The Sovereign Citizen Giving Legal Advice to Anti-Lockdown Activists

A Burlington-based man says he will not only help them avoid fines, but also take down the government

When returning home to British Columbia from a flat earth conference in the US, Mak Parhar did not want to sign a form at the airport promising to abide by the Quarantine Act, but when faced with the pressure of an RCMP officer being present he complied by signing his name "mak (a man) parhar (all rights reserved)." Parhar is a regular at anti-lockdown and anti-mask rallies in the Vancouver area and has even attended similar protests in Calgary and Saskatoon. He denies COVID-19 even exists, so he had no desire to obey these laws. In the days after he recorded livestreams of himself proudly refusing to comply to these orders. When a neighbour allegedy reported him, New Westminster Police arrived at his door to give him a ticket. Undeterred, Parhar would continue to wander about in the following days, and would leave a note in between the door of the police station warning the police against trespassing him. It did not work, Parhar would later get arrested and spend nearly four days in jail.

The “notice of trespass” Parhar left at a New Westminster Police Station

This trick Parhar was hoping would help him avoid fines and eventual imprisonment is called strawman theory, and it is a key concept of the Sovereign Citizen movement. The idea goes that since birth we were granted with a legal fiction called a "person" by the government for us that is distinct from the “natural flesh and blood man or woman.” Birth certificates having names in all capital letters is seen as further proof of this weird idea, which extend to the idea that they are tied to a stock exchange number for governments and elites to profit off of. Advocates believe, wrongly, that declaring oneself to be the flesh and blood man / woman and distinct from the artificial legal fiction can make them exempt from being held accountable by the law for certain crimes and having to pay fines. It is among one of several “organized pseudolegal commercial arguments” that were documented by Judge J.D. Rooke in the renowned Meads v. Meads ruling on this phenomenon, and have been repeatedly rejected when attempted in Canadian courts.

Pseudolaw is undergoing a renaissance in Canada’s COVID-19 conspiracy movement. While movements like the detaxers, Freemen on the Land, and Sovereign Citizens had largely been vanquished due to repeated legal failures and in some cases jail time, they have found new life in the COVID-19 conspiracy movement. Neet Newz has previously gone into a general overview of the role of these organized pseudolegal commercial arguments (OPCAs) in the COVID-19 conspiracy movement, as well as given more extensive exposes on key currents like the Republic of Kanata’s Common Law Assemblies, or the New Constitutionalist groups. As explained previously, the appeal of pseudolaw is not just that its proponents falsely believe that it can get them out of legal or financial difficulties, but that it also has a revolutionary appeal in giving its adherents an alternative model for society as well as giving them a basis to denounce the current government as totally illegitimate and innately corrupt.

i: man: christopher

Nowhere is this promise better seen than through Christopher James, described by his supporters as a “common law expert” from Burlington, Ontario who has quickly emerged as a towering influence in the COVID-19 conspiracy movement. James, whose real name has been exposed on the Quatloos message board as Christopher Pritchard, just so happens to be who Mak Parhar reached out to for support after he was released from jail. On his first court appearance Parhar would follow his advice and try to submit paperwork to the judge challenging British Columbia’s Premier John Horgan, Health Minister Adrian Dix, Attorney General David Eby, a federal prosecutor and a New Westminster police officer for "trespassing" against and harming him, and thus violating his rights.

Christopher James as he typically appears to his viewers

On his A Warrior Calls website, Christopher James Pritchard shows belief in a number of conspiracy theories, including about the dangers of 5G, water fluoridation, chemtrails, as well as climate change denialism and various global financial schemes that he traces back to the Queen, the Vatican and elite European bankers (or central banks, he conflates them). He considers all of these conspiracy theories to be forms of trespass against the people. He traces it all back to the strawman theory, the original “horrific trespass” done at birth and which functions for him as an ultimate source of tyranny and evil in the world today. He promotes a series of over sixty videos on his website claiming to expose the COVID-19 pandemic as a hoax. This might seem impressive but it is just videos other people or organizations made reuploaded, the very first video is from an Australian man espousing germ theory denialism to say you can’t catch COVID-19 just like you can’t catch other viruses. Another, much shorter “foundational” series of five videos goes over basic pseudolegal concepts.

Although Christopher James Pritchard shows some unique twists on organized pseudolegal commercial arguments, his followers are unaware that he doesn’t offer much that hasn’t already been rejected by Canadian courts. In addition to strawman theory, he promotes the belief that Canadian courts have been secretly placed under maritime or admiralty law to try to subvert the common law, and denounces various levels of government as “service corporations.” He believes that officials are obligated to respond after “three letters” are sent, and that if they get ignored that implies tacit acceptance of their claims, among other common organized pseudolegal commercial arguments. What he adds to the argument is that when you accuse the law enforcement and authorities of “trespassing” against you, you establish your own common law court named after yourself. Hence, when Mak Parhar filed the document the “Parhar court” was established with Christopher. The whole trick is to try to switch the burden of defence onto the state to justify its actions. No lawyers are needed for this, in fact the concept of legal representation is dismissed, just a jury of peers is necessary.

Christoper's big claim is that the court system’s "rules of civil procedure" do not and cannot be proven to apply to "we the people" or "a man or a woman." It is this reason, he says, why vexatious OPCA claims are rejected out of hand, and why Charter challenges related to COVID-19 measures have supposedly not progressed. He sees the judicial system as akin to a mafia, blocking cases at will that threaten their power. If the "rules of civil procedure" do not apply to a man or a woman, he argues, this will eviscerate every single legal proceeding up until then. From that point, the public courthouses will be reclaimed by the people for common law, and it will launch a wave of newly established common law courts around the country. Mass filings will be made against government leaders and other elites for treason, and what their punishments should be up to and including execution shall be decided by a jury of peers. The traffic courts and Canadian Revenue Agency will be abolished, and drug offenders and other non-violent criminals will be released. The de facto government is overthrown and a de jure government devoted to protecting private property and upholding contract will be established. Like a domino effect that will lead to the same thing happening around the rest of the world as others watch and become inspired by it. Christopher calls this a "hard reset," a kind of DIY-version of QAnon’s the Storm and Great Awakening, in which all tyranny and evil is purged and a new utopian dawn emerges.

Influence among Canadian anti-lockdown activists

Parhar is not the only anti-lockdown activist to have reached out to Christopher James Pritchard. Lamont Daigle, the executive director for the anti-lockdown protest group the Line Canada has also appeared on his show. On A Warrior Calls, Lamont discouraged people from getting a lawyer, saying they cost a lot of money and don’t speak the same language as ordinary people do. When Lamont was fined a second time for organizing a large protest in violation of Toronto’s by-laws, he said that he would be going in with a “common law approach,” and if that fails they would get their lawyers. The Line Canada’s leadership seems to be going in a more Sovereign Citizen direction probably in part due to Christopher’s influence. At a December 12th rally when a Toronto organizer Dermot Pomeroy was given a warning from the police, he gave them a note with his thumbprint on it stating that employees of the service corporation known as “Toronto” had no authority over him as a man.

The Line’s Manitoba chapter has also put out a video on the virtues of being Sovereign

Christopher has also had inroads with other anti-lockdown and patriot activists. He has done a video with Norman Traversy, the QAnon conspiracy theorist who tried a private prosecution against Jusin Trudeau, as well as done other videos with his close associate and supporter Amina Motola, trying to explain to them why their case has gone nowhere and why his approach his better, to which they have been receptive. His website and videos have been promoted by Miranda Remillard, a leader of the Canadian Revolution group that was camping out in Ottawa in the summer and fall this year. Wayne Peters who partook in the Canadian Revolution camp recently appeared on his A Warrior Calls show. A Warrior Calls is also recommended and linked by the New Constitutionalist group Unify the People’s website, despite his criticisms of the New Constitionalists, and it is also promoted by Stand4Thee, an anti-masker group that advocates for citizen arrests on mayors, which has claimed support from Christopher.

Christopher James Pritchard has even claimed to have met with Adam Skelly, the owner of the now-infamous Adamson BBQ, to give him advice the weekend after he was arrested during his standoff with the police. Media reports suggest Skelly actually had some serious legal representation at least during his bail hearing. One would hope that Skelly would spend the large amount of money raised for him through crowdfunds on a serious lawyer.

Drew @nolifeneet

Oh boy. Guess who else Christopher James says he's in touch with? That's right, none other than Adam Skelly of Adamson Barbecue #BBQanon fame. So this rich guy gets $300,000 in crowdfunding but then decides to reach out to a Sovereign Citizen proponent for legal advice.

But there is more than just meetings and online links. Last weekend Christopher got to speak via video to hundreds in Calgary at a nighttime Christmas rally, which he was an advertised speaker for. During a technical dificulty when Christopher sat idly on the screen for a moment the crowd cheered merely at his presence being displayed.

Worldwide connections via Earth United

The Calgary rally showed more than just Christopher’s domestic support, it also showed his international reach. The two people he did n interview with on screen at the rally were Dolores Cahill, an Irish COVID-19 conspiracy theorist with far-right connections, and Judy Mikovits, the star of the Plandemic documentary. During the interview Dolores Cahill stated that she was being won over to common law by him. Christopher James has also said he was trying to win Judy Mikovits over to his understanding of common law. He had previously interviewed Mikovits in the summer, in which he mention the importance of strawman theory and how her failures was a result of her not understading it.

But no one has been more impressed with Christopher James than Jesse Perez Casanova, a (white) South Africa-based tech entrepreneur who had previously promoted himself to the press as the next Elon Musk. Casanova himself had already been on the COVID-19 conspiracy theorist circuit, advocating for a UK-originated pseudolegal commercial argument called Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion, which argues that the Queen betrayed the Magna Carta when the United Kingdom joined the European Union, promising that global protests would erupt around the Commonwealth nations invoking it on June 22nd. This video I had also seen posted by a few Canadian anti-lockdown activists. When nothing of the kind happened Casanova attempted to save face by claiming that some protests did happen without giving details, but announced new projects with his organization called Earth United. At times Christopher James has been described inconsistently as a co-founder and as a partner of Earth United. Regardless, he would begin to appear in videos regularly with Casanova. Christopher would criticize Magna Carta Lawful Rebellion in a video with him, saying that the Magna Carta was a document made before you were born and so has nothing to do with us, and Casanova seemed to agree.

Like James, Casanova connects a lot of other conspiracy theories to the strawman theory. He has been more friendly with QAnon and pro-Trump themes on his show, even if sometimes skeptical, as compared to Christopher who is more openly critical of Trump for Operation Warp Speed’s production of vaccines, not getting rid of Dr. Fauci, and not heeding the advice of COVID-19 conspiracy theorist stars like Rashid Buttar and Judy Mikovits. Casanova however is much more talented at video production and editing than James, and can help him reach a wider audience than he would otherwise be able to with slick, short edited videos pieced together from livestream clips of James speaking intermixed with footage of worldwide uprisings, making his “common law courts” seem like something promising and a big deal. Together the two have been networking with and reaching out to other pseudolaw proponents and COVID-19 conspiracy theorists from the US, UK, Australia and beyond.

Casanova has spent months trying to create an app for supporters of Earth United to find out where they are all located, this way they can all “gather” (they do not like to use the word “protest”) for support of these common law courts, belieiving a big gathering will somehow undo the judicial process and system. Although the app is still incomplete, the Earth United website has a map where supporters online can show they are located, and over a hundred people registered on it are from Canada. On the website there is also a “group” feature, and the biggest group is for Edmonton, Alberta, with over 540 members, although it is not clear how many of the people are actually from there or just joining it to share messages to a bigger audience.

Screenshot of Earth United’s Google Map showing its supporters within Canada

Earth United flyers have also been distributed at a big COVID-19 conspiracy rally in Ottawa on August 29th. During a speech, anti-lockdown activist Chris “Sky” Saccoccia recommended the website, encouraged people to download the app, and said they would form common law courts. Earth United also lists Mothers Against Distancing, Unify the People, and Canadian Revolution as groups it is in alliance with on its website, in addition to A Warrior Calls and other organizations or figures around the world.

Just another Sovereign Citizen

So for all these grand promises what results has he actually had in court? Christopher claims to have had some successes or himself in traffic court, but has little evidence to show of it or for other successes. On his website he lists five separate cases, one of which is the aforementioned case with Mak Parhar.

The two cases done before the age of COVID-19 seem like people who have had trouble with the courts after spending a lot of money on lawyers, and then tried their luck on him. One, the Manary case, at best seems to be a case of a family just not having the proper licensing or paperwork needed for their farm to export tobacco, and then got in trouble for it. Afterwards, when OPP arrived to inspect after they claimed to stop growing tobacco, they refused using Sovereign Citizen rhetoric and likely made matters worse. They would later get letters notifying them their statements of claim were considered vexatious, showing the real power of Christopher’s understanding of the law. Another case, the Ozelie case, is a long New Brunswick family estate dispute that he also seems to have made no notable progress in despite trying to be involved with it for several years.

It is totally bizarre that anyone would consider this to be a winning strategy for anything. Nonetheless, Christopher convinces his audience that the two other cases he has done since COVID-19 represent the first time in 200 years that a common law court has been established, and sees this as what will lead to the “hard reset” around the world he desires. One is another estate dispute over a man who died without a will. The other hasn’t even needed to go to court yet, but involves a man who owns a water filtering shop in Burlington getting visited and warned by by-law officers about COVID-19 health and safety regulations, to which he sent trespass warnings. So far, Christopher has claimed success, because the by-law officer did not return after sending three letters as of late November, but an additional visit or more from them would be all it takes to falsify this.

The fact that the latest Sovereign Citizen can come along and become a highly respected voice among the COVID-19 conspiracy and patriot movements just shows how gullible they are and their willingness to believe whatever con artist comes their way promising a simple solution to get rid of Trudeau and pandemic restrictions. Christopher James Pritchard is not the first, and he knows this as he even tries to build off of their shortcomings, claiming he has the solution they do not. But he is just another Sovereign Citizen, and sadly it will probably take a few personal losses at court for his fans to figure this out.