On Aug. 9 an Alberta judge will decide the fate of Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski, a man who has become both a lightning rod and a litmus test for freedom of religion and speech in Canada.
What did Pawlowski do to receive the opprobrium of the justice system and the Alberta provincial government? Did he misuse church finances or defraud his parishioners?
No, he attempted to keep his church open during the COVID-19 pandemic and encouraged Freedom Convoy protesters with his sermons.
For this he has been rewarded with the infamy of the state and the applause of people of faith throughout Canada—but very few politicians.
Pawlowski remains at his Calgary home under house arrest after a judge found him guilty on May 2 of mischief and breaching a release order for preaching to truckers who organized a blockade in Coutts, Alberta, at the Canada–U.S. border.
The pastor could be sentenced to 10 years in prison if he is also convicted under Alberta’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act. That legislation is currently subject to a constitutional challenge by his defence team. That’s where I interviewed him this week.
Pawlowski related how the Alberta justice system kept him in prison for 51 days, stripped naked at times and in solitary confinement for a period. He says he was placed in metal cages, denied access to his lawyers, and ultimately shipped to a maximum security facility in Edmonton that he says is usually reserved for terrorists or convicts of the worst order.
You can argue that Pawlowski should not have inserted himself into the political system so forcefully, but that is essentially a moot point when a pastor is imprisoned and facing years of incarceration for exercising his faith and insisting his basic freedom of religion and that of other Canadians be respected by governments in Canada.
Pawlowski says his case is a warning for Canadians who are often too comfortable, too reluctant, too ignorant, or too apathetic to fight for their religious freedom even as the state gobbles it up.
“Historically speaking, we are in the middle of the 1930s in Nazi Germany, where you could see clearly that there is a totalitarian regime that is beating people up or arresting people. But the majority of the Germans at that time were not feeling the consequences of a police state or totalitarian regime. As long as you were not opposing of Hitler and his plans, no one would bother you. They didn’t care about you,” Pawlowksi told me.
“I remember reading in history about the churches, the German churches during the Nazi era, and as long as you put that flag outside, the Nazi flag, no one would bother you. No one cared. As long as you play the game and you’re part of the system, you’re a good guy. And those types of pastors and Christians were not attacked until the totalitarian regime had an absolute total control.”
“This is evil,“ he continued. ”What we see globally—those are evil, wicked people. This evil never stops. It’s like a cancer. It has to be cut off. Evil has to be stopped. It will never stop on its own. That’s why Hitler and the Nazi Party had to be stopped.”
Pawlowski’s son, Nathaniel, has also run afoul of the state and was arrested for joining protesters in front of a drag queen story hour in Calgary and preaching. He could be fined and imprisoned if convicted. Calgary police dispute Nathaniel’s claim that a warrant was issued for his arrest following his return from Europe, and say there are no “ongoing investigations” affecting the younger Pawlowski.
Another Calgary pastor, Derek Reimer, has been arrested numerous times for daring to interrupt these profane, insane, and innately vulgar drag queen exhibitions.
The Pawlowskis have found few political allies in Canada, with the exception of Peoples Party of Canada Leader Maxime Bernier, who has also been outspoken in his opposition to the gender ideology that has contaminated the school curriculums throughout Canada.
So the unity of silence that persists in our House of Commons, with Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP all in lockstep in their insistence that Pawlowski doesn’t matter, Nathaniel went to address the European Union Parliament this month because he father was unable to attend—because he couldn’t leave his house.
“I am here today in desperation, a cry for help,” Nathaniel Pawlowski said in his address. “I would like to stand here and tell you all the things about freedom and democracy that I like, but I no longer know those things.”
“They have been taken away from us Canadians. Canada has fallen.”
After screening a video of the elder Pawlowski, the European deputies rose to their feet and applauded the message.
It was a thrilling moment for the 23-year-old Nathaniel, who was inspired by the support he saw in Europe but is deflated by the lack of concern he observes in Canada.
“We don’t have free speech in Canada, we don’t have freedom of religion, and I was just explaining to the Parliament that we don’t have our rights and freedoms in Canada anymore,“ he said. ”They were taken away in the name of health, in the name of our safety and benefit, and we were stripped of all rights. So I explained to the Parliament that what is happening is tyranny—we’re experiencing tyranny.”
If you think either of the Pawlowskis are exaggerating the rot of basic liberty in Canada, you are advised to remember that dictatorships rarely appear overnight. The loss of freedom is incremental, and obtruded events are often utilized by the state as an excuse to steal that freedom.
Like the pandemic was an “opportunity” for many of our political leaders in Canada and the West to erode that freedom.
Canadians are sick of woke politics. But it is time that Canadians wake up to what big government is doing to us all in the name of our safety, our health, our well-being.
It is time to say stop.
