Maxime Bernier found guilty of violating Sask. public health order for COVID-era 'freedom rally'

People’s Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier is guilty of violating a Saskatchewan public health order, according to a provincial court judgment released this month.

As part of his "Mad Max Saskatchewan Tour," Bernier held a rally in Saskatoon May 2021, when COVID-19 restrictions limited public gatherings to a maximum of ten people.

Over 40 attendees who were issued fines after the rally showed up to fight the charges at a trial in 2022, which had to be held at an event centre to accommodate the size.

In a Dec. 14 written decision, provincial court judge Quentin Douglas Agnew found all but seven defendants guilty.

The 38-page judgment tackles a broad range of arguments, including Charter challenges, the validity and quality of video and photographic evidence, some pseudo-legal claims and other “irrelevant matters.”

Of the seven people found not guilty, the judge couldn’t prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that they attended the event, they seemed to have been misidentified, or appeared to be at the event only in passing.

When Bernier appeared at the trial in September 2022, he was unequivocal about his presence at the rally.

“Yes I was there,” Bernier told CTV News as the trial paused for lunch. “And I was proud to be there. I’m proud of these people also. They are not ordinary Canadians, they are extraordinary Canadians.”

Among the pseudo-legal claims Agnew describes are a brief submitted by the counsel for defendant Mikela Herbel, which cited a “legal blog” arguing the trial was operating as an “administrative tribunal,” not a criminal court.

“I do not know the context in which that statement was written, or what knowledge the writer may have about the Canadian legal system, or indeed the law at all: I am accordingly reluctant to criticize the writer for making the statement,” Agnew writes.

“I have no such hesitation in criticizing the statement itself in the context in which it was put before me, however. As a stand-alone assertion, which is the way it was presented in the Herbel brief, it is shockingly erroneous.”

Agnew doesn’t specify specific penalties for the defendants, but violating public health orders in Saskatchewan can result in a maximum fine of $7,500 for individuals.