A Canadian pastor that was jailed for holding church services during the height of the pandemic could soon be pardoned - and now he is running for office. 

Pastor Artur Pawlowski was repeatedly taken to prison for refusing to close his church despite stringent Covid-19 protocols in Alberta, Canada. 

He was arrested after police helicopters detected people congregating outside the church. He was one in a spree of arrests, with multiple pastors jailed and some churches barricaded. 

Canada had some of the strictest Covid-19 rules in the world, resulting in Pastor Artur being arrested multiple times for a number of offences, sometimes in front of his children. 

In one such incident, he was jailed for 51 days after delivering a speech to truckers blocking key trade routes to the US in protest against the vaccine mandate. 

He accrued hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, despite having many of his charges dropped. Now, he is welcoming news of potential pardons for those arrested and fined over the Covid-19 rules. 

The new Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, has apologised for the experiences of some unvaccinated people, particularly pastors. 

Now, Pastor Artur is leader of the Alberta Independence Party, and is running for political office.