Category: Military/Police

Late last month, counsel for hundreds of military veterans appeared on the Talk Truth podcast to talk about her case, among other things. This is, of course, a notorious and high profile injection passport case that was thrown out in late 2024.

See parts 1, 2 and 3 for background on the case.

Briefly, the case was struck by Associate Judge Coughlan in November 2024 for: (a) not properly being pleaded; and (b) lack of the Federal Court’s jurisdiction, due to the military’s grievance system taking priority. After missing the deadline to appeal, and a comedy of errors, Justice Manson refused an extension of time. A Notice of Appeal has now been filed in the Federal Court of Appeal.

The full interview is available on Rumble, and most on Twitter.

Catherine Christensen, counsel for the Plaintiffs, talks about her Motion Record being deleted, an allegation that makes no sense at all. She suggested that it was done prior to AJ Coughlan’s ruling, implying that the Court is corrupt.

Worth noting: Christensen doesn’t understand the argument of why Payne succeeded. It wasn’t that “Charter Rights violations cannot be addressed in the grievance system”. It was that unilaterally imposing changes on employment contracts without meaningful consultation circumvents the grievance process.

Hopefully, she isn’t able to get a negative precedent set.

Motion Records Filed, Available To The Public

Anyone can search the case notes on Federal Court cases. It’s freely available. For the Motion to Strike, the Plaintiffs’ Motion Record was Item #68 and #70. Yes, it’s 2 volumes. As for the Motion to extend time, it’s Item #77.

The first volume of the Plaintiffs’ Motion Record contains dozens of Affidavits, and is 6,908 pages in size. It’s full of photographs, and takes up over 1 GB in data. However, a significant portion is irrelevant.

The second volume of the Plaintiff’s Motion Record contains the written submissions, and hundreds of pages of “secondary sources” and “appendices”. It’s 613 pages in length.

Now, it’s possible that she had to send (at least the first volume) more than once, given its size. But she’s implying there’s some conspiracy to rig the case. In reality, the Motion Record was so poorly crafted that it went largely ignored by AJ Coughlan.

For context, what was the Motion to Strike about?
(a) Pleadings not being drafted in a way that can be responded to
(b) Lack of jurisdiction for the Court, given the grievance system in place

To address the lack of jurisdiction, the Plaintiffs needed to focus on providing evidence that the grievance option was corrupted, or otherwise unworkable. There are parts of the evidence that addressed exemptions and grievances, but that should have been the entirety.

At the time of hearing the Motion to Strike, over 100 of the Plaintiffs had filed grievances, and they were in various stages. In fairness to AJ Coughlan, it put her in the awkward spot of being asked to confer jurisdiction to the Court. As for ongoing grievances, it would effectively hijack them.

[67] Indeed, it is noteworthy that over 100 of the Plaintiffs have filed grievances arising from the Directives. At least one grievance was allowed by the MGERC though not supported by the FA. This Court has consistently upheld the CAF grievance system and declined to exercise its exceptional jurisdiction: Veltri v Department of National Defence Canada, dated January 4, 2018, at paras 11-17 (Federal Court file no. T-1400-17); Sandiford v Canada, 2007 FC 225 at para 28‑29; Graham v Canada, 2007 FC 210 at paras 22-23. In the present circumstances, I see no basis upon which I ought to exercise my residual jurisdiction to permit this action to continue.

For reference, Christensen was told back in late 2021 not to try to circumvent the grievance system by going to Federal Court. That was also a vaccine mandate case.

To give Plaintiffs credit, there were sections of the evidence that were quite appropriate. But with these decisions in mind, it was an uphill battle getting any Court to take the case.

***Due to the large amounts of private (and irrelevant) information that was filed, the Motion Record won’t be shared. It would cross into doxing.

Contents Of Motion Record Largely Irrelevant Or Redundant

The first volume of the Motion Record consists of 34 Affidavits, and is 6,908 pages long.

The content which shows various Plaintiffs attempting to seek some alternative or exemption is great. Many refer to grievance systems in place. That’s helpful in trying to establish whether or not there were any alternatives.

There’s a lot of duplication and redundancy in the evidence. Documents such as: (a) CDS Directive 001; (b) Layered Risk Management System; and (c) Government of Canada Policy on Mandatory Vaccination appear in each Affidavit.

The Affidavits also include significant sections of personal information that seem unnecessary to hearing such a Motion.

Part of the problem of having hundreds of Plaintiffs is that filing anything becomes a tedious process. Approximately, just 10% of them gave any evidence at all, and the Motion Record was thousands of pages. A far better option would be a Class Action, something Christensen does actually suggest later.

Some Affidavits Sworn Out BEFORE Proceedings Commence

[17] The Plaintiffs filed 34 affidavits of individual Plaintiffs with their motion materials. Some of these affidavits pre-date the filing of the initial Statement of Claim yet bear the style of cause and action number of the proceeding. Further, not all of the additional affidavits were referenced in the Plaintiffs’ written representations.

There’s a principle in law that evidence cannot be changed once it’s sworn out, but that appears to have happened here. AJ Coughlan mentions that some Affidavits were completed prior to the case being filed, yet have the the number of them. Prior to the Statement of Claim being filed — here it’s June 20th, 2023 — there would be no case number at all.

And that ties back in to the earlier problem. This was just a Motion to Strike, and the focus should have been on asking the Court to “take Jurisdiction”, as there was no effective grievance option. Instead, Christensen seems to have just reused Affidavits compiled earlier. She didn’t create new ones.

Written Submissions Only Reference “Some” Affidavits

[16] The form of motion materials is precisely prescribed by the Rules. Rule 363 provides that any facts to be relied upon by a party on motion should be set out in an affidavit. Rule 365(2) provides that appropriate sources may be referenced, attached to the affidavit, and included as part of the motion record. However, only affidavits and sources that are referred to in written submissions are to be included in the motion record.

[17] The Plaintiffs filed 34 affidavits of individual Plaintiffs with their motion materials. Some of these affidavits pre-date the filing of the initial Statement of Claim yet bear the style of cause and action number of the proceeding. Further, not all of the additional affidavits were referenced in the Plaintiffs’ written representations.

This is pretty straightforward. If you want to rely on Affidavit Evidence, it needs to be referenced in the written arguments. However, only some of them were.

Motion Record Contains “Secondary Sources” And “Appendices”

[18] The Plaintiffs also attached secondary sources to their motion record. The secondary sources were styled as “Appendices” and were not attached to affidavits. Again, only some of the secondary sources included in the motion record were referenced in argument. At the hearing of this matter, Plaintiffs’ counsel conceded that this is unacceptable under Rules 363 and 365.

[19] Because of the breach of Rules 363 and 365, I conclude that the affidavits and secondary sources were not properly before the Court on this motion. Accordingly, I did not consider them in my analysis.

AJ Coughlan clearly had (and read) the Motion Record prior to making a ruling. But the Rules of Civil Procedure were flaunted to such a degree that she refused to consider the evidence within.

Keep in mind, this is just a Motion to Strike. Again, the only evidence that really mattered was evidence that showed the grievance process was unworkable.

Despite suggesting the Judge was corrupt (or at least Court officials), the Motion Record was disregarded since Christensen couldn’t be bothered to follow the Federal Court Rules. This is an ongoing problem.

Christensen Sought To Convert Into Class Action, Or Individual Cases

Interestingly, in trying to ward off a Motion to Strike, Christensen proposed that AJ Coughlan allow the case to be refiled as a Class Action, or on an individual basis.

Of course, one has to wonder why it wasn’t in the first place. She laments the burden and hassle of having to contact and consult with over 300 clients. By contrast, a Proposed Class Action could have been initiated with a few (or even a single) Representative Plaintiff.

Christensen Screwed Up First Appeal (Rule 51)

The case was originally struck by Associate Justice Coughlan. Christensen filed a Motion under Federal Court Rule 51 to have it reviewed. Or at least, she was supposed to. She missed the deadline by nearly 3 weeks, and bungled an attempt to ask for an extension of time. And to clarify:

APPEAL RULING FROM	PROTHONOTARY	JUDGE
Appeal Goes Where	Federal Court	Federal Court Of Appeal
Appeal Ruling To	Single Judge (FC)	Panel of Justices (FCA)
Rules of Procedure	Rule 51	Rules 335 to 357
Time Limit For Notice	10 Days	30 Days
Initial Document	Notice Of Motion	Notice Of Appeal
Procedure	Motion	Appeal
New Evidence Allowed?	No	With Leave, Rule 351

Because an Associate Judge (Prothonotary) struck the case initially, it could be reviewed by filing a Motion. Challenging a Judge’s decision would have required going to the Federal Court of Appeal. But Christensen screwed up the Appeal big time. Not only was she late, but:

• The reason for prolonged inaction wasn’t really convincing
• Christensen invoked the wrong Rule (51, instead of 8) asking for extension
• Christensen asked for a Motion “in writing” but cited a Rule that applied to the Federal Court of Appeal
• Christensen asked for “Leave” to appeal when it wasn’t required
• Christensen improperly swore out her own Affidavit (breaks Rule 82)
• Christensen didn’t clarify Plaintiffs “always intended” to appeal
• Christensen didn’t explain how an Appeal may be successful

That Appeal was addressed in detail here and here.

Christensen Appears To Have Already Screwed Up Second Appeal

Christensen missed the deadline to appeal the first time around, and then botched a Motion to extend time. She then files a Notice of Appeal with the Federal Court of Appeal. Already, it’s obvious that she has no idea what she’s doing.

First, Leave (permission) to Appeal to this Court is not required for a Final Order.

Second, Christensen asks for Leave “to file the Notice of Appeal”. Problem is, that “is” the Notice of Appeal. It’s already filed, and can’t be unfiled. It would have made far more sense to bring a Motion asking to file the Notice of Appeal. And again, Leave isn’t required.

Third, she doesn’t seem to be challenging the Decision of Justice Manson not to extend time to file the Rule 51 Appeal. She says that it was an error…. but doesn’t ask that it be reversed.

Fourth, she requested permission to convert the lawsuit into a Class Action when the Motion to Strike was heard, and that would have solved a lot of logistical problems. However, there’s no mention of it here.

Fifth, on a lesser note, she requests costs on a full indemnity basis, which would be 100% of the costs. Outside of successful anti-SLAPP Motions for defamation suits, it’s almost unheard of. The Federal Courts have their own scales for lawyers to use.

Could such an Appeal eventually succeed?

Perhaps, but it’s been a gong show so far.

COURT DOCUMENTS:
(1) Qualizza Statement Of Claim June 2023
(2) Qualizza Amended Statement Of Claim July 2023
(3) Qualizza Statement Of Defence September 2023
(4) Qualizza Reply To Statement Of Defence September 2023
(5) Qualizza Defendants Motion To Dismiss Claim July 2024
(6) Qualizza Plaintiff Motion To Strike Written Submissions August 2024
(7) Qualizza Plaintiffs Motion To Extend Time To Appeal December 2024
(8) Qualizza Defendants Respond To Motion To Extend Time To Appeal December 2024
(9) Qualizza Order Denying Extension Of Time January 2025
(10) Qualizza Federal Court Notes
(11) Qualizza Notice Of Appeal January 2025
(12) Qualizza Motion Record Contents Of Appeal Book February 2025

OTHER:
(1) https://www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/n-5/
(2) https://www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/n-5/page-3.html#h-374837
(3) https://www.fct-cf.gc.ca/en/court-files-and-decisions/court-files#cont
(4) https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2021/2021fc1443/2021fc1443.html
(5) https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2024/2024fc1801/2024fc1801.html
(6) https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/hundreds-of-military-part-of-lawsuit-over-mandatory-covid-vaccine
(7) https://valourlegalactioncentre.org/
(8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hifDPBW4r0w