Business Owners Toolkit
Tools to Protect Yourself and Your Business from AHS, Bylaw and Law Enforcement
The Business Owner's Toolkit on this page will empower you to protect you, your employees and your business from harassment and illegal fines.
Summary: Protecting Yourself and Your Employees
1. Know Your Rights
Our government is violating your rights under both the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights. Cases are before the courts but the law moves slowly. You must be pro-active in defending your right to operate your business in a profitable manner.
Knowing the following points of law will help.
- You and your employees do not work for Health Services. It is not your job to enforce their mandates. This applies especially to masks and contact tracing.
- Both your provincial and the Canadian Human Rights Acts make it clear that mask exemptions must be respected, and that denial of service to those who cannot wear a mask is discrimination. People are not required to reveal the nature of their exemption, and even asking them to wear a mask could be construed in a court of law as harassment. See our page on Mask Exemptions for more detail.
- Contraventions of the Human Rights Act can carry penalties up to $50,000.
- Privacy commissioners across Canada have made it clear that mandatory contact tracing is a violation of privacy under the Canadian Privacy Act (PIPEDA). Requiring customers to submit their personal information for the purposes of contact tracing is illegal.
BREAKING NEWS: It May Be Illegal for the Government to Force Your Business to Close!
The following, while correct, has not yet been tested in Canada as a legal defense for defying public health orders. Use this at your own risk.
- Closing of businesses is an indictable offense under Section 4 of the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act (ref International Convention for Civil and Political Rights 1966, Article 1). Section 13 (and ICCPR Article 1) precludes the use of domestic laws that contradict Section 4. Section 14 defines enforcement of such laws as ‘manifestly unlawful’.
What this means in plain English: It is illegal for the government to force you to close your business, or to limit your operations in such as way as to make your business non-viable. Even a genuine public health emergency would not confer the right upon our governments or authorities to rob you of your means of subsistence.
We are working on confirming this information, and providing it to you in such a way that you can use it to operate your business as usual without fear of penalties. We will announce as soon as this is ready.
2. Your Rights in Brief
- You and your employees are not required to enforce Health Services mandates.
- Denial of service to those who cannot wear a mask is discrimination under the Human Rights Acts.
- Even asking someone to wear a mask could be construed as harassment.
- Mandatory contact tracing is a violation of the Privacy Act and illegal.
3. How to Defend Your Rights
Note that currently this guide refers in some cases specifically to Alberta. We are working on a guide that will help business owners across Canada to defend their rights to run a profitable business and to protect you against possible violations of laws which supersede your provincial Health Act mandates. Please check back soon.
AHS and Bylaw Guide
How to defend your rights
We have prepared this document to provide you with responses to AHS and bylaw harassment. These responses may provide some measure of protection against fines, and will inform you of your rights. The document is updated regularly as we acquire new information.
4. Strength in Numbers
We recommend that you join WeAreAllEssential.ca. They provide a business coalition, further legal information and resources, and a private Telegram group for business owners to keep you up to date on developments.
5. What to Do if You Receive a Fine
The mandates which our governments are imposing are illegal.
In order to contravene our rights and freedoms for more than a very short time, governments are required to prove before a court of law that a state of emergency exists, and that the measures they are imposing are both necessary and effective. To date, no government in Canada has done this. In fact, when taken to court to defend their actions, governments employ delaying tactics, asking for 'more time to gather data'. After well over a year of violations of our rights and freedoms, we cannot imagine what data it is that they don't have.
So far, to our knowledge, all fines which are supposed violations of the illegal health measures have been dismissed when challenged in court.
If you receive a fine for contravention of the public health measures, plead 'Not Guilty', then contact the JCCF for representation. Under no circumstances should you pay the fine.
Mask Exemption Poster
Post your defence
Mask exemptions are guaranteed by both the Alberta Mask Bylaw and by the Alberta Human Rights Commission. If AHS or bylaw harasses you for not forcing your customers or employees to wear a mask, our Guide elsewhere on this page provides the response you should give, while the poster shows the public that denying service is a violation of Human Rights.
The lawyers are currently working on a version of this poster that is not province-specific and will apply Canada-wide. Please check back soon.
Mask Exemptions Letter
Lawyers4Truth.ca
This document has been prepared by Lawyers4Truth and covers how businesses that deny service to those who have mask exemptions are in violation of Human Rights. It also addresses the myth that the Trespass Act allows them to pick and choose whom they serve.