SHEILA GUNN REID ｜ Our veterans are being bullied into MAID and here's the proof
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
165.42514
Summary
Sheila Gunn-Reed talks to Mark Meinke about the Veterans Affairs Canada scandal and how it affects veterans across the country. She also talks about the first VAC veteran to come forward with a story about his mistreatment at the hands of VAC.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Exactly how many Veterans Affairs caseworkers in the course of their duties are advising
00:00:05.780
Canada's veterans to kill themselves? I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're watching The Gun Show.
00:00:11.080
A couple of days ago on my regular daily video I had on Mark Meinke. He's a podcaster
00:00:35.260
and a veteran who struggles with PTSD. Mark's podcast is called Operation Tango Romeo,
00:00:43.360
the trauma recovery podcast. Please do subscribe to it and he is really the touch point for a lot
00:00:51.220
of veterans to come forward to tell the stories of their mistreatment at the hands of Veterans
00:00:57.620
Affairs Canada. He was the first guy that the very first veteran who said that Veterans Affairs Canada
00:01:04.680
had offered him what's called MAID medical assistance in dying to help treat his acute PTSD
00:01:11.300
episode. And Mark continues to be a soft landing for Canadian veterans and it seems as though
00:01:19.320
every single day a new story comes out about how Veterans Affairs is mistreating Canadian veterans
00:01:28.860
and advising Canadian veterans to take their own lives instead of just giving the help they deserve
00:01:38.540
and that our nation promised them. So I thought though our interview I thought was great the other
00:01:46.840
day I thought it would give Mark more time because this is such a big issue and it's such an important
00:01:53.200
issue. So joining me now in an interview we recorded Tuesday morning is my friend veterans advocate,
00:02:00.660
veteran and podcaster and the host of Operation Tango Romeo, Mark Meinke.
00:02:13.140
So joining me now is my friend Mark Meinke. He's a veterans advocate and a podcaster
00:02:19.280
and he's really been the guy who ripped the band-aid off the scandal unfolding at Veterans Affairs Canada
00:02:27.380
and he's been a safe landing spot I think for a lot of veterans who have experienced some of the
00:02:34.380
horrors of Veterans Affairs to tell their story to someone who would understand. And so even though I
00:02:41.200
interviewed Mark earlier, well a few days ago, I wanted to give Mark more of an opportunity to tell us
00:02:48.280
about the challenges facing veterans in this country and what is happening at Veterans Affairs
00:02:54.580
particularly because as we record this on Tuesday morning, Monday they were back at committee and they
00:03:01.380
were doing, the liberals, they were doing a bit of a song and a dance and an obfuscation of their
00:03:07.280
responsibilities of the catastrophe at Veterans Affairs. So Mark, thanks so much for joining me once
00:03:13.040
again and thanks so much for your hard work on this file and for your peers and friends in the
00:03:19.880
veterans community as they've been failed by the federal government. Why don't you walk us back to
00:03:25.500
the very beginning of the scandal unfolding at Veterans Affairs for people who don't know,
00:03:32.960
why don't you take us back to the very beginning to that very first veteran?
00:03:35.940
Perfect. That's where I wanted to start. So we're thinking alike here. All the credit doesn't go to
00:03:42.520
me, not at all. It goes to the first veteran that came forward. So before this broke on Global News
00:03:48.020
with Mercedes Stevenson, it almost broke with you. It was this close.
00:03:53.380
You know what? Like I said in the last interview, we wanted to respect the veteran. He wasn't ready
00:03:57.640
for it to be a national story, although Global didn't think so. And I just thought, you know,
00:04:04.280
this man is experiencing an acute mental health care issue. It's being made worse by Veterans Affairs.
00:04:12.900
And so I need to make sure that I don't do anything to make that worse.
00:04:17.700
Well, I just wanted to make sure that he gets the credit for starting all this. So he went through
00:04:21.940
an intermediary through a friend of his who knew Mercedes personally, and that's how the story
00:04:28.380
was broke. So I still think she only broke it that morning because you and I were talking,
00:04:35.460
but either way, I don't care. It was broke. That's all that matters.
00:04:39.400
His story's out there. That's what matters. Yeah.
00:04:41.260
Yeah. And the initial response when that story got out there through the Global Story,
00:04:48.360
in the veteran community, most people weren't shocked, which is shocking in itself.
00:04:55.220
You know, there's so much disappointment and lack of trust with VAC. And I say this as a guy who
00:05:02.600
receives VAC benefits, but getting those benefits, it was a five-year meat grinder. I'd rather go back
00:05:11.160
into a war zone than go through that again. And I mean that sincerely. Going through VAC
00:05:17.960
is not a good time. And most people either don't start because they've heard the stories or they
00:05:24.800
don't make it through the meat grinder. I mean, it takes some kind of resolve to not give up and to
00:05:30.800
stick it out. And it shouldn't be like that. It's freaking so predatory. And that's why in the veteran
00:05:39.160
community, you constantly hear, deny, deny, deny until they die. And that is our impression of VAC.
00:05:48.340
Now, I don't know, Sheila, if it's just the bureaucracy or if it's on purpose or maybe a
00:05:55.100
little bit of both. But the amount of people, if you think paying for us is expensive now,
00:06:02.300
um, I, I would guess maybe 20% of the people that should be getting benefits are getting benefits
00:06:09.600
about 20%. That's my best guess from the years that I've been in this community. And I know this
00:06:16.220
because of all the people that just, they tap out because it's too much. I mean, I personally have
00:06:21.500
claims that should go in that are totally valid, but I look at the mountain of paperwork and the
00:06:27.120
five-year fight ahead of me. And I just like, Oh God, I don't know if it's worth it. I'm entitled
00:06:31.980
to it and they're genuine, but I, I don't have the fight in me. You know, I was sorry to interrupt
00:06:39.700
you, but I was talking to our mutual friend, uh, Mike Mayer, and he was telling me just the
00:06:47.400
humiliating things that veterans have to do to prove that they are still injured. Like you have to prove
00:06:54.080
that you're blown off legs haven't grown back. Tommy Anderson, um, Tommy Anderson lost his legs
00:07:01.580
on our tour, um, way back in 94. So this is a long time ago. And since 1994, every year he's got
00:07:11.520
almost four there, uh, every year he's got to prove his legs hadn't grown back. Now I've heard this in
00:07:17.820
the house of commons being brought up and, Oh, well, you know, like it is not getting an answer.
00:07:24.000
You have people just sugarcoating it or skipping over. Like, how do you skip over this? Stop it.
00:07:30.900
Stop making people prove, you know, I mean, it's fine to do a checkup and say, Hey, has any,
00:07:35.620
has anything got better? Has anything got worse? But your legs aren't going back. Your eyeball isn't
00:07:41.340
growing back in your head, you know? So maybe have those off the checklist. And it's, it's a good
00:07:48.340
example of back acting like an insurance company, right? It's on us to prove everything. So they're
00:07:54.680
treating every single veteran is being treated like a scammer. So we're all being treated like
00:08:01.440
a scammer. We have private detectives following us around, you know, I've known several people have
00:08:08.460
had this and, uh, with our hypervigilance where we can usually pick the creepy person, right? Um,
00:08:14.800
my wife is always mystified. It's like, how did you see this? And how did you hear that? It's like,
00:08:18.660
I can't not see it. I can't hear it. Yeah. War does it. And, uh, um, but this is what we're going
00:08:26.720
through all the time and it's wrong. I mean, Trudeau can spend billions of dollars, uh, sending it to
00:08:34.880
North Africa for gender studies for cantaloupe, but he can't, uh, look after veterans. It's
00:08:40.860
absolutely ridiculous. And really mental health in general, it's not just the veteran community,
00:08:46.080
the first responder community. It's all, uh, completely not looked after and it's, uh,
00:08:53.300
and people are dying and suffering. And the funny thing, or it's not funny. The ironic thing is that
00:08:59.820
if these things were looked after, it would be cheaper because like, if you could actually
00:09:04.760
help people and support them and get them back on their feet, it's going to cost less to the
00:09:10.780
community. It's going to cost less taxpayer dollars because there's going to be less downtime,
00:09:16.240
less sick days, and less turnover, less recruiting costs, whether it be, uh, for in the first responder
00:09:23.880
world or the military. So it actually costs less money to look after us.
00:09:28.700
And again, sorry to interrupt you, but, uh, as a fiscal conservative who thinks the government
00:09:34.520
wastes money on absolutely everything, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any fiscal conservative
00:09:40.140
who says we need to spend less on veterans of all the things we spend money on. As I said,
00:09:46.780
the other day, we have a sacred covenant to our veterans, uh, to take care of them. And I just
00:09:51.640
out of curiosity, as you're talking there, do you think the treatment of veterans after the fact
00:10:02.460
It's that it's not dealt with in service. So with PTSD, it's a neurological injury. It's not a
00:10:09.620
disease. It's not a disorder. It's a neurological injury where the wiring to your fight, flight,
00:10:16.840
freeze response, it gets hardwired. So you're always in that mode. And that's why it's hyper
00:10:23.580
vigilance. God, I suffered for five years was brutal hyper vigilance. And, uh, it's absolutely
00:10:29.620
exhausting before it started to settle down for me. And that's normal. And it's still higher than
00:10:34.760
most, but, um, understanding that it's a neurological injury. Okay. Now, if you break
00:10:41.760
your arm, do you wait six weeks or 10 years before you put it in a cast? No, you put it in a cast
00:10:48.320
like right now. So having these immediate action drills for critical incidents, stress debriefing,
00:10:54.620
that sort of thing. And, and looking after that is going to save so much money because the quicker
00:11:01.940
you get on it, the quicker you put that arm in a cast, the less problem there's going to be down
00:11:07.100
the road. And also what most people don't realize, um, and every recruiting center should is that the
00:11:12.600
people that go into these trades into military and first responder trades, their ACEs scores through the
00:11:17.460
roof, uh, almost like right across the board. And especially if they're going into the more high
00:11:22.040
speed, low drag trades like infantry. And then from there, uh, they have the intent of going into the
00:11:27.320
special forces to be an operator. These people have the higher, uh, childhood trauma stores score.
00:11:32.960
So ACEs is, uh, adverse childhood events, childhood trauma is what your ACEs score is. So there's
00:11:40.920
something about that, that when you've had a real rough childhood, you want to be the hero. You want to be
00:11:45.980
the, uh, the person that beats up the bully. So you go into these different types of trades, uh,
00:11:51.280
cause you want to be the helper, the protector. And if you can stop at the recruiting, check that
00:11:57.460
ACEs score. If it's off because the higher it is, the more likely you are to have PTSD. Cause you only
00:12:01.840
have so much room in the cup. Right. And if your cup is already three quarters full at the recruiting
00:12:06.400
center, well, there's not much room to, to, to go the, the health average healthy person,
00:12:11.940
their trauma cup is about a third full because life happens. Life is tragic. It's just how it is.
00:12:17.400
And, um, but if it's two thirds full at the recruiting center, when you're 18 years old,
00:12:24.620
deal with it there, say, okay, you're accepted under the condition that we get all this, um,
00:12:31.820
sort of get that, uh, two thirds or three quarters full down to a half, you know? So let's work on that
00:12:37.380
first, then we'll push you through the recruiting process. And as a critical, like if you're going
00:12:44.600
to be working in a trauma rich environment, as big traumatic events happen, we'll deal with them
00:12:49.340
immediately. Right. And, and, and through all the different resources that I find on my show,
00:12:57.440
not just through the official resources offered by back that have a very, very low efficacy rate
00:13:03.120
between 12 and 16%. We can do better than 12 to 16%.
00:13:07.220
So take us back to where we started on that very first veteran. No, I, this is very fascinating to
00:13:17.520
me. I, I often wonder, um, how all of this stuff, like, you know, as an outside observer, when you see
00:13:22.580
the treatment of veterans, when they're harmed in the course of their duty, as a mom of a young man
00:13:30.240
and, and a young daughter and another young daughter, I would not be happy to see them enter
00:13:36.280
the military, knowing that if they are injured after the fact that they've got to fight for
00:13:41.560
everything. So I wonder if that affects recruitment numbers, but again, take us back to this very first
00:13:46.440
veteran, um, because you were instrumental in getting this story out to the world.
00:13:52.180
So the first one came forward to a bunch of different contacts. I was just one of them.
00:13:56.060
And he gave a lot of us the audio files of calls that he recorded with veterans affairs, Canada.
00:14:02.320
These audio files were the apology calls from back. And that was the proof that unfortunately he
00:14:10.220
never gave us the green light to bring forward, but a lot of people have heard these audio files
00:14:14.840
because he gave it to them. And I keep finding out more people, uh, just the other day, uh, people
00:14:20.340
that have heard these audio files. And basically in these audio files, the following things were
00:14:25.320
confirmed by back themselves. One, we've done this before and we can do it for you. In other words,
00:14:32.960
they've killed at least one veteran. Now the, the big line that they keep saying is that we have
00:14:39.340
nothing to do with maid. We don't offer maid and we don't have any relationship with maid. Then how,
00:14:47.640
How did that veteran get dead? And how do you even know about it? If you have no relationship with
00:14:51.560
maid, how would you know about it? Yeah. And yet back is admitting and the minister admitted,
00:14:59.360
yeah, one veteran is dead for sure. At least one. Now that same conversation through different
00:15:07.120
veterans that I've spoken to, including, um, the one that goes by Bruce, uh, it was the same
00:15:12.780
conversation, a bit of a twist though with Bruce. He says, well, once we won in court where we were
00:15:18.760
fighting for this veteran to have the right to use maid after, after the court decision, um,
00:15:26.820
then we killed him at his request. So that's a heck of a thing for a caseworker to just make up,
00:15:35.900
to pull out of the ethers. So there's gotta be something to it. So right now people are looking
00:15:42.640
into like what court case, what, where, where's this and trying to do the digging. I mean, cause that's
00:15:48.080
going to be a public record. You can't go to court and not have some sort of record of back versus.
00:15:54.060
So who is back fighting exactly in order to have the right to kill this veteran, um, to complete
00:16:03.400
maid for this person. The other thing that was said is, yeah, so we've already killed one guy and
00:16:09.700
yeah. And it's great because we're supporting his wife and two kids because we're so kind and
00:16:15.160
compassionate. I would love to have that family come forward.
00:16:21.740
But these are the things that, uh, that they have admitted to and yet they keep saying it's only one
00:16:30.180
case manager. So let's, let's take that claim. It can't be one case manager. My count is four,
00:16:37.300
probably five. So just from the ones that we know, the very first person that came forward,
00:16:42.660
um, his case manager was out of the Vancouver office and the person that did the apology call,
00:16:51.200
her immediate supervisor was from the Vancouver office. Now it's my understanding that these back
00:16:58.360
agents are given regions. They're given geographical regions and that's how they operate. So this one
00:17:03.940
was in BC because the vet, the veterans, um, house is in BC. So she got, he got somebody from the,
00:17:11.960
from the Vancouver office. So that's one. The second one, Bruce, he's in Ontario.
00:17:18.700
So that's another service agent. And then the third one, Christine Gauthier, who testified at, uh,
00:17:26.840
the standing committee at veterans affairs, she's in Quebec. So that's another one. Oh, wait.
00:17:32.300
And she also had a second case manager offer her vaid. So two different case managers offered,
00:17:39.400
offered her maid. One was male. So now we're at four case managers.
00:17:46.940
And on top of that, I'm trying to get somebody to come forward who I'm in contact with in Alberta,
00:17:53.060
who also had a male case manager offer her maid. I haven't been able to get her to come forward yet.
00:17:59.820
I'm hoping and pleading that she does because we need more whistleblowers. So to your audience,
00:18:06.080
if you know anybody or know of anybody that was offered medical assistance in dying, come forward
00:18:11.540
to me. I, as you can tell, I'll keep your, your name, uh, quiet. If that's what you want, no problem.
00:18:18.600
I've been doing it for everybody else. I'll do it for you too. The second whistleblower that we
00:18:22.760
desperately need is whistleblower from back itself. Somebody that's, uh, it's a, it's a meat grinder
00:18:29.340
in there. They don't last very long. It's a very short position because it's also a trauma rich
00:18:34.660
environment because you're dealing with us. And when we're, when we're most frustrated and I,
00:18:39.160
I wouldn't wish that on anybody, but, um, any back employees that know about this stuff,
00:18:45.520
come forward, come forward to me. I won't use your name and, uh, let me be the center point.
00:18:51.860
And if there's somebody else that you're comfortable with, do that or come forward to Sheila,
00:18:56.300
uh, whoever you're comfortable with. We need these whistleblowers because they are in a mad
00:19:02.400
scramble to bury all this. And at committee, I'm Sheila, I'm so upset at committee yesterday.
00:19:09.340
We watched minister Macaulay absolutely lie and worse call Christine Gauthier, the paraplegic
00:19:17.220
veteran who's a Paralympian called her a liar, not in those words, but that's what he said with his
00:19:22.760
words. That was the message. She must be lying. I was never told of any of this, uh, a year prior.
00:19:30.260
And yet she's got the physical letter with the received receipt, like the, the tracking code.
00:19:36.600
She has all of it. And the letter was replied to by the minister's office and by the prime minister's
00:19:42.740
office. Wow. So the prime minister and the minister knew because they had the letter in
00:19:49.040
their damn hand. I think I emailed them to you yesterday. Um, so, and I have them, I can make
00:19:55.000
them public. These I can make public. She said, just let her rip so we can publish the hell out of
00:19:59.540
them. And, um, and that was in 2021, 2021 in July, she told them. So a year and a half ago,
00:20:08.260
the veterans minister and the prime minister's office had knowledge and replied to the letters
00:20:16.740
from Christine Gauthier, Paralympian who is good enough to be used in all of their advertising,
00:20:22.380
by the way, she's the federal government used her to promote the Invictus games and Paralympic
00:20:28.800
games, except when she needed some help from these people. And then get out of our face,
00:20:33.980
by the way, here's a medical assistance in dying. And then, and they're calling her a liar.
00:20:38.960
Her credibility was fine when she was able to promote the government.
00:20:43.440
Yeah. I was on the phone with Christine for about an hour yesterday. And right now I'm working
00:20:48.760
on getting her that damn elevator. I'm not waiting for back.
00:20:51.800
You know what? Tell people about this, because I think this is really great because you are one
00:20:56.320
man, one veteran who is also experiencing PTSD. And so, like I said to you the other day,
00:21:03.780
I worry immensely about the burden this has on you telling the stories of these other veterans who
00:21:09.300
are suffering, but you're one guy and you were able to do, or at least you're in the process of
00:21:14.820
doing what an entire federal bureaucracy couldn't be bothered to do. And instead offered Christine
00:21:20.940
Gautier made, tell people what you're doing. So they say that there's an investigation.
00:21:26.460
I think that the way you just put it kind of proves there is no investigation.
00:21:29.860
Because if I'm able to be a center point, if I'm able to put, to get it out there and have people
00:21:36.220
come to me and find all these people and have them come forward. But the entire department of
00:21:44.620
Veterans Affairs, that's like what, a billion dollars a year, they can't do it. And I'm just
00:21:50.060
one dude. So with Christine, after I heard her story on my show, absolutely heartbreaking.
00:21:58.700
You know, in her words, for five years, every winter, she had to crawl through the snow like a
00:22:04.560
worm, she said, like a worm with her wheelchair up and down these eight stairs, because she couldn't
00:22:11.340
get a lift for a wheelchair. Now it is a big lift. Now that I've seen a bit more of the project,
00:22:15.980
like, oh, that's a lift. So it's more of an elevator. But what, I don't give a shit.
00:22:24.520
Give her what she needs. I don't care if it's a $200,000 elevator, which it probably is.
00:22:31.540
But I promised her that there's no more BS. I'm going to fix it. And it's not hard to do. First,
00:22:40.160
you find the provider that can go, and then you raise the money. That's all there is to it.
00:22:46.160
So I've got a few people that are being lined up right now. And once it gets going, I'll open up
00:22:54.780
the GoFundMe. And it might be $200,000. But she can't go to a different house. There's a lot of
00:23:04.340
things going on here. But I'm going to get it done. And once it's done, I can't wait to have
00:23:10.320
some sort of grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony for her to use the damn thing and say,
00:23:19.320
It's okay, Mark. You're doing what they couldn't, what they wouldn't.
00:23:54.600
The way he, when he was asked by Luke Deslete at committee, can you at least just
00:24:06.000
commit to this one thing, this one project for this one veteran? Can you just commit to this?
00:24:17.160
And he couldn't, wouldn't. He totally sidestepped it. He goes, well, we don't even know that that's
00:24:22.080
what she needs right now. But just give her the goddamn elevator.
00:24:26.680
Just give it to her. I can't believe it. I don't know what it is. Liberals are so happy to spend
00:24:40.000
money on everything else under the sun. Spending money like drunken sailors, as I think Rachel Danko
00:24:48.040
said. But somebody needs an elevator lift for five years, they're dragging themselves with their
00:24:56.740
wheelchair. And you know what she said? Well, down the stairs isn't so bad. This is what a
00:25:01.180
tough girl that this is. I don't, you know, I don't mind worming my way down the stairs so much
00:25:07.140
with the wheelchair. That's not so bad, but getting back up those stairs with my wheelchair. Now that's
00:25:13.580
tough. How, how, how does this not light a fire under somebody's butt to get this done?
00:25:23.180
I mean, how can you allow her to live like this? And she has been suicidal because of it,
00:25:29.000
because out of desperation, she's quite open about talking about that. It's the most heartbreaking
00:25:33.660
damn thing. And, um, I mean, nobody should have to go through this, but this girl has paid her price.
00:25:39.860
Yeah. You know, she has served her country, then represented our country in the Invictus games
00:25:45.380
and, um, and, and she gets treated like mud. Yeah. It's horrible. You know, so we're going to get
00:25:55.000
this done. And I've, I'm, uh, I got a veterans group. Uh, um, I forget the name of it. It's written
00:26:00.400
down somewhere here, but it's a renovation group of veterans. And, um, we're all tapping into our
00:26:06.940
resources to see how we're going to get this done. And, um, once we have the price tag and we have a
00:26:13.400
plan, uh, we'll open up the GoFundMe. Hopefully you can help promote that. You better believe it.
00:26:19.160
We'll fill those coffers. You better believe it. Uh,
00:26:24.620
you are proof that one man is more powerful than a government bureaucracy. And I think it's
00:26:31.340
disgusting that Christine's mental health, which led to her being suicidal was, uh, like her suicidal
00:26:43.660
ideations were in part created by the government's failure to help her. And so the government gets to
00:26:51.040
take the easy way out and say, well, why, why don't you just, why don't you just, and then none of us
00:26:56.520
have to deal with this anymore. Oh, and it gets worse. I mean, the only reason that she's in a
00:27:00.620
wheelchair is because she had an injury from an obstacle course that she did in training that got
00:27:06.000
worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and, uh, until she's eventually in a chair and she's
00:27:13.260
going to need, um, like in like home care soon. So they couldn't fix it during the process of
00:27:19.960
degeneration. She shouldn't even be in a wheelchair in the first place. And her, her husband served 25
00:27:28.400
years in the military as well. It's an absolute disgrace, an absolute disgrace. Mark, you told me
00:27:37.460
that minister Macaulay was just basically lying yesterday. Again, we're filming this on Tuesday.
00:27:43.540
I will go out on Wednesday. So he was lying through his teeth in committee on Monday. I also know that
00:27:50.920
David Lamedi, our justice minister was approached. Um, basically he was asked, we're seeing what's
00:27:59.580
happening with veterans affairs and made and a real problem there. And we haven't gotten to the bottom
00:28:06.980
of it. Maybe you should pump the brakes on the changes you're bringing into the maid system,
00:28:10.780
wherein you can just be mentally ill and just ask for it and get it on the very same day. And he said,
00:28:17.980
no, no, we're proceeding with these things. It's fine. So again, this is a separate government
00:28:22.660
minister saying what's happening to our veterans. It's not anything the rest of us need to worry
00:28:28.940
about. I don't know why they're in such a rush. We are the most, um, we have the least barrier to
00:28:36.540
entry in May than any other country in the world. And it's in that, and what little barrier that is
00:28:42.860
there is going to be completely gone in March. Like this is not, most people still think that
00:28:48.720
maid is for the critically ill, terminally ill that only have like another month to live and
00:28:55.140
why suffer. Right. And I'm kind of down with that. Like it's like, sure. You know, you do it for a
00:29:00.480
horse or a dog, you know? So, okay. Um, but that's not what it is. No. Like you're taking people
00:29:08.020
that are vulnerable and instead of helping them when help is available. Cause I go and find this
00:29:14.640
help. That's what I've done. Veterans affairs was, uh, not too interested in finding help and doing
00:29:21.340
what I've done in my 260 episodes. I mean, it wasn't that hard. You just start calling people
00:29:27.580
and you have conversations with them and then you put up their contact information. You know, that,
00:29:33.380
that's, that's what I did, but all of veterans affairs is like, no, uh, we'll just use a registered
00:29:39.320
psychologist and this one set little program. And that's all that we're going to cover it. That's
00:29:44.100
that. Well, there there's other help out there and people are looking to made well right now,
00:29:51.180
because they don't want to be homeless, homeless or die with made. Oh, okay. Uh, or they're having
00:29:58.080
their doctors push draw them. It's like, you know, you cost $1,500 a day. You're really expensive.
00:30:02.080
You should just die. You know, we can do it for you. I'll, I'll do the Mengele injection for you.
00:30:08.300
It's absolutely hideous. What's, what's wrong with helping people with looking after people.
00:30:13.360
Sheila for three years, I lived in a respite home looking after two men who were development,
00:30:19.400
development mentally challenged, right? So low IQ dudes, um, they could cook for themselves,
00:30:25.100
but they were basically like nine-year-olds, um, mentality wise. So they, they just needed somebody
00:30:30.620
there to make sure that they were okay and to take their medications. And sometimes they get
00:30:36.040
scared or upset and just to be there to comfort them. And I did that for three years.
00:30:42.160
If you would have given either of them the maid option at different points, when they weren't
00:30:47.460
thinking straight, they would have taken it. Sure.
00:30:50.420
They would have taken it. And these are the most beautiful human beings. Like they were angels on earth
00:30:56.140
and they have value. Sure. They're not, um, uh, contributing to the economy, but so what? Like
00:31:04.560
these are good people that made me a better man. And everybody that knew them made them a better
00:31:09.640
people. And I just buried one three weeks ago. It's terrible. But, um, if maid was offered,
00:31:16.560
they would have taken it and that's predatory. It's horrible. It's ghoulish. It's wrong.
00:31:20.580
Um, and where, I don't know where people's hearts are. Where's, where's your heart?
00:31:25.160
Well, and I think people, I, you know, I've had people approach me saying, Sheila, your story's
00:31:30.320
inaccurate. That's not, that wasn't my experience five years ago when my dad or brother got maid.
00:31:38.260
And I don't think people realize that so much has changed since maid was first introduced. As you say,
00:31:46.960
it was for terminally ill people whose death was imminent and their suffering was great,
00:31:52.360
but now you don't have to be terminally ill. You just have to be chronically ill. Um, and you have,
00:31:59.300
you have to say that you're dissatisfied with the level of care that you're getting. Well,
00:32:03.540
this is Canada. Our healthcare system is brutal. Everybody is dissatisfied with the level of care
00:32:09.100
that they're getting. They've removed the 10 day wait period. So you can get it on the day that
00:32:13.920
you're experiencing an acute mental health crisis. Um, and it doesn't have to be administered by
00:32:20.560
your doctor that knows you anymore. It can be a pharmacist or a nurse, just somebody willing to
00:32:25.880
do it for you. And it's going to get worse because then in March, it's just going to be if you're
00:32:31.740
mentally ill. So not even a sound mind, sometimes you, you can make these decisions that you can't
00:32:39.600
take back. And I just, as you say, where's the compassion, where's the kindness as a society,
00:32:45.220
the liberals keep telling me they care about the vulnerable, then why are they killing them?
00:32:50.580
Yeah. Killing people isn't compassion. I think what we're seeing too, it's such a horrible
00:32:55.420
circumstance that we're dealing with Sheila, that we're really seeing some serious cognitive
00:33:00.880
dissonance, which is the resistance to anything new. Um, like once you have your worldview,
00:33:06.780
anything that challenges that that's the cognitive dissonance, that's the pushback against this
00:33:11.400
idea. So if you have it in your head that, um, I think most people paternalize and maternalize
00:33:17.260
their government, you know, they see the government, uh, not consciously, but subconsciously as mommy and
00:33:23.000
daddy. So if, if you go to somebody and say, Hey, I saw your, your mom turning tricks on the corner
00:33:30.580
of 97th street, they'd punch you in the face. Right. Right. Cause that, that's my mom. You're talking
00:33:35.140
about how dare you talk about my mom that way. Right. And it's the same kind of visceral response
00:33:40.480
for a lot of people. When you challenge the government, if they, if their sense of identity
00:33:45.000
is connected to that idea of government and they see in a subconscious level, the government is mommy
00:33:51.260
or daddy, they're not aware of it, but that's what they're doing. That's why there's this visceral
00:33:55.420
response. When you say, Hey, the government's doing something really, really bad.
00:33:58.940
Yeah. No, they're not. You conspiracy theorists. No, but they actually are right. Yeah. They see
00:34:06.440
the government as benevolent. Uh, they have no skepticism towards the government. They are
00:34:12.200
looking after us. Like they looked after us during COVID. Like they're going to look after us when
00:34:18.000
people send us mean tweets on the internet or tell us things we don't want to hear on YouTube.
00:34:22.420
And they're going to look after us. If we're uncomfortable, instead of helping us,
00:34:26.620
they'll kill us. And then they'll pat themselves on the back and say, look how kind we are.
00:34:31.960
Yeah. And it's just not the case. I mean, I know some wonderful, wonderful politicians,
00:34:35.600
like great human beings. Sure. But at the end of the day, um, the old sayings from the Greek times
00:34:42.120
still apply, you know, uh, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts. Absolutely. And we see this. And if
00:34:49.660
you give a power, um, have a party that's in power for long enough, which we've seen in Alberta,
00:34:54.580
when the conservative government was in power, just too damn long for 30 plus years, it did get
00:35:00.600
corrupt, uh, with, um, Redford and all that. Like it was gross, which is why the NDP came in
00:35:06.320
because everybody, uh, even though that's a conservative province, we're like, you know,
00:35:11.080
we won't stand for corruption. We don't like it. So the NDP got it. And then they got in and we're
00:35:17.560
like, ah, dart it. That's no better. What have we done? We burned the house down. Cause we didn't
00:35:22.320
like the paint in the bathroom. Yeah. That's what we did. I saw a spider. So I burned the house down.
00:35:27.820
And, um, and so we, we were swinging back, but especially in Alberta, I don't know if the other
00:35:33.620
provinces are like us, but we don't like corruption and we do not reward corruption. And yet our liberal
00:35:41.980
government, the most government, the most corrupt government in my lifetime by a country mile,
00:35:47.240
the most corrupt prime minister. Oh my God, by a country mile, you know, the only prime minister
00:35:53.300
in history that's ever been called guilty by the ethics commissioner. And it's what's the count?
00:35:57.660
I think it's three times. So given the, those ethics reports, Roman numerals at this point.
00:36:02.660
Yeah. It's three. I thought it was actually higher.
00:36:05.040
It could be higher, but, um, I thought my count was at four or five now.
00:36:09.380
Could be, could be. But, um, in Alberta, that's why we have these F Trudeau, uh, bumper stickers,
00:36:16.240
which I'm actually not that fond of. I don't think that's the best way to express yourself.
00:36:19.920
I don't like the F Trudeau flags and all that, but I certainly understand the sentiment,
00:36:24.200
but you only see that really in Alberta because we don't like corruption. We don't like liars.
00:36:31.840
And yet, uh, there's still a significant amount of support for the man. And I don't understand it.
00:36:37.780
No, I, as I said, uh, on Twitter this morning, there are two Canada's and I think I live in one
00:36:45.880
and there are people living in another who tolerate the treatment of Canadians at the hands of the
00:36:52.880
federal government. They're the same people who are perfectly fine with the invocation of the
00:36:57.660
Emergencies Act against peaceful anti-regime protesters. They're fine with executing our
00:37:03.220
veterans and claiming that it's kindness. Um, it is, I think why Albertans are a little bit
00:37:10.220
culturally incompatible with the rest of the country. And I think the Danielle Smith Sovereignty
00:37:18.780
All the Sovereignty Act is to me is it's a no trespassing sign.
00:37:22.000
Yeah. It's a restraining order against the feds. I'm fine.
00:37:24.800
That's all it is. You know, uh, or as I said to a coin there, um, you mind your own darn
00:37:32.000
business and I'll mind my own darn business. Stay in your lane. I'll stay in mine. That's
00:37:37.400
all this sovereignty act does. And yet people are doing backflips over it. It's like, no,
00:37:42.560
not going to let you, no trespassing. This is our territory. Don't, don't tell us what to
00:37:48.060
do when it's our jurisdiction. Don't infringe on our jurisdiction. That's it. How is that offensive?
00:37:53.500
You know, it's ridiculous. Well, and I think the treatment of our veterans is a great symptom
00:37:58.300
of this problem is, you know, we have people who are saying, no, we need more Ottawa and Ottawa knows
00:38:05.380
what's best for us. So let's let Ottawa do more. And I look at the treatment of our veterans and say,
00:38:10.700
there's a perfect example of how Ottawa gets it wrong. And normal people would like to see
00:38:16.140
something different. And I think the Sovereignty Act, again, reaction to that as well.
00:38:24.860
Mark, thanks so much for taking the time this morning and taking so much time on this issue.
00:38:30.100
How do people see the work that you're doing through your podcast, but also maybe if you're
00:38:36.440
willing, give out some contact information where if there are whistleblowers who want to come forward
00:38:41.700
and you, as I said, you're a soft landing for these people.
00:38:45.020
I am a soft place to land for sure. So the easiest way to find me is through the podcast
00:38:52.400
Operation Tango Romeo. Tango Romeo is the phonetic alphabet, stands for trauma recovery. So Operation
00:38:58.180
Tango Romeo, the trauma recovery podcast. And you can find me on any of the podcast channels,
00:39:04.260
the big eight anyway, the top eight. When I had live stream, I always double broadcast. So I first
00:39:10.360
live stream and I don't have the production quality that Sheila has or the knowledge or the ability.
00:39:16.900
I don't have a team. It's just me. So I live stream it out and then I rebroadcast in all the audio
00:39:21.500
podcast channels. And you can see the live streams and get a hold of me through Facebook.
00:39:26.720
That's where the videos all are. The YouTube channel is pretty useless, but Facebook and
00:39:34.060
LinkedIn is also useless, but I do appear there as well. Great. Mark, thanks so much. And please let
00:39:41.640
us know if there's anything we can do to help you in your mission to help veterans, particularly
00:39:46.500
Christine Gauthier, but all veterans, please. Thank you. Well, I will. As soon as we get the bill for
00:39:52.500
what this elevator is going to cost, we'll all be rowing together in the same direction. We'll get the
00:39:57.700
darn thing done. You got it. Thanks, Mark. Thank you.
00:40:07.700
Listening to the emotion in Mark's voice as he tells the story of Canada's wounded veterans and
00:40:11.760
their mistreatment at the hands of the very agencies meant to help them has me oscillating
00:40:16.200
between heartbreak and fury. Now, rest assured, I will do everything I can to give Canada's veterans
00:40:21.940
a platform to tell their stories. And I will think of very creative ways for you at home to show
00:40:27.060
your support for them. Now, I currently have a petition to the federal government. It's at
00:40:32.240
helpnothomicide.com and it calls on the feds to offer some real help to people instead of coercing
00:40:40.460
them into medical assistance and dying because Canadians are opting for state-sanctioned homicide
00:40:45.800
as a reaction to their suffering, which so often comes at the hands of an inept government agency.
00:40:53.460
Now, on that depressing note, let's turn our eyes to the gun show letters.
00:40:57.920
At the end of every show, every week, I give you my email address. It's sheila at rebelnews.com.
00:41:04.220
Write me a letter, put gun show letters in the subject line so I know that that's what it's for.
00:41:09.000
And let me know what you think about the work that we're doing here at Rebel News,
00:41:12.100
and I just might read your letter on air. Tonight's gun show letter comes to us from Mark Murray,
00:41:17.480
and he's writing in on last week's gun show with Rick Igersich from Canada's National Firearms
00:41:22.920
Association about Justin Trudeau's latest gun ban, which amounts to a wide-scale, comprehensive
00:41:29.720
prohibition on almost every single hunting firearm in this country, with the exception of a few.
00:41:36.740
Hello, Sheila. I enjoyed your recent show with the National Firearms Association. I did not realize
00:41:41.280
this organization existed. Thanks to your show and all the rebels, I am a better informed citizen.
00:41:47.160
I decided to become a member of the NFA just based on your show. Well, that's great.
00:41:52.640
I figure the more voices, the better strength in numbers. It especially sparked my interest
00:41:57.260
when you were talking about semi-automatic rifles with a magazine that can hold more than five rounds,
00:42:03.400
and that's just a gun capable of holding that. I have a semi-auto .22 that has a detachable magazine
00:42:09.220
that can hold 10 rounds. I bet it's pinned. It's a beautiful gun. I also have a Remington 870 shotgun
00:42:14.800
that I've owned since I was in high school many years ago. It's a reliable gun, and I also have an
00:42:20.280
air rifle for target practice. Thank you and all the rebels for keeping us informed. Once again,
00:42:27.700
I oscillate between fury and sorrow. Fury that law-abiding Canadian gun owners are being scapegoated
00:42:34.760
by their liberal government for the crimes happening in progressive cities and exacerbated
00:42:39.600
by progressive policies. I'm sad for the attack on this fundamental part of Canadian heritage.
00:42:45.900
Whether or not you like or use guns, it really doesn't change. Their intrinsic tie to Canadian
00:42:51.980
culture and their historic value in turning this country from an undiscovered, unlivable place
00:42:57.380
to a real society. And my sorrow. My guns, which were my dad's, my grandpa's, cannot be passed along
00:43:03.980
to my children. I will not be able to teach my grandchildren how to shoot gophers with the same
00:43:09.700
gun that my dad taught me and that his dad used to teach him. Those guns will instead be turned over
00:43:16.400
to the state upon my death and destroyed along with that history of my family. My kids won't have
00:43:23.240
that tie to the great men they were never able to meet because Justin Trudeau blames me for what some
00:43:30.020
gangster in Toronto is doing. Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight. Thank you so much
00:43:36.220
for tuning in. I'll see everybody back here in the same time, in the same place next week. And remember,
00:43:41.440
don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.
00:43:46.400
Don't tell me that you've left a second. There are a few employees. There are always
00:43:52.240
reasons. But what are you doing? And I'll say, don't tell you. Let's take about
00:43:55.400
floors, let's change the transport route to your mother. And on the right side, put the
00:43:58.880
ource with the��도 iron, raised some misитанquality that are holding a When I get this
00:44:03.480
material. Like, you were on the right side of your side of your yellow suit, you
00:44:11.840
were just seeking to be able to可愛don film the story of our family and akenline ship.
00:44:14.060
But, you know your story isn't being a Huhline-like