“The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) will be representing numerous Ontario pastors and church elders who have been charged for holding religious gatherings in contravention of the Reopening Ontario Act (ROA), according to a press release issued on Monday. The JCCF will contest the charges on the basis the ROA violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by prohibiting people in Ontario to peacefully assemble for worship, as is their right. Several members of the Old Colony Mennonite Church and Word of Life Mennonite community, with locations in Leamington, Ont., and Wheatley, Ont., were charged by police in December. [Also charged or given summons are Harvest Bible Church in Windsor, Ont., Trinity Bible Chapel of Waterloo, Ont., and the Church of God in Aylmer, Ont.] ‘Churches are being targeted by both police and vigilante members of the public, who look for church parking lots with vehicles and call in complaints to the police,’ said Lisa Bildy, a constitutional lawyer at the JCCF. ‘It’s easy to see how the Stasi in East Germany were able to operate so effectively—it appears it doesn’t take much to turn neighbours into informants, and police into petty tyrants.’ The JCCF will be attending multiple first appearances over the next several months, on behalf of these churches and their leaders.”
“Justice Centre to Defend,” Conservative Review, Jan. 5, 2021