Law professor Amir Attaran sued Ford for removing mask in quarantine

Article content

At a press conference at Ottawa Hospital in March, a professor of law in Ottawa filed a private criminal prosecution against progressive conservative leader Dougford for violating federal quarantine law.

Article content

A private prosecution took place on Tuesday morning before a Justice of the Peace in Ottawa. After asking a series of questions, she approved her indictment and set a court day for September, said Amir Attaran, a professor of uOttawa who filed a private prosecution.

Ford, as Premier of Ontario, was admitted to the Civic Campus of Ottawa Hospital on March 25 and announced funding for the hospital. He took off his mask and spoke with a microphone, especially defending the government’s decision to end most of his obligations.

By doing so, Ford broke the law, and Attalan and Jacob Shelley are professors of health law at uOttawa and Western University, respectively.

The Prime Minister met with officials in Washington, DC on March 21, and an emergency order under federal quarantine law required him to wear a mask in public for 14 days after returning to Canada.

Article content

Attaran said that in the six months of 2021 alone, 5,000 Ontario residents were charged with violating quarantine laws. He said the law applies to everyone.

“There is a single law for big and small, the weak and the strong, and it’s completely unacceptable for the strongest in Ontario to consider themselves above the law,” Atalan said Tuesday. .. “He will have to answer justice for that.”

Ford wasn’t the only civil servant to openly violate federal quarantine rules this year, according to Attaran and Shelley.

In a civic editorial last month, they said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s director of health, also did not wear masks in public during the period required by the Quarantine Act. Insisted.

Article content

“As professors of health law, we’re pretty sure these three acted illegally,” writes Attaran and Shelley.

According to Attaran and Shelley, Trudeau, who visited Belgium on March 24, unmasked while giving a keynote speech at the GLOBE Forum 2022 in Vancouver on March 29.

And Moore spoke at a press conference without his mask after spending a vacation in the Caribbean. He later said he was more than six feet away from anyone else and had his mask replaced shortly after the press conference. He also said the press conference was not public.

Attaran said the proceedings complaints were filed with police in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. He received replies from police in Vancouver and Toronto, but not in Ottawa. He said he filed a private charge against Ford because the alleged crime was committed in Ottawa and he was able to do so directly.

Article content

Atalan said police in both Vancouver and Toronto had jurisdiction issues regarding complaints. That is, they thought he should go to another institution.

Private criminal charges are rare, but not unheard of. The public prosecutor’s office has the discretion to continue such charges if it feels that there is no justifiable reason. Mr Atalan said such behavior would be considered “terribly wrong.”

“This is serious at so many levels,” Attaran and Shelley wrote in an editorial. “Why does someone else need to obey when (the best official) violates the law?”

A Ford spokesman declined to comment.

Earlier this year, Atalan will be able to use the Modana COVID-19 vaccine for children after filing a human rights violation allegation against Otawa Public Health, which initially provided only Pfizer vaccinations to children. I did. Approved by Health Canada, Moderna was subsequently made available to children ages 6-11 in Ontario, based on their parents’ informed consent. Pfizer is still considered the preferred vaccine for children of that age group.