Lawyer John Carpay is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF.ca) which has applied to intervene before the BC Court of Appeal in the case of AB v. CD and EF.
The case of AB v. CD and EF is now before the British Columbia Court of Appeal.
A court order prohibits the publication of the names of the born-female child (“AB”), the child’s father (“CD”), the child’s mother (“EF”) and the medical professionals involved in this case.
The court’s order also prohibits using biologically accurate pronouns to refer to this born-female child.
The story of AB
The father and mother divorced about four years ago. Since that time, their female-born child was frequently in trouble in school, seeing school counsellors on a regular basis.
With the support and affirmation of school counsellors, the female-born child began to transition to a male identity, including taking on a male name.
This was kept a secret from the father, even though custody is legally shared between him and his ex-wife, and despite his legal right to know all significant happenings and developments pertaining to his own child.
The father only found out after seeing his child in a school yearbook, dressed up as a boy with a new male name below the picture.
The child continued to meet with school counsellors who supported AB presenting to others as a male. They referred the child to a psychologist (“Dr. IJ”) who advocates for transgenderism, who then referred the child to “Dr. GH” at the B.C. Children’s Hospital.
In December of 2018, Dr. GH sent the father a letter stating that the Children’s Hospital would begin giving the child testosterone within two weeks, without the father’s consent.
Father worried about long term consequences
For the next several months, Children’s Hospital staff pressured the father to consent to the treatment. The father had grave concerns about the so-called treatment, and with good reason. He was also concerned about starting the treatment prior to proper consideration being given to treating AB for depression.
According to a 2011 Swedish study, people who receive affirmation therapy, cross-sex hormone therapy and surgical manipulation of their bodies, experience life-long psychological trauma and a suicide rate 19 times higher than the general population.
Further, cross-sex hormones result in irreparable changes such as increased risk of cancers, heart disease, osteoporosis and permanent infertility. Other changes include permanent voice changes, facial hair, and lower bone density.
In 2018, Brown University published Lisa Littman’s findings from a case study with 256 parents evidencing the rapid onset of gender dysphoria in adolescent girls. The study evidences a correlation between social media use and peer influence as twin factors contributing to the phenomenon.
Gender dysphoria is often linked with mental health problems and childhood trauma. It may be triggered by peer pressure, or by their social environment, but gender confusion typically desists following puberty.
The psychologist who was treating AB, Dr. IJ, has publicly stated that only 2% to 20% of transgender kids stay transgender. The vast majority grow out of it. Dr. IJ’s claim is consistent with medical research, which shows that more than 80% of gender-confused children accept their biological gender by the time they are 18, absent “affirmation therapy” and cross-sex hormones.
However, if gender-confused children receive pubertal suppressant drugs and opposite-sex hormones, most will continue with the gender transition process past the age of 18.
The full and long-term results of gender transition treatments received by minors are unknown at this time, due to lack of medical information and lack of comprehensive, long-term studies on the treatment’s impact on children.
The court ruling under appeal
On February 27, 2019, Justice Bowden of the Supreme Court of British Columbia declared that it was in the best interests of the child to receive the controversial cross-sex hormone treatments and/or pubertal suppressant drugs, and/or whatever other treatment may be recommended by the BC Children’s Hospital, including surgeries such as mastectomy.
Justice Bowden further ordered that the female-born child be acknowledged and referred to as male, and be referred to only by the child’s new male name, both in the legal proceedings and generally.
This order applies to AB’s father, and everyone else, effectively requiring people to re-align their conscience, beliefs, opinions and expressions accordingly.
Further, Justice Bowden also specifically forbade the father from attempting to persuade AB to abandon this experimental treatment that carries life-altering, permanent consequences.
Calling the female-born child by the name assigned at birth, or referring to the child using biologically correct pronouns, or trying to persuade the child not to proceed with irreversible treatments, would constitute “family violence” under BC’s Family Law Act, according to this judge.
Compelled speech violates Charter freedom of expression rights
The Justice Centre is applying to intervene in this case to address the violation of constitutional rights and freedoms, namely the rights of children and parents as protected by section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: the right to “life, liberty and security of the person.”
In addition to the rights of children to be protected by those who love them the most and know them the best (the parents), this case also raises the important issue of compelled speech.
The court, which is an arm of government, has told the father what he must call his own child, in conversations with the child and even in conversations with third parties.
Compelled speech violates free expression as protected by section 2(b) of the Charter, and has been described by the Supreme Court of Canada as “totalitarian, and as such alien to the tradition of free nations like Canada.”
In addition to protecting every person’s freedom to speak, hear and listen, the Charter also protects the right not to be compelled by the government (including the courts) to utter words which are not one’s own.
The Charter is violated when the courts, or any apparatus of the state, demands that citizens refer to any individual with words that are not freely chosen by them, especially when uttering such words commits the speaker to a belief they do not adhere to.
A mockery is made of free expression, not to mention liberal democracy itself, if citizens are ordered by the courts to speak against their will that which they regard as wrong or false.
Protecting children by protecting parents
The Charter protects the liberty and security interests of parents in the raising and caring for their own children, including a right to make decisions for them in fundamental matters such as participating in elective irreversible medical interventions. Further, a child’s section 7 Charter rights include the right to have the protection of parents, and the right to have parents make decisions for the well-being of the child.
Human minds are not fully developed until sometime around the age of 25. Prior to reaching the age of 18, children cannot buy alcohol, tobacco or marijuana. Children can’t vote, run for office, or join the military.
They can’t even get a tattoo without the permission of both parents.
By law, they must have parental guidance for a great host of activities. At the age of 12 or even 15, children cannot possibly understand the full and long-term implications of cross-sex hormone treatment, resulting in lower bone density, permanent changes to voice and facial hair, and irreversible infertility.
Parents across Canada, regardless of creed, race or political view, have a deeply personal and abiding interest in their children’s health and long-term happiness.
The Charter, like the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of the Child, recognizes that parents are typically in a far better position than the state to raise children and to make decisions regarding their care.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the Charter gives parents rights generally to make decisions for the good of their children. The law recognizes that nobody is more invested in protecting children
Section 7 of the Charter thus protects a parent’s right to withhold consent for an elective, experimental and largely irreversible treatment such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and gender reassignment surgery, pending a child reaching a certain age and becoming what is legally described as a “mature minor.”
The government, which includes the courts, is precluded—except in the rarest of circumstances not present in this case—from interfering with the parent’s rights to raise his child in accordance with what he reasonably believes is best for the child, and to protect the child from the irreversible consequences of unnecessary and risky medical interventions with irreversible consequences, such as gender transition treatment.
What makes for a “mature minor” in law?
Part of what qualifies a minor to be recognized as legally “mature” (able to make adult decisions independently from her parents and from the government) is her ability to think through difficult issues and deal maturely with opposing viewpoints.
In cases involving teenage Jehovah’s Witnesses who refuse life-saving blood transfusions, one of the things considered by courts, when assessing whether the minor is legally “mature” and able to make this decision on her own, is her capacity to hear and consider differing viewpoints.
If a child is already dealing with significant emotional and mental stress that impedes her ability to rationalize and consider
Justice Bowden’s Order prohibits the father from trying to persuade his female-born child to refrain from experimental and irreversible testosterone treatments. This assumes that the child is not sufficiently mature to handle differing opinions and to think through the pros and cons of different options.
If true, this means the child is not a mature minor.
If the child is not a mature minor, the child cannot decide on serious and irreversible medical treatments; it’s up to the parents. Yet the lower court views the child as mature enough to decide on experimental medical treatments, but not mature enough to deal with the father’s objections.
There should be no irreversible medical treatment until the parents agree, or the child reaches the age and acquires the maturity of a “mature minor.” Neither the government nor the courts will pick up the pieces of this child’s life if they are wrong regarding these treatments.
It will be the parents.
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Would the International Criminal Court prosecutor opening an investigation into Palestine be a good idea?
Sarah Teich is a lawyer and a consultant to the Canadian Coalition Against Terror. She holds a law degree from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree in Counter-Terrorism. She spent four months in 2016 working with the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and received a commendation for her work.
On December 20, 2019, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, announced that she was prepared to open an investigation into the situation in Palestine, following a four-year preliminary examination. Ms. Bensouda articulated that she was satisfied there was a “reasonable basis to believe” that war crimes have been or are being committed on Palestinian territory–which she defines as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
This is a loaded announcement, and a brief backgrounder on how the Court operates and the history of Palestinian interaction with it–is essential to understanding this development.
Generally, there are three stages to Prosecution at the Court: the preliminary examination, the investigation, and the trial. The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) currently has several situations in preliminary examination. Most situations are referred to the Court by the State Party in question (“self-referrals”), from governments who lack the capacity to take on these cases domestically. The OTP conducts many preliminary examinations, but not all make it to the investigation stage. For the OTP to open an investigation, it needs to be satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to believe that crimes have been committed, that the Court has jurisdiction over the situation, that no domestic proceedings are covering the issue, and that the situation is of sufficient gravity to warrant use of the Court’s limited resources.
Critically, the OTP only has jurisdiction to investigate crimes that occur in the territory of a State Party, or crimes by State Party nationals. That is, unless the Court has received a specific declaration by a non-state party accepting jurisdiction, or a mandate from the U.N. Security Council to investigate a specific situation.
Despite Ms. Bensouda’s assertion that there is a “reasonable basis” to believe war crimes have been committed in Palestine, there are serious jurisdictional concerns to be considered before any investigation may be initiated.
For starters, is Palestine really a “State”, such that it can confer jurisdiction to the Court? Ms. Bensouda posits that because Palestine is a State Party to the Rome Statute, that is sufficient to close this debate and label Palestine a State. However, this interpretation is inconsistent with well-established principles of public international law.
Specifically, article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, which Ms. Bensouda herself acknowledges as “the most accepted formulation of statehood criteria in international law”–establishes four criteria for statehood. These criteria are permanent population, defined territory, effective government, and capacity to enter into relations with foreign states. Palestinians do appear to have a permanent population, but the other three criteria are lacking. To fulfill the territorial requirement, there must be exclusive control of territory within fixed boundaries. Then, there must be effective government capable of controlling the territory. As Ms. Bensouda acknowledges, the Palestinian Authority does not have control over all territories claimed. The Palestinian Authority does not control Gaza (Hamas does), and Israel has full control over East Jerusalem and large swaths of the West Bank. Palestine may have some capacity to enter foreign relations, as it is able to sign treaties and join international bodies–but this is also disputed, due to provisions of the Oslo Accords.
Ms. Bensouda suggests that this type of analysis should essentially be side-stepped because Palestine is already a State Party to the Rome Statute. But perhaps Palestine should not have been permitted to become a State Party. In fact, this was the position taken by the Government of Canada; that Palestine should not have been permitted to become a State Party. Canada believed this was both legally wrong, and also diminished the likelihood of a sustainable, negotiated peace between Israel and Palestine–down the road.
Even if the Court gets past the difficulties with Palestinian statehood, there is the next question of territorial jurisdiction. Does the Court have jurisdiction to investigate crimes in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza? Palestine is a State Party to the Rome Statute, but Israel is not, and the Court only has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the territory of a State Party. So, the next question becomes: what constitutes the territory of Palestine? Does the territory of Palestine include the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza? That is the position taken by Palestine and adopted by Ms. Bensouda. However, for the Court to take this position would be problematic. As Ms. Bensouda acknowledges, these borders are disputed.
Precisely because of the disputed nature of the borders, Ms. Bensouda is now asking a panel of Court judges to rule on the scope of her territorial jurisdiction – to “confirm” that Palestinian territory for purposes of jurisdiction includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. For the Court to step into this highly politicized arena and to essentially draw the borders of two states without their consent–is a dramatic overstep and would be detrimental to the ongoing peace process. These questions that the Court is now tasked with answering, are matters of policy and diplomacy, not international crime. The issues are best left to the negotiation table, not the courtroom.
When Palestine became a State Party, Canada objected. Canada also objected to Palestine’s “self-referral” to the Court of this situation back in 2015. Canada should continue to object to these moves. This is not what the International Criminal Court was designed to do.
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China can't be trusted with coronavirus reporting—SARS is proof
While WHO decided today that it was too early to call the coronavirus a “public health crisis,” the world is now keeping a watchful eye on China, where the virus first originated.
China’s track record when it comes to pandemics is not a good one. In November of 2002, an outbreak of the now well-known SARS virus—which is similar in nature to the new coronavirus—began in China’s Guangdong province, with a population in 133 million. The People’s Republic of China did not notify the WHO until February 10, 2003, reporting that 305 cases including 105 health-care workers, and five deaths.
The People’s Republic, in an effort to hide the truth from its citizens, a common practice used to keep up morale, discouraged the nation’s press from reporting on the SARS outbreak, and even hid reports from the World Health Organization.
China would even go so far as to prevent WHO teams from visiting the Guangdong province where the disease first spread, not allowing entry until April.
The reason for China’s shifty and suspicious behaviour of not disclosing information regarding when plagues and natural disasters (i.e. 2009 earthquake) could be thanks partly to a traditional belief called the Mandate of Heaven. According to the mandate, great disasters like famine, floods, plagues, and earthquakes were a sign from the heavens that the gods were displeased with the current ruler—reluctance to admit this to the public would often lead to civil unrest, as the masses believed the heavens were warning the people of the ruler’s illegitimacy.
The virus continued to spread throughout the world thanks to China’s inaction. In February of 2004, an elderly woman returned to Toronto from Hong Kong. She died after infecting her son, who would go on to spread the disease at Scarborough Grace Hospital, before himself succumbing to the virus.
If Canada were to learn from the past, the country would immediately and unapologetically forbid all direct flights from China to enter Canada. With the knowledge that the virus can spread person-to-person, it’s vital that the country delay the virus’ entry at all costs—though it may already be too late. Two Quebec hospitals are supervising five potential carriers, all of whom recently returned from China.
SARS eventually ended up killing 44 people in Canada, which would make it the only country not in Asia to have deaths from the virus.
We can now see that China is in a full-blown panic regarding the virus. The country has taken several massive steps, including cancelling the world’s busiest travel year, the solar New Year, in the nation’s capital. The country has also put three major cities into quarantine, a massive step which will prevent people from leaving or entering city limits. Plans have also been announced that the city will construct dedicated coronavirus hospitals in just six days time.
The origins of the virus have been traced back to a market in the Wuhan city center, but some have started to question this. With China’s history of dishonesty, is it really that out of the question that the origins lie in something more malevolent?
Take for example the Wuhan maximum security biolab which opened in 2017, one of many planned facilities of that nature across China. According to Nature, Wuhan built a lab to deal with “the world’s most dangerous pathogens,”
According to the Nature article, scientists outside China worried about pathogens escaping, and that “the addition of a biological dimension to geopolitical tensions between China and other nations.”
Whether this had any part in the virus will probably never come to light. But with certainty, Canadians and the world should be wary of any official information released from China’s regime.
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Canada's national archives hit by 'major flood', despite denials from staff
Canada’s national archives was hit by a “major flood” that damaged much of the collection containing priceless records and books. Despite this, information about the flooding was withheld from the public, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
More seriously, however, the agency has denied that a single part of the collection had been ruined through water damage. This denial came in spite of an official auditors report that stated that there was indeed “damage” to the collection.
As well as this, photographs that were discovered through an access of information request seem to show significant damage to the collection—showing an inch of water on the floor of the building.
The archive’s spokesperson, however, stated that “No collection material was damaged by water … one bay of books, apparently thirty items, were damp but were immediately air dried.”
When the damage was audited in 2019, reports confirmed that the “major flood” had caused substantial harm. “Some items that were damaged by the water were still undergoing treatment,” the report stated.
Finally, after being presented with irrefutable proof, the library’s spokesperson acknowledged that the archive’s collection had been “affected by this leak … some of the items had water on them.”
It is unclear why Canada’s national archives were attempting to keep this a secret.
Canada’s national archives receives $127.4 million annual budget.
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Why won’t they keep Jessica Yaniv behind bars?
Not a week goes by when Jessica Yaniv isn’t in the news for committing a crime or doing something so morally abhorrent it might as well be criminal to do so.
Yaniv’s deplorability is depthless. Yet despite the wall-to-wall coverage of Yaniv’s activities both online and in the real world, the self-described “trans rights activist” has managed to elude any serious repercussions from the law.
Writing for Human Events, I previously described Yaniv’s attempts to manipulate the law as state-enforced sexual assault. I stand by it. Yaniv, who is male-to-female transgender, attempted to subvert law enforcement to do her bidding by taking them to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and essentially trying them for anti-trans bigotry when they refused to provide their genitalia-waxing services, male-bodied transgender persons.
Despite eventually losing the case, the legal ramifications to Yaniv were minimal and Yaniv has only gotten worse since then—and the lack of any severe repercussions has only emboldened her misbehaviour.
Not only has Yaniv tried to subvert the law to force women to wax her male genitalia—she’s now using the law to try and silence her detractors. She made false allegations of sexual assault on The Post Millennial’s Amy Eileen Hamm, who has brought a civil suit against Yaniv.
She also assaulted Canadian journalist Keean Bexte. One might hope that the time she spends roaming about in a motorized scooter will soon come to an end as she was finally arrested over the assault. The footage of the attack was caught on camera, which should be an open and shut case for any prosecutor in the B.C. courts.
That isn’t the only felony charge Yaniv faces, either—having previously been charged for possessing illegal weapons, which she proudly flaunted (and arguably used to threaten) YouTuber Blaire White during a live-streamed interview late last year.
Yaniv has proven herself dangerous to young people. The Post Millennial has profiled in detail allegations by a young woman who alleges that years prior to attaining notoriety over the “wax my balls” scandal, Yaniv—then going by the name Jonathan—had attempted to sexually exploit her when she was underage.
Observers, including myself, remain skeptical that Yaniv will see any actual jail time. Her actions would have landed anyone else behind bars long before now.
Why is it that Yaniv can escape the long arm of the law? A public menace, Yaniv enjoys unspoken protections from the law—not merely as someone who identifies as transgender but as a transgender activist, who makes every action taken against her an action that weighs against the trans rights movement as a whole.
Indeed, the LGBT-friendly media—at least in the form of the internationally read PinkNews came to the apparent defence of the accused child sex predator and public menace. As Celine Ryan detailed for The Post Millennial, the progressive publication chose instead to smear Blaire White, who has been outspoken in her criticism of Yaniv.
Unlike Yaniv, White is openly conservative and doesn’t regard herself as any sort of “trans activist.” In other words, White isn’t the right kind of trans. Yaniv, a colossal fruitcake and aggressively woke social justice activist is everything publications like PinkNews look to champion.
Labels, to some, matter more than substance—and therein lies the problem with those in law enforcement who care more about optics than they do about meting out justice. Just as no plan survives contact with the enemy, no politician, judge, or police officer who acts against Jessica Yaniv is going to emerge unscathed due to the protection she is afforded by the privilege of the labels she wears.
There’s nothing just about social justice.
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