Greg Wycliffe - November 21, 2022


Student speaks out against mandates in Canadian Universities

Hosted by
Greg Wycliffe
Mentioned
Trudeau Imid Shohan Laurier
Was the Trucker Convoy a Far-right protest？ Message to CSIS, RCMP & Public officials of Ottawa

Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

166.23

Word count

1,134

Sentence count

68

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I introduce myself, my story, and my opposition to the mask mandates at my school, and why I believe they need to be rescinded. I also talk about the Canadian government's assault on our constitutional rights and why we need to fight back against them.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I'm a freedom and Canada-loving student, born and raised in this beautiful city.
00:00:04.500 Some of you may have seen my recent protests involving the mask mandates at my school,
00:00:08.720 so I'm here to tell you a little story and a little bit about myself and what I stand for.
00:00:13.840 Just over a year ago, on September 29th, 2021, I was informed by my school,
00:00:19.760 Wilfrid Laurier University, that I had one week to provide them with my proof of COVID vaccination
00:00:25.000 under the threat of being unenrolled from my courses.
00:00:28.020 Unfortunately, as a matter of principle, I wasn't willing to disclose this personal information,
00:00:34.560 so I was kicked out of school.
00:00:37.580 Now, my main issue was with this form of medical discrimination,
00:00:41.540 which had no logical, ethical, or scientific basis.
00:00:46.440 They enacted a never-before-seen measure by presenting the students with an ultimatum.
00:00:51.500 Either they can betray their conscience and take an experimental drug,
00:00:55.280 or they can throw away a year of their lives.
00:00:58.960 I was in the position of being on pace to finish a four-year bachelor in philosophy
00:01:02.740 on top of economics and political science minors in only three years.
00:01:07.160 I worked like a dog over my summers, taking full course loads,
00:01:10.540 in the hopes of graduating a year early so I could get a head start on law school.
00:01:15.220 This goal of mine was spoiled by the authoritarian policies put in place by the dean and the board of Laurier.
00:01:21.160 I think we can all agree that the Canadian universities who enacted mandates like these
00:01:27.280 failed the duty that they have towards their students.
00:01:32.220 This is just to give you some background on the university I'm attending.
00:01:36.800 Believe it or not, the absurdity went even further.
00:01:40.620 Fast forward a year, all provincial mask mandates were dropped,
00:01:44.140 yet nonetheless, before the semester began,
00:01:47.840 students and faculty were informed that everyone on campus
00:01:50.420 would have to wear a face covering in instructional settings.
00:01:54.600 I couldn't believe that they were going to continue enforcing these mandates
00:01:57.780 on those who were incentivized to conform and obey,
00:02:01.200 faculty that needed to put food on their dinner tables,
00:02:04.480 and students who need to graduate.
00:02:07.080 If you ask me, the provincial and federal governments played their hand perfectly. 1.00
00:02:11.480 They quickly realized that we weren't a bunch of idiots, 0.99
00:02:15.000 so they began targeting the most vulnerable of the bunch, 1.00
00:02:18.000 the amazing children of this country,
00:02:19.960 who, by the way, had zero risk of developing any serious illness from COVID.
00:02:25.600 They're destroying the Canadian family as we know it. 0.99
00:02:28.720 They're normalizing a society where children speak to their schools instead of their parents,
00:02:33.480 one that doesn't value what you can learn at home from those who love you,
00:02:37.820 a robbery of our culture, 0.77
00:02:38.980 a society that places an incentive on being a victim rather than a victor.
00:02:44.760 They want Canadian children, the future of this country,
00:02:47.920 to embrace authority instead of questioning it and holding it accountable.
00:02:52.260 The goal, being a society that abides by the law even when it's unethical.
00:02:57.620 Obeying without questioning and rewarding those who follow blindly
00:03:01.680 with privileges that the rest of us cannot receive.
00:03:04.120 Now, this might sound unrealistic,
00:03:07.320 but try to picture a world where you need a passport to go to the restaurant
00:03:11.760 or to go to the funeral of a loved one.
00:03:15.080 It's exponentially easier to control someone if you condition them early,
00:03:19.620 especially at a stage in their lives where they're supposed to question things
00:03:23.480 and form their own opinions,
00:03:25.500 training them to be obedient little soldiers.
00:03:27.980 An obsession with a sense of control or a desire for power is human nature.
00:03:34.200 It's nothing new.
00:03:35.440 This can be found within us and is externalized everywhere.
00:03:39.320 Whether we're seeking more control of our own lives,
00:03:42.380 whether you're at home listening to your parents or guiding the children
00:03:45.440 that you have a duty to raise the right way,
00:03:47.920 whether you're at work with a boss giving you orders,
00:03:50.360 Canada is quickly turning into a place
00:03:53.500 that is controlled by an overarching, seemingly all-powerful authority
00:03:57.960 telling us what we can and cannot do with our lives.
00:04:02.020 To quote Imid Shohan,
00:04:03.880 the man who obeys will be obeyed in his turn.
00:04:07.640 Now, this nihilist thinker is not praising this sense of authority.
00:04:11.680 He's condemning it,
00:04:13.320 pointing out the notion that almost every facet of our life
00:04:16.780 is intertwined with power.
00:04:18.140 Now, I believe that this power should be held within the social construct,
00:04:23.160 within our society,
00:04:24.800 by the people,
00:04:25.860 and for the people.
00:04:27.380 We need to be extremely wary of who holds this power,
00:04:31.700 not necessarily at home and at work,
00:04:34.100 but specifically with regards to our government.
00:04:37.500 Nobody should be told what to do with their minds or their bodies.
00:04:41.500 Human rights are one thing that obviously need to be protected,
00:04:45.120 but what happened to our charter rights?
00:04:47.280 What the federal government has done to our right to speak freely,
00:04:51.300 our right to assemble,
00:04:52.960 and our right to mobility is disgusting.
00:04:56.100 We were all witness to Trudeau's invoking of the Emergencies Act,
00:05:00.520 labeling the patriotic truckers who put everything on the line
00:05:04.060 to protest these draconian mandates as terrorists, for goodness sake.
00:05:08.460 Anyone who supported them was a misogynist, 0.97
00:05:12.320 a racist, 1.00
00:05:13.560 a bigot, 1.00
00:05:14.780 a science denier.
00:05:17.000 According to our federal government,
00:05:19.320 we are all of those things.
00:05:21.600 We are this so-called fringe minority.
00:05:24.940 And you know what?
00:05:26.260 We're proud of it.
00:05:27.080 I might be young, 0.83
00:05:31.100 but I sure as hell I'm not dumb. 0.92
00:05:34.000 Trudeau wants to segregate us. 0.93
00:05:36.160 He wants us gone.
00:05:38.160 He can try for the rest of his life,
00:05:40.340 but I can promise you one thing,
00:05:42.460 he will not succeed.
00:05:44.480 People like us care about this country.
00:05:47.300 We can all pat ourselves on the back
00:05:49.340 because we can say that we did the right thing.
00:05:52.020 We stood up and we honored all the fallen soldiers
00:05:55.040 that died fighting for the freedom of this country.
00:05:57.960 The same freedom that our government claims to want for all of us.
00:06:02.240 One day,
00:06:03.120 I'll be able to look my kids in the eyes
00:06:05.160 and tell them I didn't roll over and do what was easy.
00:06:09.460 We'll all be able to say that we fought for this country
00:06:12.280 and the future of it.
00:06:13.620 The path that we're headed down scares me
00:06:17.500 and frankly should scare anyone
00:06:19.480 who values their fundamental rights and freedoms.
00:06:22.980 And no,
00:06:23.640 that doesn't mean you're right to be respected
00:06:25.980 or you're right not to have your feelings hurt.
00:06:29.460 We deserve better.
00:06:31.200 I intend to stand up not only for my future,
00:06:34.280 but for the future of this country.
00:06:36.280 And I know all of you will do the same.
00:06:39.020 Yeah!
00:06:40.340 Thank you.
00:06:41.300 And God keep our land.
00:06:43.200 Yeah!
00:06:43.620 Thank you.
00:06:46.700 Thank you.
00:06:47.500 You are a future!
00:06:48.880 Thank you.
00:06:49.220 Thank you.
00:06:49.240 Thank you.
00:06:49.260 Thank you.