A Brampton doctor, with financial backing from Elon Musk, plans to seek a reversal of an Ontario court’s refusal to quash three orders that cautions be placed on her public file for questioning the COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccines on social media.
Dr. Gill’s lawyer Lisa Bildy told The Epoch Times that although X has already confirmed funding for an appeal, “we need to get leave from the Court of Appeal first, as is normal after a divisional court ruling.”
“We will be focusing argument this time on errors made by the divisional court, rather than those made by the CPSO screening committee,” said Ms. Bildy, who is from the firm Libertas Law.
Dr. Gill, who drew attention for questioning anti-COVID measures in 2020 and again last month when Musk offered to pay her legal fees, had argued in court April 10 that the CPSO’s cautions and its related notice to hospitals and regulators across North America were punitive and stifled debate about the COVID measures. She sought to have them overturned.
The three caution orders examined by the court relate to two posts Dr. Gill published on Twitter, now known as X, during the lockdowns of August 2020.
The first read “There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful and illogical lockdown” and the second said “If you have not yet figured out that we don’t need a vaccine, you are not paying attention.”
The court said the CPSO “did so in a manner that offered some protection to the public, but was minimally intrusive to Dr. Gill. In other words, its response was proportionate.”
The court also dismissed Dr. Gill’s arguments that the CPSO caution orders were punitive, stating that “cautions are educational and remedial in nature and do not reflect a finding of professional misconduct.”
The appeal by Dr. Gill, a specialist in pediatrics, allergies, and clinical immunology with 340,000 followers on X, will receive the support of Mr. Musk “since her posts were made on the X platform which supports free expression and dialogue, even on contentious issues and particularly on matters of scientific and medical importance,” Libertas Law said.
The legal battles caught the attention of X in March, prompting the company to offer to pay Dr. Gill’s costs.
“Because she spoke out publicly on Twitter (now X) in opposition to the Canadian and Ontario governments’ COVID lockdown efforts and vaccination mandates, she was harassed by the legacy media, censored by prior Twitter management, and subjected to investigations and disciplinary proceedings by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario that resulted in ‘cautions’ being placed on her permanent public record,” X said. “X will now fund the rest of Dr. Gill’s campaign so that she can pay her $300,000 judgment and her legal bills.”
Dr. Gill came to be smeared as an “anti-vaxxer” even though she “has always been a proponent of routine childhood vaccines in her clinical practice,” Libertas Law said.
Dr. Gill faced constant investigations and disciplinary actions by the CPSO beginning in August of 2020 because of her online advocacy, the law firm said. She also became the target of a “malicious online campaign” by other physicians, media, and members of the public to generate complaints against her tweets.
“In total, seven public (non-patient) complaints were made to the CPSO about her online commentary on X, and a separate high-level Registrar’s investigation was also initiated,” the firm said.
The CPSO didn’t respond to a request for comment.
