Transcription – English – Beau Bedard

19. Beau Bedard.mp4: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

19. Beau Bedard.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Beau Bedard:
All right. So I was I was put on a leave September 7th, 2021, for not complying with their vaccine mandate. So I decided, you know, to tell them that I. They wanted me to be vaccinated by a certain date. And they said that it's too soon for me, that, you know, I'm I believe in informed consent. And to be fully informed, I would like to know the long term safety data. And I told them, you know, on Pfizer's website, there's a fact sheet that states that the vaccine is currently in phase three clinical trial and that that's the experimental trial. And long term safety data won't be available until after that's done. And so even even with that, you know, my my course load in the previous year, I teach five courses per per semester. And the previous year I taught them all online, no problem. And although, you know, it's not something that I enjoy, I enjoy in-person teaching, it was still possible to to continue online and the five courses that were available in September 2021, two of them, they wanted me to teach absolutely in person. So three of them could have been made available online rather than allowing me to keep 60% of my workload. They took it all the way. It was all or nothing. So afterwards, you know, my my dad, he's a federal employee and he lost to he decided he went to unleave pay as well in November.

Beau Bedard:
And additionally, my mom lives in the long term care home, so we had to put up with a lot of stuff through there that's a whole different story. But in the end, after the provincial mandates were lifted. My employer called me back and allowed me to come to work in the workload they gave me to finish off. Off the semester was a virtual math helpdesk where I worked 44 hours from home. So it's a workload that they could have allowed me to have from the beginning. So, you know, I accepted it. And in the meantime, I put in a grievance. It's an arbitration at this point, and there's a set date for the trial. You know, I decided there were some other faculty members that weren't that were against what was happening. But I don't know too many of of them that took the unpaid leave like I did. But I do know that, you know, I had some emails sent to me because I did raise my concern in an online meeting and, you know. Thanking me for speaking up. But after that, you know, throughout the six months that I was off, I felt very alone. And after my second week of being on a leave, I was getting tired of staying at home so and sitting around for something to happen. So I ended up taking my whiteboard off my wall and I walked down the street and put a chair and started protesting.

Beau Bedard:
And I'm glad I did because after the second day, somebody pulled over and they connected me to the Northern Freedom Alliance Group. And all of a sudden I felt I felt much better and and it made me stronger. So. Now that I'm back, you know, even even after I got my job back, I finished off the semester and had a spring workload, which just finished and I had two classes. One of them was online, one of them was in person and the one in person, they absolutely wanted me to wear a mask inside the building, even though the mandates are over. And I said, Well, since you're an employer and you are imposing PPE on your employees, I feel it's like your responsibility to assess the situation, because, frankly, I don't feel very, very good wearing it. I haven't worn it in about a year now. Everywhere I go, I don't wear it. And I wasn't going to start wearing it this spring. So they told me that and I told them my reason is because they are unsafe. You know, I know that I'm not getting enough oxygen and I know that I'm breathing in CO2. And, you know, there are people that have done tons of experiments showing that like we saw earlier today and. They they told me, you know, studies show that they're safe and effective, you know, and it's like, okay, well, you don't want to assess the situation.

Beau Bedard:
I'll arrange it externally myself. So I had a gas technician come over. I, I reached out to about 12 companies, even, you know, companies that do respirator fitting and stuff like that. None of them were willing to do this little experiment that I had in mind. But I did read The one person did. They came over with an air quality meter and it's used for furnaces and stuff, but it can still detect oxygen levels and CO2. So the oxygen levels in my dining room were 20.8% oxygen, which is a healthy atmosphere for oxygen, healthy levels between 19.5 and 23%. You can find this on the confined spaces in OSHA. Anything above or below is harmful and you have to vacate immediately if it's above or below. So 20.8 is healthy. As soon as I put the mask on and stuck the probe in between my mouth in the back of the mask within 15 seconds and this is all recorded. I even have a receipt showing the results. Within 15 seconds the oxygen level dropped down to 18%. And if you're confined spaces person, I'm pretty sure if if the oxygen level is that low, you have to vacate the area immediately. And not only that but the CO two in my room was was zero. And then as soon as I stuck it in between my mouth in the back of the mask, it rose to 11.7%.

Trish Wood:
So I want to ask you a question, if you don't mind, that you you know, you teach in a place of higher learning and you disagree with two mandated things, namely vaccines and and masking. Absolutely. But but but I guess what troubles me about these stories at college and university is that that's the place where they're supposed to figure this out based on the science. Did you ever have a discussion with anybody in this this journey of yours that actually just justified the mandates on the basis of of science and data? Ever did anybody ever say, because we know vaccines are no longer preventing transmission for very long and there's good data that masks aren't working. So in the place where you were, which is where they teach people how to think critically. Were they arguing those things with you or was it just do it and shut up? Sort of.

Beau Bedard:
Yeah, it was just do it or shut up. You know, you try to explain some of the information like, you know, you get you ask them, where are you getting your information? And it's all coming from the same source. And it's like, well, here's a bunch of other information that I found and, you know, they just ignore it. And, you know, I don't understand. I feel well, I do understand a lot of them don't want to jump out of their comfort zones and, you know, rock the boat a little bit because everybody is being told to do this. It's all it's not just one college. It's all the colleges, I think. Except for one. I forgot which one, but. Yeah.

Trish Wood:
It's so. So I guess I just want to follow up by saying sorry. I just want to follow up by saying that it is happening in all the schools. And so it's a groupthink issue more than it is an evidence issue, isn't it. Aren't they isn't.

Beau Bedard:
Aren't they? Yeah, the evidence is there, but they're refusing to look at it. Even even even the evidence that's been available in the past couple of months, they still think that this narrative.

Trish Wood:
You know, this narrative. Yeah.

David Ross:
Thank you, Beau, very much for your for your comments. Just wondering, what is your sense of why your administration adopted the extreme initial position that they did? Do you have any sense for that? In other words, you've testified that you're doing 44 hours a week of math remedial, and you could have done that all along. So, like, can you is there is there any any common sense? Explanation for why that could not have been offered to you initially?

Beau Bedard:
Not really. You see, even before that 44 hour work load that I received in the spring, like I said in September, the only out of my five classes, they only wanted two taught in person. Absolutely. The other three could have been taught online. And rather than give me those those courses and I've taught those courses before. So I have a really nice outline built already to deliver quality stuff. And you know, rather than give me those three courses and then look for somebody else because, you know, they want them in person. They're really scared of me. They instead took everything away and, you know, had to go through extra time to hire more part timers or, you know, because I know it wasn't the same person teaching my entire workload. And I don't know if these people have taught it before, but, you know, if they haven't, if they were new, you know, education quality is diminished because of it, too.

David Ross:
Yeah. You know I did catch your comment on the you could have done the 3/5 of your of your previous course load. And I guess I'm just kind of. Flabbergasted that that in institutions of higher learning that this is the level of thinking that has been demonstrated. And I'm just.

Beau Bedard:
It was all or nothing.

David Ross:
I'm searching for any kind of any kind of of of an explanation that that has even the least little bit of of logic to it. And I'm coming up short, so I thought maybe you could help.

Beau Bedard:
I'm sorry. I've tried to think about it as well. And, you know, there were times where, you know, I questioned myself and I being am I wrong here? But I said no because once, once, once, I've never been one to let an employer tell me what to do, you know, because employees are replaceable. And I try to look at it the other way around, too. Employers are replaceable to me. I can go find a job elsewhere, and that's what I actually did in the wintertime. I found a job that didn't pay very well, but I moved snow throughout the winter and it allowed me to survive the winter.

Speaker4:
So to your knowledge, in the institution where you worked, is there any internal investigation going on? Is there any consciousness by the top management that maybe we didn't handle this right? And is there any indication of a rethinking, even if it's not public, but it's going on. It involves consulting people like yourself and others that were affected.

Beau Bedard:
Not right now. I'm hoping that my trial that occurs in September of this year through my arbitration, you know, does something. And I know that if I lose, for whatever reason, I do have something that no one knows. And I wish I could tell you, but I have a pretty good card up my sleeve.

Speaker4:
We wish you well.

Beau Bedard:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening and thank you for what you guys are doing.