4C Notice of Civil Claim
(2) A4C Response October 14
(3) A4C Legal Action Update, October 14th 2021 Action4Canada
(4) A4C Notice of Application January 12
(5) A4C Notice of Application January 17
(6) A4C Affidavit
(7) A4C Response VIH-Providence January 17
(8) A4C Response to Application BC Ferries January 19
(9) https://action4canada.com/wp-content/uploads/Application-Record-VLC-S-S217586.pdf
(10) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BfS_MyxA9J11WeYZmk8256G7GsWEFZ62/view
OTHER
(11) https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/complete/statreg/168_2009_00
(12) https://canucklaw.ca/action4canada-statement-of-claim-fatally-defective-will-never-make-it-to-trial/
(13) https://canucklaw.ca/delay-prevents-action4canada-case-from-being-immediately-thrown-out/
(14) https://canucklaw.ca/action4canada-case-to-be-put-off-indefinitely/
(15) https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc1279/2022onsc1279.html
(16) https://canucklaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/Notice-of-Appeal-and-Appellants-Certificate-Gill.pdf
(17) https://canucklaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/Gill-and-Lamba-Appeal-Notice-of-Intention-to-Dismiss-Appeal-for-Delay.pdf
(18) https://action4canada.com/covid-liability-notices/
(19) https://action4canada.com/court-update-may-31-2022/
(20) https://canucklaw.ca/vaccine-choice-canada-lawsuit-fatally-defective-will-never-make-it-to-trial/