Politics Stopped a Police Investigation into a Cluster of Infant Deaths
The Most Important Legal Case in the History of Canadian Policing
Ottawa Police Detective Helen Grus, a veteran investigator in the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit, was convicted of Discreditable Conduct under Ontario’s Police Services Act on March 25, 2025.
Incredibly, the internal Tribunal Officer found that Detective Grus should have asked for permission before initiating an investigation into an unusual cluster of infant deaths – due to the “political and societal ramifications” of her inquiries, and because she was investigating “public officials”.
The written decision eliminates the right and duty of Canadian police officers to conduct investigations without political interference – or to investigate public officials or politicians without prior permission from above.
If allowed to stand, the Grus decision will undermine public confidence in the independence of police investigations, and cause serving police officers to look the other way when they suspect wrongdoing by ‘public officials’ or see possible crimes that have ‘political ramifications.’
Infant Deaths Tripled – Detective Grus Asked Why
In late 2021, Ottawa Police Detective Helen Grus and her squad noticed a cluster of infant deaths that was triple the normal rate before the introduction of the Covid vaccines. As she reviewed the files, Grus found that most of investigations carried out by her colleagues were sub-standard, with detectives failing to ask parents routine questions about vaccines, medicines, and drug use. Later, evidence heard at Grus’s trial confirmed that three of the deceased infants had died from causes already officially recognized as adverse reactions to the Covid vaccines.
Detective Grus twice briefed Chief Peter Sloly and other senior Ottawa Police officers in late 2021 and early 2022. She warned that Pfizer’s Covid vaccine had never been tested on pregnant women, pointed to advisories about vaccine-linked myocarditis in children, and raised concerns that adverse effects were going unreported.
She also informed the Chief that her unit had noticed the increase in unexplained infant deaths and urged that vaccines be considered as a possible factor. Despite being directly warned, the Command officers took no action – and soon afterward, Grus herself was suspended and targeted.
In early February 2022, instead of addressing the deficiencies she uncovered, Grus’s supervisors turned their attention on her. Professional Standards investigators suspended her, seized her work files, computer, and phone, and began building a case that she had acted “without authorization” and “disobeyed an order.”
Police Illegally Wiretapped Detective Grus and her Family
Within days of her suspension, Ottawa Police secretly and illegally wiretapped Detective Grus and her family under the ‘urgent emergency’ provisions of the Criminal Code meant for dealing with abductions, hostage situations, and terrorism.
Testimony later revealed that the wiretap produced no evidence against Grus. The decision to wiretap a serving police officer and her family, without any criminal charges and based solely on internal disciplinary allegations, underscored how far Ottawa Police were prepared to go to control and punish Grus’s investigation.
Rogue Officers Leak to CBC
In late March 2022, rogue Ottawa Police officers leaked confidential details of the internal investigation to CBC reporter Shaamini Yogaretnam. The CBC then issued an ultimatum: the police had 24 hours to notify the parents of the deceased infants before CBC published its story. Under that pressure, Ottawa Police abruptly contacted grieving parents – disrupting the internal investigative plan for the Grus case.
When the CBC story appeared on March 28, 2022, Grus was publicly branded as “an anti-vaccine detective going rogue.” Court evidence later revealed that the Ottawa Police laid charges against her because of the CBC articles based on criminal breaches of privacy by the rogue officers, not Grus. Ottawa Police Professional Standards refused to investigate the officers who criminally broke their police oath and illegally provided confidential police information to the CBC.
At trial it also emerged that the allegation that Detective Grus had “disobeyed an order” was unfounded and never pursued. In the end, she faced only a single count of Discreditable Conduct – for asking questions about a surge of infant deaths that her colleagues had failed to investigate properly.
While the contrived public spectacle and deliberately manufactured outrage fomented by the CBC drove Ottawa Police to charge Grus, another layer of interference soon emerged. Starting in March 2022, personnel from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) monitored the case, anonymously expressed outrage in the media, communicated with Ottawa Police officials, and influenced the investigation and trial from the start.
This is also a sorrowful story that we wish we did not have to write, but justice requires the truth. The two involved PHAC researchers are the mother and grandmother of one of the nine deceased infants that Detective Grus was investigating. The grandmother is a PHAC senior scientific manager and associated with the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) – providing guidance to the Federal Government of Canada on the use of vaccines.
The NACI recommendations were critical in the government’s declaration of mandatory Covid vaccination as a requirement for employment and travel. The NACI also recommended the Covid vaccines for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
These connections revealed profound conflicts of interest and raised troubling questions about whether Canada’s federal health bureaucracy influenced the prosecution of a detective who was investigating a potential connection between the Covid vaccines and infant deaths.
Punishing Detective Grus to Silence Many
From the moment Detective Helen Grus’s disciplinary tribunal opened in August 2022, the verdict was evident. The case was never just about her. It was a show trial – designed to send a message to every police officer in Canada that investigating infant deaths for links to Covid vaccines would bring career-ending punishment. Over the next three years, the longest and most expensive internal prosecution in Canadian police history unfolded: marked by bias, conflicts of interest, criminal intimidation, and the suppression of evidence.
Hearing Officer Superintendent (retired) Chris Renwick tilted the playing field. He barred all five of Grus’s expert witnesses, including three medical doctors, a retired Ottawa Police Staff Sergeant, and a regulatory lawyer. Renwick also refused to allow Grus to review her own handwritten duty book notes from the very date of the phone call at the centre of the charge. Observers in the gallery repeatedly gasped at the unfairness, and defense lawyers warned that natural justice itself was being denied.
The tribunal also permitted blatant conflicts of interest. Lead prosecutor Vanessa Stewart was the sister-in-law of a key prosecution witness, a relationship that would disqualify her in any legitimate court. Yet Renwick allowed her to continue. Stewart repeatedly disrupted cross-examinations with objections – often before questions were even spoken. The spectacle confirmed public suspicion that the process was designed not to discover truth but to secure a conviction at all costs. The message to other officers was unmistakable: the process would be weaponized to destroy anyone who asked forbidden questions.
Witness Tampering, Criminal Threats
In January 2024, Inspector Hugh O’Toole – the very officer who had overseen the original investigation and charges against Grus – sent her a threatening email minutes before she was to testify. The message warned that if Grus introduced certain exhibits or evidence, Professional Standards would re-investigate her with the threat of further charges. Defense lawyers denounced the message in open court as criminal witness intimidation and obstruction of justice, then stormed out to file a formal complaint. Within weeks, O’Toole resigned from the Ottawa Police Service, reportedly under pressure. He escaped criminal accountability and soon resurfaced as a lawyer in private practice.
Then came turmoil in the prosecution itself. In November 2024, lead prosecutor Vanessa Stewart quietly left the Ottawa Police to take a position with the Ontario Attorney General’s office. OPS officials stonewalled questions about her status, leaving Grus’s defense counsel uninformed about whether Stewart remained on the case. Insiders said her OPS contract was terminated for performance issues, but officials refused to confirm. By the end of 2024, the two figures most responsible for charging and prosecuting Grus had both departed – underscoring the instability of a prosecution already marred by misconduct.
After years of biased rulings, conflicts of interest, and collapsing prosecution leadership, the outcome remained unchanged. Through it all, the tribunal officer consistently excluded evidence that pointed to the legitimacy of Grus’s concerns: the tripling of infant deaths, Health Canada advisories, Pfizer documents, and scientific testimony. Instead, the focus was narrowed to the allegation that she had somehow breached “proper procedure.” On March 25, 2025, Detective Helen Grus was convicted of Discreditable Conduct for asking questions about infant deaths that her superiors and political powers wanted ignored.
The longest and most expensive internal prosecution in Canadian police history ended exactly as it began: as a warning to every officer that investigations with “political and societal ramifications” or of “public officials” would not be tolerated.
SENTENCING UPDATE: September 5, 2025
“The tribunal is trying to conceal evidence of criminal negligence.”
Defense lawyer Bath-Sheba van den Berg to Tribunal Officer Chris Renwick
On Thursday September 4, 2025, the sentencing hearing for Ottawa Police Detective Helen Grus collapsed and was adjourned to an undetermined future date – probably well into 2026.
The hearing adjourned when the prosecutor asked for time to study the approximately 1000 pages of case law, and affidavits filed in support of Grus.
When Trials Officer Chris Renwick declared that he would not accept any medical evidence from defense, Grus’ lawyer Bath-Sheba van den Berg told Renwick:
“(One affidavit) contains government records…that Manitoba (government officials) in July of 2021 raised a concern that there was an increase in spontaneous abortions after the administration of (these drugs on) pregnant and breastfeeding women,”
“And that’s exactly what detective Grus was looking into. There shouldn’t even be a charge of discreditable conduct. There shouldn’t be a penalty… the tribunal is trying to conceal evidence of criminal negligence.”
The longest, most expensive internal prosecution in Canadian police history will resume sometime in 2026.
Written by Donald Best
September 10, 2025