Federal Court Update: Today’s Meeting, Arkadi Bouchelev Q&A on Injunction

(Update Aug. 27: Adds Federal Court Procedural Orders, adds two clarifications from Bouchelev.)

TheGunBlog.ca — Canada’s Federal Court hosted a meeting today with the lawyers fighting the governing Liberal Party’s mass gun confiscations, and with lawyers defending the Liberal attacks.

Here’s an update on the meeting and a short Q&A with Arkadi Bouchelev, one of the lawyer’s fighting to stop confiscation and restore justice for gun owners.

Contents

• Context
• Meeting Details
• Meeting Highlights
• Next Steps
• Federal Court Procedural Order (Timeline)
• Q&A With Lawyer Arkadi Bouchelev
• Federal Court Challenges: Summary Table

Context

• Six individuals or groups have filed Applications for Judicial Review of the Liberal confiscation Order in Council of 01 May 2020.

Meeting Details

• Name: Today’s meeting was known as a “case management conference.”
• Purpose: Discuss timeline, procedures, cooperation among parties.
• Chair: Associate Chief Justice Jocelyne Gagné
• Participants: Lawyers and representatives for the six applicants and for the Liberals.
• Time: 1 pm. – 2 p.m. Ottawa time
• Nicolas Johnson, the editor of TheGunBlog.ca, was on the call as a media listener/observer.

Meeting Highlights

• The applicants discussed sharing affidavits to avoid duplication. They agreed to share some, but not all.
• Edward Burlew, representing John Hipwell of Wolverine Supplies, said he expected more than 10,000 pages of affidavits from the applicants. He filed more than 2,000 pages two weeks ago.
• Participants discussed whether to name the Royal Canadian Mounted Police as a separate respondent, in addition to the Attorney General of Canada. Some applicants agreed to drop the RCMP, others said they will name the RCMP separately.
• After the Call: TheGunBlog.ca learned from lawyers after the conference call that three of the applicants plan to apply for an injunction to stop or delay confiscation, and three won’t.

Next Steps

• Sept. 11: Deadline for government to deliver documents outlining its rationale for the attack, or to say it refuses to do so.
• Sept. 11: Deadline to submit motion for Interlocutory Injunction (Background: Federal Court Holds First Meeting With Teams Fighting Gun Bans)
• Oct. 26: Next case management conference.
• Jan. 18, 2021: Hearing on Interlocutory Injunction. A decision could come quickly or take months.
• After Jan. 18 (Date Unspecified): Hearing on Motions to Intervene from:
  • National Firearms Association
  • Coalition for Gun Control
  • Canadian Taxpayers Federation
  • Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

Federal Court Procedural Order (Timeline)

Q&A With Lawyer Arkadi Bouchelev

Arkadi Bouchelev is a lawyer representing a group of nine applicants, including Nils Ek, a national pistol shooter.

TheGunBlog.ca spoke with Bouchelev by telephone after the conference call.

• Update Aug. 27: Bouchelev clarified and expanded on two of the points by e-mail on Aug. 27.

Some applicants are asking for an injunction. What is that?
It’s that the application of this Order in Council be suspended until the adjudication of the case on the merits.

Can you elaborate?
An injunction is an interim remedy.

You are not asking for something that would continue on an indefinite basis, but rather something that would be in force until the main application is heard by the court.

In the meanwhile, my clients want to continue to be able to use the guns affected by the regulation. Not just for them, but they want other Canadian gun owners to have the freedom of using their firearms.

Some parties are concerned an injunction hearing will delay the main case, jeopardizing a decision before the confiscation deadline of 30 April 2022. If you win the case after the confiscation deadline, isn’t that too late?
The fact that there is an injunction application happening doesn’t put everything on hold. There are two parallel tracks.

Even if we have a hearing on the merits before April 2022, there’s a good chance it will be appealed [by whichever party loses, and will be appealed again by whichever party loses the appeal of the appeal], and then a good chance it will be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

They only hear a few hundred cases a year out of thousands of requests, but there is a good chance that a case like this would be considered important enough for the Supreme Court to agree to hear an appeal

There will be appeals.

Ultimately, it will be years until there will be resolution of these issues.

In the meanwhile, you’re not allowed to use your property. It’s just sitting in your safe.

I think that’s why an injunction is important.

It allows people to use their property while the case makes its way through the court system.

If we get close to that deadline and it looks like we aren’t going to have a decision on the merits by that time, we’d have to ask for a motion to have the amnesty extended. The court can make an order to that effect.

Federal Court Challenges: Summary Table

Related

• Federal Court Holds First Meeting With Teams Fighting Gun Bans
• National Competitor Nils Ek Q&A: Why I Took the Liberals to Court
• Liberal Gun Bans page