Hinshaw cross-examined in court amidst legal challenge of Alberta public health orders. Lawyers for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms and others will be cross-examining Dr. Hinshaw today and for the next three days.
3 Court Days Posted Below
Following repeated delays, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) is in court challenging the constitutionality of Alberta Chief Medical Officer of health Dr. Hinshaw’s health orders.
DAY 1
Lawyers for the JCCF and others will be cross-examining Dr. Hinshaw today and for the next three days.
Sheila Gunn Reid will be live-tweeting the proceedings.
Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid In court this morning on the case of Heights Baptist Church of Med Hat, Northside Baptist and other individuals.
Lawyers for the JCCF and others are cross-examining AB CMOH Deena Hinshaw today and for the next 3 days.
Court Document Here (Story continues below)
- Hinshaw is being sworn in. She has been dodging appearing in court for the better part of a year, once claiming she was too busy with the pandemic to come to court, then taking holidays at the same time she would be in court. https://www.jccf.ca/dr-deena-hinshaw-takes-vacation-after-claiming-to-be-too-busy-for-trial/?msclkid=e1380230b43211ec98bb7f10709d341f …
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid “Albertans are currently experiencing the greatest collective violation of civil liberties this
Province has ever known. Yet, there is no war, no calamitous natural disaster, no catastrophic
loss of critical infrastructure, and no dramatic, overwhelming, sweeping loss of life” - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Leighton Grey with JCCF is starting by making Hinshaw go through her credentials.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid “There can nothing more antithetical to the public interest than the systemic dismantling of the
freedoms of the Alberta people, even if that dismantling is an unintended consequence of
government efforts to respond to a perceived crisis.” - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey gets Hinshaw to agree that her use of the powers given to the CMOH over the last 2 years has been unprecedented. The powers may have existed prior but were never invoked
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey is making Hinshaw admit she has no training in mental health policy, religious and cultural practices, economics and business, sports and recreation policy, university or educational policy or governance, travel and tourism policy, yet her orders impacted all those areas.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Hinshaw admits the measures she imposed caused harm to the public.
“We have done everything we can to balance the benefits of containing the illness with the unintended harm of the measures”
(me: except the virus was never contained, was it?) - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey asks why Dr. Hinshaw’s evidence contains references to “social justice” as it relates to public policy and how it informed her decision-making. AHS lawyer immediately objects when Grey refers to it as “socialism” applied to healthcare policy.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Hinshaw is dancing around Grey’s question about if she agrees her restrictions hurt the poor more.
She admits but avoids taking responsibility.
” I agree non-pharmaceutical interventions did impact those with the least resources more”
(neat way to describe her lockdowns) - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid (as court is ongoing, some other AHS drama is unfolding. FINALLY, AHS head Verna Yui is fired by the UCP. But every health minister who let her mismanage the healthcare system for her obscene salary should be gone too: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/dr-verna-yiu-out-as-head-of-alberta-health-services/ar-AAVQpUx?ocid=uxbndlbing&msclkid=63aa75ffb43811ec9d8839ecd3d307aa … )
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid JCCF lawsuit states that the AB gov has violated the right to peaceful assembly, the right to travel, the right to conduct a business to earn a living, the right to visit family and friends, including having visitors in one’s own private residence, and the right to worship.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid court is on break. BRB
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Court is back. Grey is trying to understand why Hinshaw keeps talking about supporting personal choices in health policy after she issued about 4 dozen edicts that restricted choices
She is describing the restrictions as a “treatment course” for disease at a population level - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey: going back to the beginning [of the pandemic] at what point did you and your team start to consider the use of these non-pharmaceutical interventions?
(the question is regarding why she went with mandatory versus voluntary measures and what evidence she considered) - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Hinshaw: Choice to use non-pharmaceutical interventions was made in March 2020 after examining comparable jurisdictions.
(Gov pivoted early from voluntary to move to mandatory measures.) Hinshaw notes “evidence points about non-compliance”
Grey: this was a subjective analysis - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Hinshaw notes that she relied on reports of covid non-compliance (snitches) and looked at the rising case counts and, I guess, connected one as causation of the other, and moved to mandatory lockdowns in the first weeks of the pandemic.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid (but we know from all the vaccinated lockerdowner mask junkies who keep getting covid and announcing publicly that Hinshaw’s premise that mandatory measures were necessary was probably flawed)
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey asked Hinshaw if masking works.
Hinshaw: we don’t know that’s a binary. Does the mask stop transmission? Does it minimize the severity of the illness (what??)? We have relied on the totality of the evidence. I believe the majority of evidence supports universal masking. - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: I think you just stated that there is not a consensus of opinion on the usefulness of masking.
Hinshaw: the peers I interact with -I believe the majority would agree that universal masking in broad public settings indoor settings would provide an overall benefit
(yikes)
See the rest of this Moment on Twitter
DAY 2
back in court this morning as lawyers with the @JCCFCanada are cross-examining Alberta’s CMOH Deena Hinshaw in a lawsuit brought by two churches and other individuals for violating their charter rights with her endless health edicts (nearly 4 dozen in total).
Will livetweet.
Leighton Grey is back to crossing examining Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s CMOH.
He is now asking her about her affidavit from July 2021. wherein she decried the power of social media to spread misinfo “creating a groundswell” of naysayers and people who question severity of covid.
1from 14 February 2020, Grey produces evidence that Hinshaw was remarking about the control of information about covid 19, about a month before the worldwide pandemic was even declared.
She explains she was worried about anti-Asian racism.
Hinshaw says she considered Alberta Health Services and Alberta Health website a reliable source of early covid information, yes yesterday she said had to re-adjust and lower her own published death statistics regarding covid 19.
GREY is asking Hinshaw to explain why she uses the term “non-believers” to describe people who do not conform to govt covid recommendations
She explains non-believers as those who”adopted beliefs that would lead to behaviours that would put themselves and others at risk”
GREY is trying to pin Hinshaw down on her use of the phrases “conspiracy theory” and “naysayers” to describe those who do not reach the same conclusions as govt doctors did.
Hinshaw explains that a small number of individuals with a diff opinion does not change the consensus
GREY: the govt opinion was the only correct one, regardless of where the opinion came from. (then Grey lists highly credentialed Drs with divergent viewpoints)
Hinshaw: I disagree
GREY: paraphrased: but that’s what you’re saying when you say that you rely on the consensus
Grey confronts Hinshaw with data from the Canadian government about covid deaths, I think to impugn the consensus predictions made by consensus drs.
AHS lawyer immediately objects.
[lol]
GREY is asking Hinshaw about her affidavit wherein she states that personal freedom opposes behaviour change. “Do you see personal freedom as merely an inconvenience?”
Hinshaw: paraphrased behaviour change is inconvenient. Diff people hold diff values.. we tried to balance
GREY: for the government, in dealing with covid, in the hierarchy of values, public health was over personal liberty.
Hinshaw: when the threat was rising, specific liberties were limited to protect public health as a whole.
GREY: give us an example of a scientific study that was commissioned by the province of Alberta that shows lockdowns were effective.
AHS lawyer objects.
GREY: she expressed her opinion. I am asking for the data to back up the opinion.
Judge allows
Hinshaw: there have been many studies around the world about the impacts of non-pharmaceutical interventions.
(she doesn’t mention any Alberta studies, instead talks about ICU numbers in relation to when restrictions were imposed)
GREY: but the govts own data concerning ICU numbers is unreliable. You gave a statement on January 10 about the nature of ICU admissions, and how those were reported, and classified.
On Jan. 10, 2022, Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw stated that some units in some hospitals shifted back and forth between being used as ICU units and non-ICU units. The Covid-19 ICU data, however, did not distinguish patients whose units had changed back to non-ICU units, thereby inflating ICU unit data.
Hinshaw explains that over-all ICU admissions stayed the same and it put pressure on system
GREY: but wasn’t that misinformation then?
Hinshaw: we didn’t know that information to be inaccurate at the time.
[There is something about listening to health bureaucrats that makes me feel like what I would describe as an electric car in really cold weather. I am being drained of life. But, I could also start on fire at any minute.]
GREY produces an examination of over 80 covid 19 studies from around the world that shows lockdowns relied on false assumptions that overestimated benefits and underestimated harms. (by Douglas W Allen)
AHS lawyer immediately objects. Arguments happening.
The judge allows Hinshaw to be questioned on the examination of those 80 studies.
GREY: here we have a contrary opinion to lockdowns, that the harms vastly outweighed the evidence.
Hinshaw: this is the opinion of one individual. I would not be able to comment
[but the contrary opinion is from an economist who looked at over 80 studies on lockdowns]
Hinshaw: we used non-pharmaceutical interventions [lockdowns] sparingly and sparsely.
[sparingly and sparsely = closing gyms/restaurants, jailing pastors, chaining up churches, incarcerating a rural entrepreneur, seizing businesses, fining people, and medical discrimination]
ok
CMOH Hinshaw is talking about how accurate testing for covid is. She says it’s accurate.
[I was just looking at this the other day. 1 in 5 people who are actively sick with covid will get a false negative and this has been known from very early on.
ok we are on a morning break for 15 mins. Time to fill up the coffee cup and switch lanes. I have Rebel work screaming at me from my notifications.
We are back. GREY attempts to make Hinshaw justify with evidence the credit she gives herself for combatting wave after wave of covid. She credits lockdowns, but her evidence is “we did lockdowns and then the wave crashed”
GREY argues this was just the ebb and flow of disease.
GREY: was there ever a time pursuant to the course of your orders that in-person worship was prohibited?
Hinshaw: no
GREY: are you aware of the church closures?
AHS lawyer immediately objects.
GREY is naturally referring to GraceLife, Harvest Baptist, and Cave of Adullam.
Hinshaw acknowledges the church closures ( at her hand btw) and we move on.
[Icy. Men were imprisoned. Dragged from their children like terrorists and she sleeps at night pretending she didn’t do it.]
GREY asks Hinshaw about her masking rules for children.
AHS objects because GREYs clients are not children.
Grey says he is cross-examining Hinshaw on her evidence and she put evidence of children not being a great risk of covid spread in her own affidavit.
Judge allows.
GREY is now making Hinshaw confirm many of the horrible restrictions she imposed. 5 people in a gathering outside, closed gyms, restricted funerals to just 10, closed indoor dining, 15% in churches.
“There are prison inmates who would not be subject to such harsh restrictions”
AHS launches an objection. Says Grey is being argumentative.
GREY: she testified that her restrictions were the least restrictive measures. How can she say this?
Judge allows.
Hinshaw: we were trying to protect the acute care system.
GREY now asking about Christmas and Hanukkah restrictions on gathering.
Calls them fundamentally discriminatory, that people who celebrate those holidays would be harmed more and first by Hinshaw’s restrictions that hit in the winter.
and court is breaking for lunch. Rebel duties call for the next hour.
Just a quick note: I’m doing my best to put my own commentary on this Hinshaw cross-examination into brackets.
I know some of you want “just the facts, ma’am” but pls remember we have been in the thick of helping good people and their families destroyed by her edicts for 2 yrs
of course, I am biased. I am a conservative. The difference between me and the mainstream media is that I am honest about my bias and don’t pretend our readers/viewers are too stupid to see it.
And the best part? No one is making you pay for my work against your will.
court is back in session.
scheduling things are happening. Someone forgot about Good Friday, which is really the story of so much of this nonsense
Grey asks Hinshaw about the use of therapeutics versus lockdowns.
She says she looked at the sum of evidence available to her and saw no data that showed the benefit of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of covid.
GREY: We know there are other jurisdictions, for example, Florida, that after the initial stage, gave info and trusted the public, and protected liberty. Wasn’t there always another way to go?
Hinshaw: …
AHS lawyer: objection. Argumentative.
Judge: paraphrased, rephrase.
court is breaking for 10 mins
Lawyer Jeffrey Rath is now cross-examining Hinshaw.
(sorry I was on another skype call for half an hour)
Rath: are you aware that your numerous orders have resulted in the bankruptcies of many Alberta businesses? I believe that Albertans are entitled to know?
AHS lawyers object, say Hinshaw answered this.
(I did not hear her answer, she simply “acknowledged harms”)
Rath is now asking about the suicide data for 2021. Hinshaw put evidence of 2020 suicide rates suggesting they were lower than the previous 5 years.
“are you suggesting no people have committed suicide as a result of your orders?”
Rath shows Hinshaw an AHS document about suicide showing most visits to emergency rooms about suicide are aged 20-39.
(The implication here is that lockdowns on young people, which don’t seem to make sense given their covid outcomes, may drive suicide rates up)
Rath: were you receiving inputs from the scientific advisory group relating to the broader impacts on the mental health of Albertans from the lockdowns?
Hinshaw: not from that group, no.
Rath: did you receive input from the scientific advisory group about the psychological harms of masking kids? Was there information provided to you in those reports?
Hinshaw: I would need to go back and review
(Rath notes no one from the advisory group was a psychologist)
Rath asks if Hinshaw was aware of the economic impacts of her edicts.
Hinshaw: yes I would have heard (from the economic experts)
Rath: Can you tell the court how many billions of dollars your CMOH orders have cost the economy of Alberta.
Hinshaw: It’s not appropriate to assume that all economic impacts are related to orders. Some were as a result of community spread.
Rath: As an Albertan, surely you have seen the shuttered bars and businesses.
AHS lawyer goes to object, realizes he has none and instead just audibly groans.
Hinshaw: yes, I have seen
Rath: did your orders contribute to this?
Hinshaw: I am sure the orders were a factor.
Rath asks Hinshaw about Kenney’s plan to wildly ramp up healthcare capacity at the beginning of the pandemic.
She says there were insufficient staff to expand capacity in the way that Kenney promised
(good thing they laid off all those unvaccinated healthcare workers smh)
(I feel like I’ve been attacked by a chupacabra, listening to a highly paid health bureaucrat counterfeit concern and skirt responsibility for what she’s done to so many people through her edicts)
Ok we have some legal back and forth. And it sounds like we might be breaking for the day.
Court is reconvening at 930 am tomorrow
Day 3
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Back in court. Heights Baptist, Northside Baptist et al. vs Alberta and the Chief Medical Officer of Health. The lawsuit led by lawyers from @JCCFCanada and Jeffrey Rath calls into question the constitutionality of CMOH Deena Hinshaw’s lockdown orders. https://www.jccf.ca/hinshaw-challenged-over-violating-charter-freedoms-of-albertans/?msclkid=9dabcc50b5c111ecaeaf5ed51ac5c541 …
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid they are currently going through evidentiary formalities right now
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Leighton Grey for the JCCF is back to cross-examining Hinshaw. He plans to examine her on her press conferences. Transcripts of her many pressers were admitted into evidence
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: “What did you mean when you cautioned people against spreading rumour and inaccurate speculation?” [in early March 2020]
Hinshaw: we wanted to make sure that if people saw something on social media, they were checking to see if it had been verified. - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: on March 12, 2020, you said Alberta was taking “aggressive new public health measures” There were just 19 diagnosed cases.
[Hinshaw told cabinet then to kill gatherings of 250 or more and advised against travel. She told returning travellers to self-isolate upon arrival) - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid [this flies in the face of Hinshaw’s earlier testimony that her edicts were sparse and sparing and balanced]
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: when you mentioned the new normal in your March 14 2020 press conference, did that include restrictions on freedoms?
Hinshaw: when necessary. The expectation was always that people would follow the law. - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: March 17, you say the measures are putting strain on people. Not the virus, the measures.
Hinshaw: yes
Grey: March 18 you said “please trust these measures, as painful as they are, are necessary to prevent the spread …” You called the measures painful
Hinshaw: yes - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: March 21, you said “covid 19 does not discriminate”. You would agree that is not true. It does discriminate, more deadly to elderly & those with comorbidities, according to govt’s own data.
Hinshaw: depends on what discriminate means. Everyone is susceptible to infection - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: most Canadians will get minor symptoms if any. That’s true?
Hinshaw: yes - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Hinshaw: most of us were working through something like this for the very first time.
[but she is the public health officer. I don’t think “I was learning on the job, what do you people want from me?” is the best defence here] - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: On April 3, you said some young people would go on to have serious illness and even death
Hinshaw: while the risk was low, there had been fatalities in other jurisdictions. - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: But that was not true for Alberta at the time, was it? You can see how people hearing this may be alarmed.
Hinshaw: I can’t recall. It was 2 years ago and I don’t know when we saw the first under 18 death recorded. https://twitter.com/SheilaGunnReid/status/1511751375092281346 - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Ok court is taking a 15 min break. BRB. Doing Rebel things
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid court is back. Grey is still cross-examining Hinshaw on the things she said in her press conferences.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid GREY: at some point, the govt decided that the percentage of eligible Albertans receiving vaccines to be 70% to begin lifting restrictions You say in your evidence that you thought the vaccines were the way to achieve herd immunity.
- Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Hinshaw: it is fair to say that I thought we would be able to achieve herd immunity if we achieved significant level of vaccination
GREY points to a subsequent presser when Hinshaw called vaccines 95% effective
GREY: where did you get that info
Hinshaw: pfizer clinical trials - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey points to Hinshaw presser Jan 2021: you said “when you can, promote content revieed by people with expertise in epidemiology.. infectious diseases that will contribute to informing people …and stop the spread of misinfo”
(But she said vaccines were 95% effective) - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid Grey is noting Hinshaw’s past statements from March 3 2021 wherein she proclaimed that one dose of Pfizer or Moderna gave up to 80% protection against covid.
[but as we know from Ontario data, triple jabbed are outpacing unvaxxed with respect to covid infections right now] - Sheila Gunn Reid ✔ @SheilaGunnReid [the obvious implication is perhaps Hinshaw was the one who was spreading what turned out to be misinformation while accusing others of doing just that. Anyone who disagreed with her proclamations was called a “naysayer ” or “unbeliever” in her affidavit] https://twitter.com/SheilaGunnReid/status/1511804502944276483
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid · 7h Grey is noting Hinshaw’s past statements from March 3 2021 wherein she proclaimed that one dose of Pfizer or Moderna gave up to 80% protection against covid.
[but as we know from Ontario data, triple jabbed are outpacing unvaxxed with respect to covid infections right now]
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· GREY: is this the first time you have seen zero cases of seasonal influenza? Hinshaw: yes Grey: how do you explain this? Hinshaw: PARAPHRASED the restrictions prevented the spread of the flu GREY: the restrictions completely eradicated influenza? Hinshaw: yes that’s my opinion
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· [how does anyone say that with a straight face?]
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· [she has never admitted to getting anything wrong. She keeps deflecting to “we relied on the available data at the time” but she was so sure everyone else was wrong, and she had no problem telling the world that]
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· Grey is done after two and a half days. Court is taking a break until 3 o’clock and then lawyer Rath is back up to continue yesterday’s cross of Hinshaw
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· She explains that the flu doesn’t spread the same way, or as effectively as covid, but also responded well to the restrictions put in place to control covid.
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· In this exchange, Hinshaw explained that testing for covid is different than testing for the flu. One test would not catch the other disease. That being said, she also said the vaccines were 80% effective after one dose, based on the “information that was available at the time”
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid · 7h GREY: you reported zero cases of seasonal influenza on April 13 2021. You say you reassess data. Is this number still accurate?
Hinshaw: yes, there were no reported cases of seasonal influenza.
GREY: is it possible that some influenza cases were counted as covid?
Hinshaw: no
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· Rath: you have said you are able to treat the population of Alberta as your patient. But you have to check with your political commisars first?
AHS lawyer: objection argumentative Judge allows.
Hinshaw: paraphrased I advise the decision-makers in my capacity of CMOH
Sheila Gunn Reid@SheilaGunnReid· Rath: have you seen a report that the homeless population in Edmonton has doubled over the course of the pandemic?
Hinshaw: no, I cannot comment. …have not seen that report.
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