January 24, 2024, the Ontario First Responders suit (organized by Take Action Canada), briefly appeared in Court for a case conference. It had been expected that this was to set down dates to bring a Motion to Strike the pleading, since it didn’t follow the Rules of Civil Procedure, or for Summary Judgement.
The lawsuit was coordinated in the Fall of 2021, but nothing was actually filed until March 1, 2023. Here we are, almost another year later.
For context, this is a lawsuit involving about 100 current and former: (a) police officers; (b) medical personnel; (c) firefighters; (d) city workers; (e) transit workers; and (f) related employees. They objected to the new requirements to take the injections in order to stay employed. However, there were a few major obstacles to this going forward.
This is not to say that coercing or pressuring people to take experimental injections, for a non-existent virus, was a legitimate move. It certainly wasn’t. Realistically though, this case will have some serious problems.
First, most — if not all — of the Plaintiffs are either employed by some level of Government, or have some kind of union or collective agreement. This means they typically have the right to grieve, which can lead to arbitration. However, they don’t necessarily have the right to sue.
Second, the pleading was written so poorly that it would likely be struck in its entirety. There are specific rules (like 25.06 in Ontario), which lay out the requirements to plead facts and particulars. Simply making bare accusations without specifics isn’t enough.
If prospective Plaintiffs are required to grieve, there are a few limited ways they can get into Court.
(1) If the grievance process is corrupted or unworkable, then the Court may allow the person in anyway. However, the burden will be on them to show that they made every effort to go through proper channels. Keeping letters, emails, texts, etc… would be very handy to have as evidence.
(2) If the matter has already gone to to adjudication or arbitration, and was unfair, a person can sometimes come to Court and ask for a review. This is analogous to appealing a verdict.
However, it doesn’t appear from the pleading that any of the Plaintiffs attempted (1). And (2) wouldn’t apply since there was no internal adjudication.
To be fair, the Amended Statement of Claim does list some 35 workers who sought to get exemptions from the injection requirement. But it still doesn’t say that they tried the formal process to grieve.
The injection mandates happened in 2021, and we are now into 2024. The Plaintiffs presumably let their ability to grieve lapse a long time ago. And even if they were to hire new counsel now, they may be time barred by the Statute of Limitations from refiling in Court. To be blunt, they have no options now.
In the big picture, a lot has been going on, it’s important to remember that this isn’t the only lawsuit happening. Plenty of bogus claims are being filed, with clients oblivious to the realities.
July 6, 2020: Vaccine Choice Canada files an $11 million lawsuit against Federal, Provincial and Municipal authorities in Ontario. The suit is almost 200 pages, incoherent, unintelligible, and fails to meet the basic requirement of Ontario Civil Procedure. Rather than immediately bringing a Motion to Strike, the Parties are okay with letting it sit idly for years. Despite the media blitz, and promises of an emergency mask injunction, there’s no activity.
Summer, 2020: Action4Canada begins regular fundraising for a challenge out in B.C., but it would be approximately a year before anything was filed.
April 20, 2021: Organized by Police On Guard, group of police officers file a Notice of Application, requesting declaratory relief and clarification about what their jobs actually involved. To date, it hasn’t had a single Court appearance, and counsel and admitted that it’s “moot” and not being pursued.
April 20, 2021: Children’s Health Defense (Canada) files a Notice of Application, requesting declaratory relief and clarification about what their jobs actually involved. To date, it hasn’t had a single Court appearance, and counsel and admitted that it’s “moot” and not being pursued. Additionally, these 2 Applications are virtual clones of each other.
August 17, 2021: The Action4Canada lawsuit is finally filed in Vancouver. It terms of being incoherent and unintelligible, it outdoes the VCC case in every way. It’s almost 400 pages, and is almost completely irrelevant in terms of pleading for CIVIL remedies in British Columbia.
Fall 2021: Take Action Canada starts to organize a challenge for “Ontario First Responders” who are going to be impacted by injection mandates. These include police, firefighters, paramedics, and transit workers. Prospective clients are asked to pay $1,500 each, for work that is being sold as top rate. (See archives here and here).
Fall 2021: Take Action Canada puts out this hit piece, gloating over the fact that this site was sued for millions for critiquing these anti-lockdown cases. (See archive here). Keep in mind that despite this, TAC hasn’t actually filed their lawsuit, and they won’t for a very long time.
May 25, 2022: The Adelberg (Federal) suit is filed, challenging injection mandates for Federal employees, and workers in Federally regulated industries. Over 600 Plaintiffs are expected to pay a retainer fee of $1,000 each, making the initial amount over $600,000.
May 31, 2022: The Action4Canada Motion to Strike is heard, with the decision being reserved, or deferred.
June 28, 2022: Ted Kuntz contacts the Law Society of Ontario and tries to assure them that there’s no basis for the Toews complaint. See page 9. He defends the practice of “not revealing [VCC’s] litigation strategy to the general public”. In a backhanded way, he admits that Toews — and everyone else — have been kept in the dark about what’s been going on.
June 28, 2022: CSASPP is sued for $1.1 million. This is (partly) for criticising the lack of activity in the Action4Canada and Vaccine Choice Canada cases. But the real goal was to subvert and undermine the Toews complaint to the Law Society of Ontario, requesting an investigation of donations. Get the backstory here and here.
June 29, 2022: The Law Society is contacted to inform them of the lawsuit against Toews, CSASPP, and its leadership. This is done to further shut down the Toews complaint.
July 12, 2022: The Law Society of Ontario is sued. This is another effort to silence the Toews complaint, and make sure it’s not heard.
July 13, 2022: Before CSASPP and the LSO are even served, the idiotic decision is made to announce their respective cases on a VCC livestream. It takes a special kind of stupid to admit publicly that someone was sued for instigating a LSO complaint. For obvious reasons this isn’t allowed, as it would allow lawyers to bypass complaints, simply by suing whoever made them.
Keep in mind, suing someone in order to ward off a Law Society complaint is something that causes lawyers to get disbarred. There is precedence for this. Suing the LSO itself is even worse.
August 29, 2022: The Action4Canada case is struck in its entirety as “bad beyond argument”. Justice Ross states that it fails to meet any minimum standards of professionalism or coherence. That said, a rewrite of the Notice of Civil Claim is allowed.
September 28, 2022: Instead of filing a proper Claim, Action4Canada appeals the ruling instead. It centered around what types of remedies a Civil Court could pursue. Problem is, none of the necessary legislation exists to allow for such remedies
January 17, 2023: Vaccine Choice Canada finally has their first Court appearance, for their 191 page Claim filed July 6, 2020. That’s right, it sat idly for 2 1/2 years. That’s on top of the October 24, 2019 lawsuit, which hasn’t had a single appearance in over 4 years.
January 19, 2023: The Adelberg Motion to Strike is heard, with the decision reserved.
February 21, 2023: The Adelberg (Federal) case is struck as “bad beyond argument”.
February 24, 2023: Angry and disgruntled clients leak this letter, which demands another $1,000 each in order to appeal the Adelberg ruling. Despite the gross incompetence of counsel, clients are expected to pay more money.
Reminder: despite all of the obvious delays and shoddy work produced to this point, the suit from Take Action Canada hasn’t yet been filed.
March 1, 2023: The Statement of Claim is eventually filed in the FR/TAC case, nearly a year and a half after injection mandates came into effect in Ontario, and elsewhere. Aside from changing the names, it’s about 90% cut-and-paste from the Adelberg (Federal) case, which had just been thrown out. It also has many of the same defects as the Action4Canada case, also struck.
March 11, 2023: Sandra Sable (who helps run Take Action Canada), and Tanya Gaw (Action4Canada) swear out Affidavits against the CSASPP anti-SLAPP Motion. The content is interesting, to say the least. The timing is also curious, as it comes only days after the TAC suit is eventually filed. A cynic may wonder if it was done as leverage in order to get the Sable Affidavit out.
March 13, 2023: Ted Kuntz of Vaccine Choice Canada swears out an Affidavit against CSASPP as well. In it, Kuntz displays anger at having being forced to explain to donors what’s going on. Apparently, he preferred to keep them — and opposing counsel — in the dark about the details of their case.
July 18, 2023: An Amended Statement of Claim is filed in the FR/TAC case. Paragraphs 9A and 22A outline some 35 employees who apparently sought exemptions, but were denied. These changes appear to be an attempt to fix some of the defects that were present in the Adelberg case.
July 31, 2023: The Law Society of Ontario is sued for a second time, while the Toews/CSASPP and other LSO complaints are still pending. While VCC/A4C/TAC and others are assuring clients and donors that their cases are being advanced, counsel is ensuring he’s forced out of the profession.
August 16, 2023: The City of Hamilton files a Notice of Intent to Defend against the FR/TAC suit. This is not the same as filing a Statement of Defence, just an indication that they will at some point.
November 24, 2023: This letter is sent to the Plaintiffs in the FR/TAC case. Presumably, they weren’t happy, and it was soon leaked. This is a demand letter for another $4,500 (per Plaintiff), otherwise, the suit may be discontinued. Considering the number of Plaintiffs, this would be close to another half million. The deadline was given as January 24, 2024. Their lawyer had already received about $150,000 from clients, and had done nothing to advance their interests.
While there were questions about the letter — as it was unsigned — the hearing did happen (sort of) on that date.
January 24, 2024: The FR/TAC suit has their first case conference, which is adjourned. There’s still be no meaningful activity, up to this point. No evidence has been sworn, no Motions or Applications filed, no witnesses called, or other hearings. As with the above cases, there’s no urgency whatsoever to bring this case forward. According to the November 2023 letter, it was to set dates for a Summary Judgement Motion.
January 30, 2024: Vaccine Choice Canada will finally have their Motion to Strike heard, after the case had been dormant for about 3 1/2 years. It’s to be held over 2 days.
This timeline matters, as there was an abundance of information available prior to Take Action Canada filing anything. It doesn’t seem that any consideration was given.
Now, let’s hear from Sandra and Ted themselves!
In her Affidavit (from the CSASPP case) Sable blames the organization, its leadership, and this website for the comments criticising the other anti-lockdown cases. She specifically states that it caused many prospective clients to either withhold funds, or to demand refunds. In short, these reviews (allegedly) threatened the financial viability of the Ontario First Responders lawsuit.
There is another way to look at this. Sable knew ahead of time that the sort of lawsuits being filed didn’t follow the basics of Civil Procedure. She also knew that they were needlessly delayed, preventing real justice. The truth was staring her in the face, yet she pushed on, soliciting for more clients.
There’s no mention of why none of the 100 or so Plaintiffs never went through the formal grievance process before attempting to litigate. At least, it’s not spelled out if they did. This is very basic employment law.
In regard to Take Action Canada, there’s no explanation offered as to why it took almost 18 months to file a Statement of Claim. It wasn’t some novel pleading, but a rehash of old ones. Beyond that, this case was a rehash of content thrown out, and more than once.
Instead of doing due diligence, Sable lashed out this site, and at CSASPP.
She bragged in 2021 about this site being sued for defamation, and sarcastically says “Good luck, Canuck Law”. Well, thanks Sandy! Good luck when you get sued for fraud, or at least negligence.
Ted Kuntz from Vaccine Choice Canada swore an Affidavit in the CSASPP case, and an almost identical one here. And it also is very interesting.
At paragraph 20, he laments the CSASPP/Canuck postings which caused VCC members to demand answers. Although he doesn’t specify, the comments truthfully stated that there had been no meaningful activity since the July 6, 2020 filing. Understandably, clients and donors wanted answers.
Instead, Kuntz comes up with the excuse that VCC didn’t want to expose their litigation strategy, nor reveal solicitor-client information. However, the privileged information is a red-herring, as no one was demanding the release of confidential data. But there were legitimate concerns about the total inactivity, and shoddy pleading of the Claim overall. Clients and donors had real questions.
The defence of “not wanting to reveal the litigation strategy” is absurd. Anyone who has ever been involved in litigation knows you have to show your cards well in advance. The cloak-and-dagger approach isn’t received too well. Springing last minute surprises on opposing counsel is referred to as “sandbagging”, a practice Judges almost universally reject.
At paragraph 25, Kuntz indignantly rejects the idea the VCC is just another “fundraising arm”. He states that it is just a group who hired a lawyer to pursue a case.
However, this is directly contradicted by Exhibit “C”, on page 18.
Exhibit “C”, page 20, Kuntz references a newsletter which stated that VCC was involved with coordinating litigation before the CPSO, or College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. It implies that VCC has helped to finance these cases as well.
For reference, none of the CPSO challenges ever went anywhere. Attempts to remove from internal investigations, and get them into Court, always failed for “prematurity”. This isn’t to condone the CPSO’s heavy handed approach, but they were doomed from the start. Similar to suing union or Government employers, it would be necessary to demonstrate that internal methods were corrupt or inadequate. That didn’t happen.
Exhibit “C”, page 20, Kuntz states that “in concert with the overall plan, other legal actions” had been filed. Page 21, item 4, it’s specifically listed that doctors who have been maligned on social media have also filed suit. This presumably refers to Kulvinder Gill’s December 2020 and March 2021 defamation lawsuits.
Gill and Ashinder Lamba are suing former counsel in a Brampton Court, but it’s a very small amount, less than $6,000. This is probably what they had to pay out of pocket personally. It seems unlikely their joint case was performed on contingency, since it was so weak. There was no prospect of winning. This raises the question of who paid the rest of the bills. And there are a few obvious suspects.
Their $12.75 million case from 2020 was thrown out as a SLAPP, and in October 2022, a cost award of $1.1 million came down. So, who really orchestrated this?
For someone who objects to the term “fundraising arm”, it’s odd that Kuntz is so willing to get involved in other litigation. It’s also implied that Kuntz and VCC arranged (and financed) Kulvinder Gill’s abusive SLAPPs. These were filed in order to silence critics on social media. Perhaps this is the real reason that there was great reluctance to reveal any litigation strategy.
Looking at Exhibit “A”, it also appears that Kuntz contacted the LSO on June 28, 2022 regarding the Toews complaint. It looks like an attempt to undermine it, and consequently, stop the LSO from investigating donations or financing.
Champerty and maintenance aren’t allowed, and for good reason.
It should be mentioned that this isn’t to blindly go after everyone associated with these organizations. Surely, there are many good people who just wanted their livelihoods back. And who can blame them?
And there is a natural urge to want to fight back, which is what drives people to go into Court in the first place. This is perfectly understandable.
Nonetheless, the reality cannot be ignored.
Take away all of the smoke and mirrors. What’s left?
The Ontario First Responders case is just another in the long list of frivolous “anti-lockdown” cases designed to go nowhere. This isn’t just sloppiness, as no lawyer could possibly be this bad, especially after being smacked down repeatedly in Court. If there ever is a Motion to Strike here, expect another “bad beyond argument” ruling. Objectively speaking, none of these will ever get to Trial.
There isn’t even a follow-up date booked for the First Responders/Take Action Canada case to return. Again, injection mandates were in 2021.
How much money has been raised, and through whom?
Was donor money used to finance the CSASPP/Canuck defamation suits?
Instead of getting angry at sites like this one, it should be directed at those who funnel other people’s time, money and energy into such dead end ventures.
(1) https://takeactioncanada.ca/
(2) https://twitter.com/Takeactioncan
(3) Ontario EMS Statement Of Claim
(4) Ontario EMS Amended Statement Of Claim
(5) Ontario EMS Requisition To Amend
(6) Ontario EMS Notice Of Intent To Defend
(7) Ontario EMS Demand For More Money