Billionaire Elon Musk has promised to help a Toronto-area doctor who faced backlash for advocating against government-imposed COVID-19 lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill lost a defamation lawsuit against those who she said targeted her for her views, and later had her appeal of that decision also dismissed, resulting in a
court decision in late February giving her 30 days to pay some $300,000 in costs.
On March 21, Dr. Gill
called on the owner of social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to help her with the $300,000, noting that it was due in four days. She cited an Aug. 5, 2023, post by Mr. Musk in which he stated: “If you were unfairly treated by your employer due to posting or liking something on this platform, we will fund your legal bill. No limit.”
It’s unclear how many legal cases, if any, Mr. Musk has funded since making that post.
For Dr. Gill, less than two hours after she posted her message, Mr. Musk
replied, “We will help.”
Dr. Gill, a frontline physician in Brampton, Ontario, west of Toronto, was the subject of professional complaints by other doctors and members of the public due to her comments on government pandemic measures. She stated that lockdowns
could harm society broadly, particularly children and marginalized people, and that taking a vaccine should not be mandatory for people to leave their homes and end lockdowns.
“There is absolutely no medical or scientific reason for this prolonged, harmful, and illogical lockdown,” she
wrote on Twitter in August 2020. She has also stated that natural T-cell immunity and the drug hydroxychloroquine could treat the virus.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) launched a disciplinary hearing against Dr. Gill over her posts but
dropped the case against her in October 2023. Her lawyer, Lisa Bildy, said it was likely dropped because of insufficient evidence to discipline her or prove that her posts constituted misinformation.
The CPSO, which dropped the case without providing an explanation, told The Epoch Times it cannot comment on the issue due to confidentiality restrictions.
In 2021, Dr. Gill launched a defamation lawsuit with Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice against 23 doctors, journalists, and academics, arguing that her critics had ruined her professional reputation and campaigned against her.
However, in
February 2022, Justice Elizabeth Stewart rejected the case.
In an
interview with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya published earlier this month, on March 15, Dr. Gill said that the justice ruled in favour of the defendants who launched an anti-SLAPP motion against her before any evidence in the case had been presented.
According to the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) are “lawsuits brought by individuals, corporations, or others to
intimidate and silence critics by forcing them into legal battles that would be extremely costly and time-consuming to fight.“ ”Anti-SLAPP laws are designed to allow such lawsuits to be “dismissed at a very early stage if that lawsuit qualifies as a ‘SLAPP.’”
In Dr. Gill’s case, Justice Stewart determined that the libel suit qualified as a SLAPP.
On
Oct. 31, 2022, the justice ordered Dr. Gill to pay over $1.1 million in legal costs. Dr. Ashvinder Kaur Lambda, who had sued two of the 23, was assigned a portion of the costs.
Dr. Gill appealed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and the case was heard on Dec. 12, 2023.
According to the Feb. 22 court
decision, the appeal in question only related to the dismissal of her claims against four of the initial 23 defendants, which included professionals in the fields of media and medicine.
In her interview with Dr. Bhattacharya, Dr. Gill said that to appeal the entire $1.1 million cost order she needed a leave to appeal, requiring the permission of the court.
Dr. Gill said that leave was denied, as “we had reached confidential settlements with some of the defendants” by the time of the December hearing. She went on to note that the court claimed the “landscape had changed” but allowed Dr. Gill to appeal the merit of the prior ruling.
The appeal court, however, rejected Dr. Gill’s arguments, with Dr. Gill stating that the court did not engage with any of the evidence provided and refused to make any ruling on whether the comments against her were defamatory, simply agreeing that the judge, who agreed with the anti-SLAPP motion, had not been in error.
Dr. Gill said she was ordered to pay $300,000 but did not have the money on hand after nearly four years of legal battles.
Editor’s note: the article was updated to better reflect the circumstances. The Epoch Times regrets previous inaccuracies.
