Covid Canada
© Wealth Professional
This post is an update on Constable Adrienne Gilvesy's fight against the Toronto Police Services' mandatory vaccination requirement. As a follow-up to the letter she sent on August 28th, which I recently published on my website (An Example of Courageous Pushback For Those Facing Vaccine Mandates in the Workplace), she has now filed an official misconduct complaint with the Toronto Police Service Professional Standards Unit against her Chief of Police, Chief James Ramer, for various provincial and criminal code offences.

If found guilty, Chief Ramer could face time in prison. And, theoretically, so could any other superior with whom she lodges her complaints if they knowingly allow a criminal injustice to continue. "Just doing my job" is not a legal defense. "Just turning a blind eye" also doesn't stand up in court when it's their job to investigate a problem. Once the complaint is filed, those with the responsibility to investigate that complaint are drawn into this fight. She is forcing everyone off the sidelines by making them decide which side of the legal line they want to stand on. This is as real as it gets.

I have reproduced her complaint for you below. But first I'd like to take a moment to explain the enormous implications of what she is doing. If enough people follow in her footsteps, NOW, to build momentum behind what she is doing, she is creating a spark that has the potential to trigger a massive institutional crisis that pits the lower levels of our institutions against the upper crust.

Simply by using all the legal tools available to her to defend her rights, and by refusing to back down, she is challenging the very core of the supportive pillars holding up this tyranny. A tyranny cannot survive without the support of its institutions. Tyranny collapses without minions.

As more people launch lawsuits and file official complaints, as Constable Gilvesy has done, employers who impose these mandates on their employees are placing themselves in legal peril. Her battle is happening at the heart of the Toronto Police Services, but the lessons of her actions apply equally to any institution, corporation, or business that is imposing these vaccine mandates on its employees.

Here's the problem for all employers: whether it takes days, months, or years, the hysteria will eventually end, but these official complaints will not just go away — those committing offenses in the name of imposing vaccine mandates are going to have to answer to these charges someday in a court of law. Constable Gilvesy is building a legal avalanche, ready and waiting for the hysteria to end. It will hang over the heads of employers like the ever-present peril of Damocles' Sword. As that avalanche grows, they will have to decide if they really trust the government to keep that sword off their own necks.

If you quit your job, you relieve your employer of the legal consequences of their decision to enforce these mandates. Do not quit. Make them fire you. By making them fire you, they have to (1) confront the difficult moral choice of firing you and (2) you put them into a position where they may face serious legal repercussions (possibly even criminal accountability) for discriminating against you based on your medical status.

Your employer cannot be sure that the government will protect them from the legal consequences of an illegal vaccine mandate. When the tyranny collapses, there won't be a Justin Trudeau or Doug Ford to shield them from the consequences of having played a role in the tyranny. And that creates a huge dilemma for employers. The larger the legal avalanche that employers face, the greater the likelihood that employers will push back against the government rather than risk crippling lawsuits and possible jail time at some point down the road. Constable Gilvesy is forcing the rats to decide if they want to go down with the government's ship. Damocles' Sword grows large and heavy indeed if tens of thousands of employees across the country start to follow in her footsteps.

It's easy for someone to get swept along by the tide of hysteria... until the day that they find themselves having to confront hard moral decisions and until the moment they find themselves at risk of facing legal consequences for having participated in the tyranny. It's one thing to be part of a baying mob. It's quite another to be the one who has to put on the jackboot to grind it into someone else's face. By refusing to quit, you shift the tyranny into their shoes. By refusing to quit, you force them to take an active role in destroying someone's career and in taking away someone's ability to feed their family. It makes them get their hands dirty.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told Canadians that he will protect businesses from legal challenges like those filed by Constable Gilvesy. But a Prime Minister does not have the authority to suspend the rule of law. And that forces employers to confront the question of how long the government will pervert the rule of law in order to protect their sorry butts. The hysteria will end someday. Damocles' Sword will be waiting. If the government has shown itself to be willing to throw you under the bus to cater to fearful voters today, then it also won't hesitate to throw your employer under the bus tomorrow, after the tide turns, in order to win back votes. At the end of the day, employee votes outnumber employer votes. Call the government's bluff. Refuse to quit. Call your employment lawyer. Make it uncomfortable. Make it real.

Constable Gilvesy is using every legal avenue available to her. Every official complaint and every legal challenge she files is going to haunt these people. For them, the end of the pandemic won't bring relief - it will bring lawsuits. They don't know if they will win. And the sheer cost of defending themselves against thousands of angry employees whose inalienable rights and freedoms have been trampled may force many of these businesses into bankruptcy long before the cases even reach a judge.

Most employers are old enough to remember that until 18 months ago we still had something called a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It has not been invalidated; it is just being ignored. Being confronted by a lawsuit forces them to gauge their chances of winning if society rediscovers an appetite for a Charter with real teeth. The more people that follow in Constable Gilvesy's footsteps, the heavier Damocles' Sword becomes.
Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis & foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

Martin Luther King Jr.
There are many peaceful ways to create a crisis and force a community to confront an issue. Constable Gilvesy's approach is one of those ways. She, along with others who follow in her footsteps, are forcing the leaders of businesses and institutions to confront the immorality of nodding along with the government's tyranny. By refusing to back down, Constable Gilvesy is backing her employers into a corner and asking them if they want to share the fate of the upper crust of our political and medical institutions. When this hysteria breaks, the top tier of our government will face human rights tribunals and may do hard time in prison. What they have done is not small potatoes.

For the upper crust, there is no backing down. Their goose is cooked. They cannot fall back on "we were just following orders." They gave the orders. But the Nuremberg trials after World War II established that those carrying out those orders are themselves criminally liable for human rights violations if those orders infringe upon anyone's inalienable human rights. Institutions have many layers below that upper crust. Rats don't want to go down with the ship. At some point, all the lower echelons of these institutions will begin to get nervous. Their collars will begin to feel tight as they see Damocles' Sword growing heavier above their own necks.

Constable Gilvesy is forcing them to ask themselves on which side of the legal line they want to be standing when the mood of the crowd changes. Will they find themselves in the witness stand or in the docks? Constable Gilvesy is denying them the option of neutrality by forcing them to put their fingerprints on the enforcement of these vaccine mandates.

Constable Gilvesy is following in Martin Luther King Jr.'s tradition by creating a crisis that can no longer be ignored. Every person above her in the hierarchy who is legally tasked with registering and investigating her official complaints no longer has the option of simply allowing themselves to get swept along by the tide of hysteria. They have to decide if they want to add their fingerprints to this government's tyranny and share its fate.

Sometimes crossing your arms, saying "No", and forcing others to wrestle with the consequences of not respecting your "No" is the most powerful peaceful leverage in the world. Give Constable Gilvesy a long enough lever and a fulcrum upon which to place it, and she will move the world.

So, without further ado, here is the official complaint that Constable Gilvesy's has filed against Chief Ramer. Consider sharing this article with your employer. It might save you both from having to call your lawyers.

(This is not intended as legal advice. Contact your employment lawyer. Provided for informational purposes only. )

Read the complaint by Constable Adrienne Gilvesy. (Scroll down to the middle of the page)