Conservative leader Eric Duhaime’s press secretary repeatedly defied health rules to work and train illegally in a gym that the Court of Quebec ordered closed this winter at the request of Public Health.
Before joining Mr. Duhaime’s team, Cédric Lapointe was head coach and manager at CrossFit 819 in Gatineau. Claiming to be a professional athlete, he had maintained his activities in the gym in December 2021 and January 2022 despite the ban decreed by health authorities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, learned The duty.
On January 20, 2022, the Court of Quebec finally ordered the closure of the establishment following a request from the Outaouais Regional Public Health Department. Mr. Lapointe affirms that he complied at that time.
About two weeks later, in a podcast interview The Sevan Podcast, Mr. Lapointe explained the resistance movement in which he participated until the court decision. “We decided to defy the law, which is not a law, but a decree, which is not voted on, but adopted by the minister,” he told the American interviewer.
According to Mr. Lapointe, the gym did not present a risk to public health despite the contrary opinion of the authorities. “We wanted to have a discussion with the authorities to continue our activities by ensuring that our gyms were risk-free, because COVID is dangerous according to them, […] according to what they believe,” he said.
win the war
With his colleagues, he resisted the warnings of the police who came to see them the very evening when they should have started to obey the general decree of Public Health.
“The police were there and asked us if we were going to close,” he said. And we clearly said no, that we wanted to challenge the obligation and the fines, and win this war, because it was not the right thing to do to people. »
The police then visited the 9,000 square foot gym daily even though less than ten people were participating in the CrossFit sessions at the same time, according to Mr. Lapointe. “Over time, I found a way to talk to them so they would leave,” he said. […] I was nice to them, and they were respectful. »
In its decision ordering the closure of the premises, in January 2022, the Court of Quebec rejected the arguments of the owner of CrossFit819, Shane Miller. “Training rooms are favorable environments for community transmission of the COVID-19 virus,” concluded Judge Stéphane D. Tremblay.
A first challenge
Mr. Lapointe had begun to resist sanitary measures long before the court’s decision.
As early as January 2021, the police had warned him not to train in the CrossFit 819 room where he had been going several times a week since the start of confinement in March 2020. “I was able to continue to m training, because I was illegally sneaking into the gym five times a week,” he said in another interview with The Sevan Podcast.
In an interview at To have to, Mr. Lapointe pleaded that he had certificates proving that he is a professional CrossFit athlete. But this argument was rejected by the police. “The police department told me that I had no right, even though in my opinion I was in the legality to do so”, he explained, specifying that he then always trained alone .
Finding that his argument was inadmissible, Mr. Lapointe left for a few months in the United States, with his coach, in order to exercise more freely, from May 2021, in anticipation of competitions. “I thought I had the right to do it, but then I had to move,” he said.
Mr. Lapointe then returned to Gatineau, where he resumed his activities at CrossFit 819 until the court order in January 2022.
On Wednesday, Mr. Lapointe stressed that he is for individual freedom of choice, just like his leader and his party. “I am of the opinion that certain sanitary measures were exaggerated, but not all of them, he specified. I believe that vaccination is useful, but I do not believe that it should be imposed. »
On social networks, in January, Mr. Lapointe was delighted with the start of demonstrations by truckers in Ottawa against health measures. “We marched like Canadians, for a cause that is just and noble,” he wrote. We can be proud. »