1. Overview

Since 2020, Toronto constitutional lawyer Rocco Galati has been the central legal figure behind a wave of Canadian COVID-era litigation challenging vaccine mandates, masking, and lockdowns — filed on behalf of groups including Vaccine Choice Canada, Action4Canada, Police On Guard, and Children's Health Defense Canada (CHD Canada). None of the major cases succeeded on the merits. Several were dismissed with unusually pointed judicial criticism. One — a defamation suit against a group of physicians and science communicators — was thrown out as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) and cost the plaintiffs over $1 million in awarded costs.

By 2025, some of Galati's own former clients had turned around and sued him, alleging incompetence, conflicts of interest, and self-promotion at their expense. This page documents that arc: the CHD Canada connection, the litigation record, the malpractice fallout, and the regulatory complaints that went nowhere in public view.

2. CHD Canada's Toronto Roots

• Children's Health Defense Canada (legal name: Défense de la santé des enfants Canada) was incorporated federally on April 22, 2021 (corporation #1295112-6).
• Rocco Galati was one of the four first directors named when the corporation was incorporated on April 22, 2021, and ceased to be a director on June 20, 2023, according to the filings at Corporations Canada.
• At incorporation the registered office was in Woodstock, Ontario. On June 8, 2021 a change of registered office was filed moving it to 1062 College St., Toronto, the address of Galati's law office and his Constitutional Rights Centre. All four first directors, including the three who are not lawyers, gave 1062 College St. as their own address on the incorporation filing.
• On June 20, 2023, the same day Galati and Richard Colebeck ceased to be directors, a change of registered office moved it to Mossley, Ontario, where the Corporations Canada record (corporation 1295112-6, checked Nov. 13, 2026) still shows it. The record lists five current directors, Christine Colebeck, Richard Colebeck, Brian Burrowes, Jennifer Berman and Gerardo Diaz; Galati is not among them. It classes the corporation as "soliciting" under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. This page gives the town only, not the street address, because the record shows the directors at the same address.
• CHD Canada's own leadership page lists Christine Colebeck as President & Co-Founder and Amanda Forbes as Co-Founder. Corporate filings list Christine Colebeck, Richard Colebeck, and Brian Burrowes as directors alongside Galati (until his 2023 departure).
• Christine Colebeck's public activism traces back to vaccine-injury claims involving her own child and runs through Vaccine Choice Canada (she spoke alongside Galati at a VCC rally in October 2019) before CHD Canada's founding.

CHD Canada remains active today, still branded "Toronto" publicly on social media despite the registered-office change.

3. The Litigation Record

Galati filed at least seven major COVID-era actions between 2020 and 2024. Six of them later became the basis of a 2025 malpractice class action (Section 4); the CHD Canada school mask-mandate case was not among them.

Case	Court File #	On behalf of	Outcome
Vaccine Choice Canada (2020 Ontario Action)	ONSC CV-20-00643451-0000	Vaccine Choice Canada	Dropped
CHD Canada school mask case	ONSC CV-21-00661284-0000	CHD Canada	Survived early motion to dismiss (May 2021); CHD Canada says it was discontinued in Sept. 2021, while Galati has told Canuck Law he is not pursuing it (we have not seen a notice)
Sgt. Julie Evans / Police On Guard (2021 Ontario Action)	ONSC CV-21-00661200-0000	Police On Guard	Galati has told Canuck Law he is not pursuing it; we have not seen a notice of discontinuance
Action4Canada (BC Action)	BCSC S217586	Action4Canada	Struck 2022 (2022 BCSC 1507), called "bad beyond argument"; BCCA allowed an amended claim (2024 BCCA 59); the rewritten claim was struck again without leave to amend on Sept. 24, 2026 (2026 BCSC 1974), "in essence, a repackaged version of the Original Claim," $10,000 costs
Adelberg (Federal Court Action)	Federal Court T-1089-22	~600 federal employees	Struck 2023 (2023 FC 252), with leave to amend for some plaintiffs; Federal Court of Appeal allowed the appeal in part on June 7, 2024 (2024 FCA 106); Supreme Court of Canada dismissed leave Jan. 30, 2025 (File 41415). The Federal Court file remains open; the Crown's new motion to strike is pending, with Galati's response reportedly due Dec. 31, 2026
Dorceus (2022 Ontario Action)	ONSC CV-22-00685694-0000	473 healthcare workers	Struck Dec. 2024 (2024 ONSC 7087), $15,000 costs; appeal dismissed May 2026 (2026 ONCA 321) with a further $25,000 in appeal costs; Supreme Court of Canada leave application pending (File 42443)
Katanik (2023 Ontario Action)	ONSC CV-23-00695518-0000	—	Discontinued July 2024, according to the Toronto court (the notice was filed on paper only; Canuck Law has not obtained a copy)
Galati v. CSASPP (Galati as plaintiff)	ONSC / ONCA (see Mandate Cases page)	Galati personally	Dismissed under anti-SLAPP; dismissal upheld by the Court of Appeal for Ontario (Galati v. Toews, 2025 ONCA 568)

4. The Malpractice Fallout

Two separate actions now target Galati himself:

Alberta class action (filed Feb. 13, 2025): plaintiffs Lori Hand, Olga Collins, Lisa Wolfs, and Scarlett Martyn seek over $6 million from Galati, his firm, and the Constitutional Rights Centre, alleging negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty across the six cases above, plus misleading fundraising practices. Action4Canada publicly disowned the suit, stating the plaintiffs have no authority to represent the group.

Gill's personal malpractice claim ($2 million): filed separately, alleging (among other things) that Galati bundled 23 unrelated defendants into one suit to manufacture settlement leverage, never warned her about the near-certainty of anti-SLAPP motions or the "full indemnity" cost risk, recycled a template statement of claim, and used her case to promote his own profile and fundraise for the Constitutional Rights Centre (which reportedly received roughly $786,000 in donations in 2021 alone). Dr. Ashvinder Lamba filed a separate related claim.

5. CHD Canada's Public Response

For balance: CHD Canada has publicly defended Galati. In a statement titled "Setting the Record Straight: CHD Canada Stands Behind Lawyer Rocco Galati," posted on its own site, the organization:

• Confirms Galati served as a volunteer board member from April 2021 to June 2023 and represented CHD Canada pro bono on the Ontario school mask-mandate case.
• Highlights an early procedural win in that case — a May 27, 2021 ruling finding the application disclosed "known grounds of Charter challenge" and was not "frivolous and vexatious," defeating the Attorney General's motion to dismiss.
• States the case was voluntarily discontinued once Ontario schools reopened and mask mandates were dropped in September 2021, as courts were dismissing similar challenges as moot.

"Mr. Galati has CHD Canada's full support." — Christine Colebeck, President, Children's Health Defense Canada

Notably, the statement addresses only the CHD Canada mask case specifically — it does not mention the six cases underlying the 2025 malpractice class action, the Gill or Lamba malpractice claims, or the SLAPP dismissal and cost award in Gill v. Maciver. It reads as a defense of one narrow episode with an arguable procedural win, not a response to the broader litigation record or the malpractice allegations.

6. LSO Complaints and Regulatory Response

• Multiple individuals filed Law Society of Ontario complaints against Galati, later surfacing as exhibits in unrelated litigation rather than in any public LSO discipline record.
• In Sept. 2021, Galati sent his own letter to the LSO, characterizing critics' complaints against him as harassment.
• No public LSO discipline action against Galati has surfaced in available records. This is not proof that nothing was ever reviewed — LSO complaint outcomes are confidential unless they reach a public discipline hearing — but no public action exists as of this writing.