MPP Roman Baber has filed a lawsuit against the Ontario government’s COVID-19 lockdown measures.
Baber, who was removed from the Progressive Conservative caucus over his stance on lockdowns, said the lawsuit aims to strike down Premier Doug Ford’s Reopening Ontario Act as unconstitutional.
“The risk of transmission outdoors is exceedingly low, but the Government’s outdoor restrictions deny Ontarians their fundamental freedoms.”
The court filings said prohibiting worshippers from gathering outside the Jewish Russian Community Centre of Ontario in Toronto “or elsewhere” is unconstitutional.
Baber said the outdoor restrictions in the Reopening Ontario Act “are inconsistent with their purpose or over-intrusive and therefore in violation of the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.”
“The lockdown isn’t working. It’s causing an avalanche of suicides, overdoses, bankruptcies, divorces and takes an immense toll on our children,” he wrote.
Ford called Baber’s comments “irresponsible.”
Prior to Baber’s ousting, Cambridge MPP Belinda Karahalios was expelled from the Tory caucus in July 2020 after voting against the Reopening Ontario Act, which she said was an “unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy.”
During a press conference on Tuesday, Ford said he does not regret having imposed some of the most stringent COVID-19 restrictions in North America.
“I’m going to stick with what I’ve done right from the beginning, I’m going to stick with health and science and work with them collaboratively,” Ford said.
“I will always, always listen to the chief medical officer [and] his team because they’re the professionals when it comes to health care, and I’m not,” he said.
