Alberta appeal court sets aside contempt sanctions against pastor, brother and cafe owner

A Calgary-based street pastor, his brother and a cafe owner, all of whom flouted public health restrictions for months, have seen their contempt of court sanctions set aside by the Alberta Court of Appeal.

Pastor Artur Pawlowski of Street Church Ministries, his brother Dawid Pawlowski and Christopher Scott, who owns the Whistle Stop Cafe in Mirror, Alta., had been sentenced in October 2021 by Court of Queen's Bench Justice Adam Germain.

They were convicted of contempt of court for breaking COVID-19 health rules in June 2021, tied to the enforcement of an injunction granted a month earlier to Alberta Health Services (AHS).

All three were fined, put on probation and ordered to present the perspective of medical experts if they continued to deliver public speeches that criticized COVID-19 public health rules.

On Friday, the appeals court set aside the speech provisions included in all three orders and set aside the sanctions against Scott and the contempt findings against both Pawlowskis, which resulted in the sanctions also falling.

The appeal court agreed with the argument that the order did not apply to the Pawlowskis and didn't sufficiently capture what they were doing in May 2021.

Sarah Miller, an associate with JSS Barristers who represented the brothers, said though the Pawlowskis can be "somewhat abrasive" at times, she argued that the Court of Queen's Bench justice made the decision based on a disagreement with what the Pawlowskis were doing.

"Rather than the proper legal analysis as to, does the order apply, and if so, what is an appropriate sanction?" Miller said.

"They're not by any means endorsing the Pawlowskis, that's not what we were asking for. But they have concluded that AHS did not obtain an order that applied to the Pawlowskis." 

The Pawlowski brothers had appealed the contempt findings and the sanctions, while Scott appealed only the sanctions.

At the time of sentencing, Germain had said the trio was "on the wrong side of science" and the "wrong side of common sense," and that all three had "encouraged others to doubt the legitimacy of the pandemic."

The panel also ordered that the fines the Pawlowskis paid be reimbursed, and that the Pawlowskis' costs, set at $15,733.50, be paid by AHS to the brothers.

The Pawlowskis had held large, maskless gatherings for church events in Calgary throughout the pandemic. The Whistle Stop Cafe similarly operated for months in defiance of public health orders.

This incident was hardly the first time Artur Pawlowski faced legal trouble amid the pandemic. At times, he was arrested within days of his release on other charges.