01. Opening Statement day 3.mp4: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix
01. Opening Statement day 3.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Trish Wood:
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to day three of the Canadian COVID Care Alliance, a Citizens' Hearing on personal, educational, social, medical and scientific issues arising from the COVID 19 public policy. And also, we have many individual stories as well. I want to just remind everybody why we're here after two days of quite emotional hearing sometimes. And I think part of the emotion was not just the content of what was being said, but I think a collective realization that people who are struggling as a result of what happened in the last two and a half years are feeling like they're not alone. And that's not a small thing. So I think it's important to acknowledge that. What we're going to start off doing this morning is have the panel in a bit of a discussion about their thoughts and feelings about what happened yesterday and the day before, some summaries, what what jumped out for them, what they're going to take away from the hearings so far. So I will turn first to Preston Manning, who doesn't really need an introduction, elder statesman in Canada. And I'd like to know from from Preston what he's been thinking about taking away from these hearings.
Preston Manning:
Well, thank you and thanks for the reference to a statesman. But a statesman is usually considered a dead politician, so not quite in that category yet. I guess one observation I had, I don't know if this is actually an answer to your question, Trish, but we have heard statements about the impacts that the health protection measures have had on other dimensions of people's health. For example, we've heard statements about the impacts on the exercise of their rights and freedoms. I think today we're going to hear more about the economic impacts. But I think one of the points that was made previously was that perhaps the most serious and longest lasting impacts of these government measures are going to be the impact on children and the next generation, because these are impacts that could virtually last a lifetime. I don't know if other members of the panel agree, but I think that's gone up, in my estimation, as one of the most serious impacts and one that basically received the least amount of attention, particularly at the front end.
Trish Wood:
Well, and you kept asking of many of the people who were testifying great questions about how we can stop this from happening in the future. And and in fact, if. The things that we see emerging now as bad effects should have been anticipated in an impact statement of some sort before the policy was was implemented. I thought that was really important. Susan. Susan? Not sure. She's a pediatrician, retired pediatrician and now affiliated with CCCA and a bit of a patient advocate as well.
Dr. Susan Natsheh:
Thank you, Trish. And good morning, everyone. I'd like to echo what Mr. Manning said that certainly had a big impact for me, was what's happening with the children and just measures that we've taken that we think are protecting implemented policies that were put there in haste to an unknown threat perhaps can be just have been justified initially. But as we learn more. The reality was we learned that these policies were causing immeasurable harm in so many facets of everyone's life. And one of the big lessons I remember from medical school was that health is more than just the prevention of a disease. And we really have to look at how holistically this has impacted society and our friends and neighbors. And then the other theme that continues to come through is that code of silence that has placed a barrier on how we interact and our relationship from health care workers, with our patients or our clients, with our coworkers and other members of society, teammates, friends and family. And we have to recognize that even that barrier that's been put up is causing harm in so many ways. So there's a lot to be learned from this and a lot to work on.
Trish Wood:
David Ross, who is one of the driving forces behind the CCCA.
David Ross:
Thank you and good morning. I share the the comments and sentiments of my fellow panel members. Really? You know, the thing that impacts me, I'm more of a sensitive guy, I guess. And, you know, I just am really impressed with the courage of the people who who shared with us, who who told us their story. And really, you know, they didn't hold anything back. They were just really genuine Canadians. And and the the breadth and the depth of their stories is, you know, is is life life altering. And and and it's and it's regrettable that all of this has happened. But I think that the thing that we really as an organization want to do is we want to encourage and to be a a a group that that fosters continued dialogue in this nation. Really, in our in our mission statement, we talk about the restoration of our nation and the restoration of what it means to be Canadian. And so we've seen some examples of that here. We've seen it previously this year. And so I think that we all just need to really engage in the dialogue to to to seek to understand and each other before we insist on being understood ourselves. And so I hope that the people who have shared here will be an encouragement to many others to continue to share as an organization. I think, you know, we will want to continue this and we'll say more about this in our wrap up session later today. But I really hope that that the conversation and the testimony and the listening will continue. And again, we just thank everyone who has who has already shared time with us and their story. And and we look forward to those who will continue to do so in whatever formats we have. So it's been a good it's been a very, very good process. I think it's been a good start to what our nation needs. I hope more will come.
Preston Manning:
One other thing, Trish. I think we all notice this, that the almost all the people that have testified here have had questions and questions directed towards the authority on everything, on why this, why that. Please explain this to me. And I think almost a universal reply of all these people was that they got no reply, that there was no reply, there was no response with questions sent to the medical officers of health, sent to their MPs, sent to the government, sent anybody. There was just no reply, no reply, no reply. And I think what that points to is that and we have discussed this, that eventually there's going to have to be an official investigation into how this whole COVID thing was handled. And it's going to have to occur in a forum where people that are in a position to answer questions cannot avoid the questions. My background is somewhat in the energy regulation field in a formal regulatory hearing before a quasi judicial regulatory body, which has virtually the status of a court. If you're called and you're asked a question and you refuse to answer, you can actually be held in contempt of court. And so I think eventually there has to be a forum where people cannot avoid these answering these questions. And I thought that struck me, no matter who testified here, that they asked for more information from somebody. And basically what they got was no, no answer, no answer no.
Trish Wood:
And I think that's a really, really important point. And yesterday, we had some evidence around the Freedom of Information Act, which is a way to get documents and correspondence from various governing bodies. That was super important. We need those things. We can't we won't be able to understand what happened here without exactly what Preston is talking about, people being compelled to tell the truth under some kind of an oath taking scenario. It's massively important. And it dovetails into what I wanted to say, which was just that I felt generally what was being reflected in the evidence was a feeling amongst the citizenry who testified here that they no longer trust institutions, that they maybe did their whole lives, that in fact, there may have been a collapse in some sense in certain institutions that should be protecting us from harm. And that for me, I think what I learned from them is that perhaps this kind of inquiry is the only thing that's going to be able to restore that stuff. And it wasn't just the citizenry. We heard from Doctor after doctor who said, I went in to advocate for my patient on what I believed was the right thing for them.
Trish Wood:
And what I got was the mantra right, safe and effective, don't make them vaccine. Whatever the issue was, there seems to have been created somewhere. Or maybe it was just sort of habit and passed around talking points around how medical doctors can can treat their patients, which suggested that the advocacy was on behalf of the institutions rather than on behalf of the patient or on behalf of a pharmaceutical product. That was terrifying for me. And more than one medical doctor suggested that they had been really taken aback by by hearing that kind of rhetoric, that they kept calling it a mantra. They all used the word mantra. It was very interesting. So in order to restore in order for us to restore ourselves and I think spiritually to where all broken in some way after this, we have to get to the bottom of it. Information also loving our neighbor for sure, but information, accurate information about this is going to set us free. And I hope that this three days maybe sets us on that road because we have been collecting information here from Canadians.
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