EXCLUSIVE: Alberta Pastor James Coates to Be Acquitted of All COVID Charges

Supporters gather outside court as Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church is in court after he was arrested the previous week for holding Sunday services in violation of COVID-19 rules, in Stony Plain, Canada, on Feb. 24, 2021. Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

Pastor James Coates. Courtesy of James Coates

In an exchange of emails seen by The Epoch Times on Aug. 22, Edmonton Crown Prosecutor Karen Thorsrud states she has “received and reviewed” the earlier court decision and does not intend to call any further evidence in the case of the pastor.

Ms. Thorsrud, who did not return requests for comment by press time, said in an Aug. 22 email to government lawyers and counsel for Pastor Coates that she would “invite an acquittal from the court” and would be writing to the court advising of the Crown’s intention. Ms. Thorsrud said she would be seeking direction on whether the matter could be dealt with in docket court on Aug. 30, or proceed in a non-docket courtroom.

Pastor Coates, of the Christian Grace Life Church near Stony Plain, Alberta, was one of three Alberta pastors arrested and charged during COVID-19 for holding regular Sunday worship services while restrictions were in place. Grace Life Church had nearly 400 congregants during the start of the pandemic; however, their attendance reportedly doubled following the arrest of its spiritual leader, Pastor Coates.

Pastor Tim Stephens, of Fairview Baptist Church in Calgary, and Pastor Artur Pawlowski, of Calgary Street Church, were also charged and spent considerable time jailed for their role in worship services.

Pastor Coates told The Epoch Times on Aug. 22 that he had just been given the news that he will be acquitted, and needed “time to process it all” and discuss further with church leadership before commenting further.

Court Decision

Pastor Coates’s lawyer, Leighton Grey, said that his client has agreed to the acquittal proposal. Mr. Grey told The Epoch Times in an interview that the earlier July 31 court decision, in which he was involved as well,  is “going to expose the Alberta government to substantial civil liability.”

A spokesman for Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery told The Epoch Times, “The Alberta Crown Prosecution Service operates independently, and we respect their autonomy to make decisions.”

Mr. Grey said the decision makes it clear that “what the government did was illegal, right from the beginning” and that this case is important because it’s the “first and only decision of its kind in Canada” arising out of the pandemic restrictions in which the courts have made it clear that “if governments exceed the limits of authority granted to them, the courts will declare the laws illegal or invalid.”

“That is a fundamental recognition of the rule of law, and that is what has been missing from Canadian jurisprudence for three years,” said Mr. Grey. This decision tells government: “your powers have limits. This is the first time that government overreach has been checked.”

Supporters rally outside court as Pastor James Coates, of GraceLife Church, is in court to appeal bail conditions, after he was arrested for holding day services in violation of COVID-19 rules in Edmonton, on March 4, 2021. Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

The July 31 ruling was made by Justice Barbara Romaine. It invalidated all public health orders issued by the province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH) from March 2020 up until September 2021—on the basis that they were enacted outside of the powers of the Public Health Act, and were made by cabinet, not then-chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

The 90-page court decision followed a legal challenge to COVID public health orders filed by two churches and a business owner in December 2020, alleging that CMOH orders were outside the power of the Alberta Public Health Act and were unconstitutional.

Justice Romaine’s decision found that the CMOH orders up until September 2021, the time frame covered by the legal action, were indeed “ultra vires,” meaning beyond the powers provided by law.

Church

However, long before this court decision, during the height of COVID, Pastor Coates and his church were charged with violating the Public Health Act for holding normal church services on Sunday, after first trying online worship during the initial weeks of lockdown restrictions. At the time, the provincial government had promised lockdowns and school and business closures would last just 14 days, to “flatten the curve.” Those two weeks turned into many more months.

Pastor Coates and his congregation decided to go back to in-person worship. As a result of holding church services, Pastor Coates was jailed for one month and six days in 2021, charged with violating public health orders in place at the time restricting church attendance, not having congregants wear masks, and not enforcing government mandates on social distancing.

Pastor Coates was then denied bail following his refusal to sign an undertaking to stop pastoring his church and congregation as a condition of release. At the time, Pastor Coates said he would not promise to stop exercising his Charter freedoms of conscience, religion, freedom of assembly, speech, and association.

He told the court that his religious beliefs required him to fulfill his duty as a minister and lead his congregation in worship.

In April 2021, Grace Life Church was seized by the government, which placed a double-layer barricade fence around the building, erected a fence around the land, and had armed police officers and hired security patrolling the premises to prevent the congregation from gathering in prayer.

Pressure

Pastor Coates’s case received international attention. His story was featured on the Tucker Carlson show, with the pastor’s wife Erin Coates providing an interview while her husband was in jail. Dozens of protests were held demanding the pastor’s release, outside both Alberta government buildings and Grace Life Church.

Even while their pastor was jailed, and after his release, the determined Grace Life Church congregation met for months at secret underground locations, inside barns and buildings on private rural land, unwilling to give up their constitutional rights to freely worship as a group, as their beliefs dictated.

The church membership grew by more than double once the pastor was imprisoned. Congregants said that people would drive for hours to come to the church, hurting from months of lockdowns, isolation, and lack of support.

Supporters rally outside court as Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church appeals his bail conditions after he was arrested for holding church services in violation of COVID-19 rules, in Edmonton, on March 4, 2021. Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

“The threat to Alberta is not COVID-19,” Pastor Coates said in one interview after he was arrested. The threat to the province, he said, was Alberta Health Services and the lockdown measures.

Pastor Coates said the church had at one point met for 37 Sundays without a single COVID case. During his hearings, the government didn’t argue there was actual harm, only that the pastor wasn’t following government mandates on masks, social distancing, and capacity limits.

At his first sermon following his release from jail, held on April 11, 2021, in a secret location, Pastor Coates said to raucous cheering and applause from the church crowd, “They can take our facility, but we'll just find another one.”

In spring of 2021, following months of protests, intense pressure, and media attention, Alberta prosecutors decided to withdraw all but one of the Public Health Act charges still levied against Pastor Coates and his church. Criminal charges of breach of condition were also withdrawn.

At the time, Pastor Coates and his lawyer Mr. Grey would not agree to have all charges dropped as they wanted the matter heard at trial and intended to challenge the constitutionality of health orders.