Windsor police officer penalized for Freedom Convoy donation launching a new appeal
Const. Michael Brisco has now asked the Ontario Divisional Court to review his penalty for giving $50 to the Ottawa protest in February 2022.
“We are hopeful that the Divisional Court will see that the entire conviction was unreasonable,” said lawyer Darren Leung in a news release from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF). “The evidence used to convict Const. Brisco amounted to nothing more than opinions from people who did not like the message.”
Brisco was convicted in March 2023 of a single count of discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act.
The Hearing Adjudicator found Brisco knew or ought to have known that donating to a protest which his peers were actively working to contain, would harm the reputation of the Windsor Police Service.
Brisco however has maintained that his donation, made from a private account, while he was on unpaid leave from the service was a personal, political expression of support.
He also testified he did not support the Ambassador Bridge blockade which was happening at the same time as the protest in Ottawa.
Brisco’s donation in his mind, was going to support Ottawa, not Windsor.
The officer was however ordered to forfeit 80 hours of work as a penalty for the single conviction — essentially Brisco had to work for 80 hours and not get paid.
After the conviction, the JCCF picked up Brisco’s case and represented him in an appeal to the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC).
The appeal was dismissed in February 2024.
Now, the JCCF has asked the court “for a judicial review – a process by which courts make sure that the decisions of administrative bodies (e.g., the Windsor Police Service) are fair, reasonable, and lawful,” the news release stated.
The JCCF also takes issue with how the donation was discovered.
Brisco’s donation was only discovered after the online crowd-funding site was hacked and posted online.
The Ontario Provincial Police learned of the information and passed it along to the Professional Standards Branch of the Windsor Police Service.
CTV News has reached out to the Ministry of the Attorney General to learn if the request has been accepted.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three Quebec men from same family father hundreds of children
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
B.C. mayor stripped of budget, barred from committees over Indigenous residential schools book
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
OPP's mandatory alcohol screening during traffic stops 'not acceptable': CCLA
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
Maple Leafs down Bruins 2-1 to force Game 7
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in Trump hush money trial hear recording of pivotal call on plan to buy affair story
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Southern Alberta store broken into by burly black bear
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
Captain sentenced to 4 years for criminal negligence in fiery deaths of 34 aboard scuba boat
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
New scam targets Canada Carbon Rebate recipients
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.