12. Beverley Perley.mp4: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix
12. Beverley Perley.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Beverley Perley:
My name is Beverley Perley. I'm a holistic way elder from New Brunswick. I have an LPN degree that I got in 1993 from the Northern Maine Technical College in in Maine, United States. And I was asked to speak and and what I am about to say is is of truth. Thank you. I'm really nervous, but I'd like to I'm I'm a holistic way. I'm first nations from first nations in New Brunswick. And I am unvaccinated. I am I am 55 years old. I am unvaccinated. I have four children, three of which are unvaccinated. And I have nine grandchildren who are all unvaccinated. I'd like to share my experience. First of all, last last night here on the Reserve, I had got together with some of my family, one of who is a a senator in the Canadian Senate. And I asked the question about the vaccines. And they are all vaccinated. And I said, if you had a chance, if you weren't forced to take the vaccine to keep your jobs, would you have gotten it? And. The majority of them said that they would have not gotten the vaccine if they weren't forced to get it. I was told that the chief here on the topic Reserve made the employees all get the vaccine in order to keep their jobs. I also had a cousin who was unvaccinated and had to get a vaccine in order to get his house worked on.
Beverley Perley:
So and also the the Reserve had set up a roadblock at the beginning of the Reserve and wouldn't let anybody in who didn't have a vaccine passport. If you didn't live here, they did allow the the people from the community to come in and out without a vaccine, without a passport. The other thing I had asked was about informed consent because I am a nurse. I know that when we were trained to give vaccines that we had to take the number down and the and put down the expiry date. And we also had to know what was in the vaccine so we can inform our clients what we are giving them and what it's supposed to do before we inject them. When I asked at the at the group last night, none of them were given informed consent. None of them had any idea. They only they only knew they were getting the vaccine, but they didn't know what it was or what kind of symptoms they would get or anything like that because they weren't told. I think the reserve topic had had did a grave disservice to the community members by not allowing them to be informed. The other thing you should note is in New Brunswick, the literacy rate of the province is a grade six level. So the information that should have been given to these people before they were given the shot had to have been.
Beverley Perley:
Had to have been. Told in such a way that they would understand what they were getting. And that wasn't done. The other thing I wanted to mention was we have traditional medicines, and we weren't even given that option of using traditional medicines instead of getting the vaccine. For instance, I use Cedar and I instructed other people to use cedar, make cedar tea, get in cedar baths. We used Muskrat Root, which we call Gillhiswaz[sp.] was that was Mullen we used or I use. Grapefruit and lemon peels to make homemade hydrochloride, Clinique or whatever is that called quinine, I guess. And so those options weren't, weren't, weren't given to us. We were, we were forced to, to either take it or or lose their or they were forced to either take it or lose their job. What was the other thing I wanted to say about that? It's it's really this concern. And for me as a nurse that, no, we weren't allowed to or people weren't allowed to make that choice whether they wanted the vaccine or not. They were just told by their chief who, by the way, is not does not have any medical training whatsoever. And he got his information. He was just following what the province of New Brunswick was doing at the time.
Beverley Perley:
Premier Higgs and and Dorothy Shephard was the the medical officer. The other thing I want I wanted to mention one more thing. And when COVID started, nobody knew what was going on. And because I'm a nurse and I started doing research and a lot of the information that I had gotten back couple of years ago is not there now. But the other thing was, I didn't know what to do. Nobody really knew what was going on. So I started going to the river and I started praying and I started singing songs and I started asking for healing. First I asked for healing just for me or my family. And then I started expanding, expand in and out. And when you look back at the. The statistics. Of what was going on in New Brunswick at that time. We find that New Brunswick had the lowest rate of COVID. I don't know if it was infections or deaths in in Canada, but also in the world. And the premier at the time and I'd like to believe that it was because of of people like me that were praying. But the premier at the time took it upon himself and he claimed he claimed. He claimed that it was his leadership that made the province have such a low incidence of COVID. So, yeah, he took he took my. He took my thunder. That guy.
Trish Wood:
A lot of that going around. I'll turn to the panel and see what what they may want you to elaborate on. Thank you very much.
Beverley Perley:
Probably, yes.
David Ross:
Thank you, Beverley, for your for your comments. What do you make of your First Nations COVID response in the big picture? Like, what did they do that was right in your view and what was wrong and what would you recommend for the future?
Beverley Perley:
I think. I think what was what what was wrong? What they did wrong is what Canada did wrong. You know, it it didn't allow the people to have that choice of whether or not they wanted to take the vaccine. They just they just said, you take the vaccine or you don't get a job or you take the vaccine or you lose your job, you know. And and. That's that I think was the whole the whole thing that was wrong with the whole process. Because, like I said, these people these people don't have any medical training. I'm a nurse, you know, and not only do I have an LPN degree, but I went to University of New Brunswick for two and a half years to get towards my bachelor's of nursing, you know, so I feel that I had a better understanding about vaccines, about the immune system, about my body, and then then the chief of my reserve or the the premier of my province. And so I think that's what that's what they did wrong. Um, what I think they did right was they closed down the community. They closed down the community so they can deal with what with what was within. Without having outside influences coming in and making it harder. I think the other thing that they did wrong was they weren't very they weren't they did not provide informed consent to the clients, to the people. That they could understand that was at their education level and that they can understand. So those are the things that I think that the my this reserve topic did wrong. Well, actually, this reserve and St Mary's and I think most of the reserves up here, I only know those two reserves because I'm affiliated with them to.
Trish Wood:
Thank you very much for your your evidence here today. We're very grateful. Thank you.
Beverley Perley:
Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely.
Preston Manning:
Just one more. Thank you. For what was the track record on that reserve in terms of COVID? Was it seriously affected or medium effect? What was your experience?
Beverley Perley:
I think when when we first shut, we we went into code red. And before the province did. And it was and it was to people it was to people that had that had contact COVID outside of the reserve and brought it in. And that was what caused the the whole shutdown was to people. I think, you know, it's been I think the response from the reserve was one of uneducated. Uneducated fear.
Preston Manning:
And were there. Were there any band were there any band meetings to explain or discuss the options? Was there any.
Beverley Perley:
I think general.
Preston Manning:
Discussion.
Beverley Perley:
I think the band had like the chief had a meeting with his counsels, the people the people on the reserve were left in the dark. And we were we were made to abide by whatever the chief and his 12 counselors came up with. And they like I said, they have no medical training, so they just followed whatever the province said. Province of New Brunswick said.
Preston Manning:
Okay. Thank you.
Beverley Perley:
You're welcome.
Trish Wood:
Thank you very much.
Beverley Perley:
I'm sorry about the camera. I really, really wanted you guys to see my my pretty earrings.
Trish Wood:
Thank you.
Beverley Perley:
All right. Bye.
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