Juno News - Canada’s goal-posts are moving once again when it comes to COVID-19

00:00:00.320 Canada's goalposts are moving once again when it comes to COVID-19 and vaccination rates.

00:00:05.380 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:12.240 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.

00:00:14.940 I hope you are enjoying our daily show and we hope that you are enjoying the content here at True North as well as The Candice Malcolm Show

00:00:20.980 as we dive into the daily goings-on in federal politics in Canada,

00:00:25.700 looking at the scope of politics and culture across the country and coming to you every day,

00:00:30.660 which is really fun because we get to pretty much cover every major issue that goes on in the country.

00:00:35.860 We don't let anything pass us by and we always keep an eye out on the media who are often just so dishonest

00:00:41.720 and so manipulative in the way that they present the information.

00:00:44.560 So we usually have a fun mix of critiquing federal politics as well as critiquing the federal media landscape

00:00:51.600 and we talk about provincial politics as well.

00:00:54.260 So today I want to talk about the ever-moving goalposts when it comes to COVID-19.

00:00:58.860 This is a very familiar topic to the audience, to all Canadians, because as you recall,

00:01:04.140 the original call when it came to COVID-19, the original ask from world leaders,

00:01:08.580 from our own prime minister in Canada, from provincial leaders and health experts,

00:01:12.480 was that we were going to take two weeks to flatten the curve.

00:01:15.600 You recall that in what early, it was early March 2020, we saw huge spikes of COVID all over the world.

00:01:21.800 It started out in China, but China is so secretive and dishonest, we didn't really get a full picture of what was going on.

00:01:27.340 There were sort of dissident leaks of videos, so that we kind of got a picture of the authoritarian reaction to COVID.

00:01:35.300 But we didn't really know how bad COVID was until it started to spread to other countries,

00:01:39.160 until we saw it in places like Italy and Europe and the United States.

00:01:43.400 And then we realized, okay, this thing is pretty bad, pretty deadly.

00:01:46.740 We don't know exactly what it is.

00:01:48.280 There's a lot of really shady elements to it, particularly that the source of this virus came from Wuhan,

00:01:54.120 which, as Jon Stewart very funnily, very comically put it,

00:01:58.320 is the same location as the Wuhan Irology Lab, which studied coronaviruses.

00:02:04.800 And so, you know, did this thing come from a lab?

00:02:07.340 Was it man-made? Did it leak from a lab?

00:02:09.180 What exactly is it?

00:02:10.200 There's so many questions. And so, at the time in March in 2020,

00:02:13.840 when world leaders said, let's all just stay home so that we don't spike the healthcare system,

00:02:18.460 so that we don't overrun everything, we're just going to flatten the curve,

00:02:21.440 which didn't mean that you weren't going to get sick.

00:02:24.380 It still meant that you were going to get sick from COVID eventually.

00:02:27.360 You just wasn't going to happen all at once to flood the healthcare system.

00:02:30.360 So it was two weeks to flatten the curve.

00:02:32.700 Famously, in March 2020, it is now November 2021,

00:02:36.400 and we are still living with ongoing COVID restrictions, again, the moving goalposts.

00:02:42.540 So it started out with a mild ask, and then it escalated,

00:02:46.980 and it continues to escalate, continues to escalate, and we see that.

00:02:50.040 So we're going to go through some of these glaring examples,

00:02:51.960 because now it's not just the COVID moving goalposts,

00:02:54.740 but it's also the moving goalposts when it comes to vaccination rates,

00:02:59.240 when it comes to forced vaccinations,

00:03:00.640 and now when it comes to vaccinating your little kids,

00:03:03.680 when it comes to vaccinating five-year-old children in this country and around the world.

00:03:08.060 Before I get to that, though, if you are enjoying The Candace Malcolm Show,

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00:03:58.320 So that really helps us out.

00:03:59.660 Thank you so much.

00:04:00.440 So today, I really want to delve into this issue

00:04:03.040 of COVID moving goalposts

00:04:05.360 because the latest one came out this week

00:04:07.280 that public health experts are changing the definition

00:04:09.780 of what it means to be fully vaccinated.

00:04:12.360 So Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam,

00:04:15.420 says that the general population

00:04:16.680 will now need another vaccine shot,

00:04:19.600 but not until at least early next year.

00:04:21.680 So we're talking 2022.

00:04:23.560 It may be that the general population

00:04:25.620 will need another dose, but not just now.

00:04:28.440 But that's likely to come, said Dr. Theresa Tam.

00:04:30.880 Now, why is this an issue?

00:04:32.080 Well, it was just three days earlier.

00:04:34.920 Three days earlier, Dr. Theresa Tam,

00:04:36.880 the same person,

00:04:37.680 the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada,

00:04:40.380 came out and said that boosters

00:04:42.120 for the general population will not be required

00:04:45.340 as there is no evidence of waning protection.

00:04:48.600 So here she is.

00:04:49.320 She comes out last week and says,

00:04:51.240 look, we're not going to need boosters.

00:04:52.540 That's not part of being fully vaccinated.

00:04:54.860 There's no evidence that there is a huge new surge

00:04:57.780 of COVID cases or that people

00:04:59.420 who have been double vaccinated are no longer protected.

00:05:02.240 They're not seeing a big wave of people

00:05:04.180 who are fully vaccinated all of a sudden

00:05:06.080 becoming more sick of COVID.

00:05:07.920 They're not seeing those numbers go up.

00:05:09.760 But then three days later, three days later.

00:05:13.040 So somehow in the course of three days,

00:05:15.720 we went from being no evidence of something

00:05:18.580 to all of a sudden it's likely to come

00:05:20.860 and it's inevitable.

00:05:21.900 So this is just what we've come to expect in Canada.

00:05:24.920 I don't know if it's a communication issue

00:05:26.480 or just, again, this is evolving,

00:05:28.660 ever-changing goals when it comes to COVID.

00:05:30.740 We can never get out of COVID

00:05:32.120 because we don't even know what that means.

00:05:34.140 What is the final vaccination rate?

00:05:36.340 What is the case count?

00:05:38.360 At what point will we just learn to live with COVID?

00:05:41.320 We all know that Alberta famously tried to say

00:05:44.000 that COVID is now an endemic,

00:05:45.720 just meaning that we're going to live with it.

00:05:47.200 It's going to be something that is always there,

00:05:48.880 like influenza, and every year there's surges in cases.

00:05:52.080 And sadly, some people die of it every year,

00:05:53.940 but it's not debilitating.

00:05:55.580 It's not something that we're going to close down

00:05:56.980 our entire economy for.

00:05:58.340 It's not something that we're going to break the bank

00:06:01.120 and run up mind-boggling amounts of debt

00:06:03.940 to what, to pay people to stay at home?

00:06:06.420 That's not going to happen anymore.

00:06:08.140 So Alberta said that in the summer

00:06:09.560 and it kind of came back against them

00:06:12.340 because they did have that surge.

00:06:13.580 They did have that fourth wave.

00:06:14.580 And the media were all too happy to sensationalize that,

00:06:18.960 to blow it out of proportion,

00:06:20.300 to make it seem more catastrophic.

00:06:22.060 It was constantly in the news, drumming up fear,

00:06:24.700 drumming up anxiety about this,

00:06:26.960 basically to embarrass Premier Kenney,

00:06:29.080 basically to, as a warning sign to any other province

00:06:31.980 and any other government out there,

00:06:33.360 don't say that COVID might be ending

00:06:35.460 because if you say COVID might be ending

00:06:38.400 and then there's a case spike,

00:06:40.320 we will make you live to regret it.

00:06:42.120 And, you know, it will ruin your political career.

00:06:44.500 So that's the scenario that we live in.

00:06:46.880 This is the world that we live in

00:06:48.000 where we can never shake this COVID thing.

00:06:51.740 It's just here forever.

00:06:53.160 And no matter what we do, no matter how far we get,

00:06:55.300 no matter how much we comply with government orders,

00:06:57.480 they are finding a way to bring back more orders,

00:07:00.200 more heavy-handedness.

00:07:01.340 It's like, I've said this many times on the show before,

00:07:04.040 the authoritarian impulse is real.

00:07:06.480 And a lot of political leaders,

00:07:08.900 a lot of public health officials,

00:07:10.240 they like the power.

00:07:11.740 They like, especially public health officials

00:07:13.260 who are usually, you know, low-level bureaucrats,

00:07:16.540 people who aren't really thought of,

00:07:17.800 aren't really considered,

00:07:19.020 aren't really involved in decision-making.

00:07:21.000 You know, they stay in their lane, right?

00:07:24.280 But then in the last almost two years,

00:07:26.620 they've been elevated,

00:07:28.000 they've been, you know, promoted on television every day.

00:07:31.560 They're their stars, their household names.

00:07:33.180 Everybody knows Dr. Theresa Tam.

00:07:34.820 Everybody knows Dr. Dina Henshaw, 0.98

00:07:37.520 Dr. Vanya Henry out in British Columbia.

00:07:39.360 These have now become household names,

00:07:41.220 Dr. Fauci in the United States.

00:07:43.020 And they like that.

00:07:43.860 They like the attention.

00:07:44.640 They like the power.

00:07:45.520 And they don't want to let it go.

00:07:46.660 And so, again, what we're seeing is no matter what we do,

00:07:49.440 they're going to find another way to make us comply,

00:07:54.020 to make us subservient,

00:07:55.660 to make sure that they are lording over us

00:07:57.700 in a way that really is not emblematic of a free society.

00:08:01.520 This is not how free societies go.

00:08:03.900 Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg

00:08:05.620 when it comes to the changing goalposts,

00:08:08.160 even vaccine passports.

00:08:09.900 Who could forget?

00:08:11.200 Both Doug Ford and Jason Kenney came out

00:08:13.100 making sort of passionate cases

00:08:15.320 against vaccine passports.

00:08:16.920 And we saw that they famously flip-flopped.

00:08:19.280 You know, in Alberta,

00:08:19.900 it was because of that fourth wave.

00:08:21.580 In Ontario, it's because Doug Ford just,

00:08:23.760 you know, listens to whoever is in front of him.

00:08:25.720 And the person who was in front of him

00:08:27.240 one day said no to vaccine passports.

00:08:29.260 And the next day, they said yes to it.

00:08:31.400 So Ford flip-flopped, Kenney flip-flopped.

00:08:34.020 But one of the prominent people

00:08:35.220 who also flip-flopped on this issue

00:08:36.820 that we don't talk about a lot,

00:08:38.340 we went deep into the archives here to find this clip,

00:08:41.860 is our prime minister,

00:08:43.080 prime minister Justin Trudeau,

00:08:44.440 also adamantly opposed vaccine passports

00:08:47.620 back in January 2021.

00:08:50.400 Trudeau opposed them.

00:08:51.380 He said that they would have divisive impacts.

00:08:53.680 So let's show that interview

00:08:55.380 because we don't see this clip very often.

00:08:57.260 We don't remember that it was just less than a year ago,

00:09:00.140 about 10 months ago.

00:09:01.820 Trudeau was on the anti-passport side

00:09:04.460 and he actually makes a pretty decent case here

00:09:06.280 about why he was opposed to vaccine passports back then.

00:09:10.000 Let's play that clip.

00:09:10.980 Will Canada consider requiring people in this country 0.99

00:09:12.960 to have proof of vaccination

00:09:14.320 similar to the digital passports

00:09:16.700 that are being developed in places like Denmark

00:09:18.660 and Greece and the EU?

00:09:20.700 I think it's an interesting idea,

00:09:23.420 but I think it is also fraught with challenges.

00:09:26.540 We are certainly encouraging and motivating people

00:09:29.620 to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

00:09:33.000 We always know there are people

00:09:35.000 who won't get vaccinated

00:09:36.900 and not necessarily through a personal or political choice.

00:09:41.500 There are medical reasons.

00:09:42.740 There are a broad range of reasons

00:09:45.160 why someone might not get vaccinated.

00:09:47.080 And I'm worried about creating

00:09:49.600 knock-on undesirable effects in our community.

00:09:53.540 I think the indications that the vast majority of Canadians

00:09:57.860 are looking to get vaccinated

00:09:59.640 will get us to a good place

00:10:01.740 without having to take more extreme measures

00:10:05.940 that could have real divisive impacts

00:10:08.820 on community and country.

00:10:10.500 It's like a different guy, right?

00:10:12.080 It's like the guy that we saw campaigning

00:10:13.760 on the 2021 election campaign

00:10:16.080 was angry, divisive, hateful, spiteful

00:10:19.780 against the population in Canada

00:10:22.260 who are vaccine-hesitant, right?

00:10:24.100 He was coming out with every name,

00:10:26.640 fully demonizing them,

00:10:27.840 not just demonizing the sort of political movement

00:10:30.540 and the political leader

00:10:31.340 as we've seen him do in the past with conservatives.

00:10:33.240 He loves to demonize conservative politicians,

00:10:36.440 conservative MPs, conservative leaders.

00:10:39.160 But this time, it wasn't just,

00:10:40.960 his ire wasn't just aimed at Maxime Bernier.

00:10:44.400 It was aimed at the entire segment of the population

00:10:47.520 who may support Maxime Bernier.

00:10:49.220 It was aimed at all of the people

00:10:50.640 who didn't want to get vaccinated,

00:10:52.520 which I've never seen a prime minister

00:10:54.460 wage a election campaign

00:10:56.520 against a segment of the population.

00:10:59.340 The type of sort of divisiveness, fear-mongering,

00:11:03.840 the hatefulness that he was promoting

00:11:06.060 against that group of people

00:11:08.180 was really unbecoming of a prime minister.

00:11:10.340 The old liberals, liberals not too long ago,

00:11:12.900 including Justin Trudeau,

00:11:14.260 would have made a passionate defense

00:11:15.880 against scapegoating a portion of the population,

00:11:19.260 splitting the population into a we versus them.

00:11:21.960 So January 2021 versus August and September 21,

00:11:26.960 two totally different Justin Trudeaus.

00:11:29.060 And so finally, you notice in that clip,

00:11:30.620 he says not just people who have a health exemption

00:11:33.800 or health reason why they wouldn't get the vaccine.

00:11:37.520 He also said people who have a political

00:11:39.820 or religious reason for not wanting to get vaccinated,

00:11:43.540 which is again, just a totally different tone

00:11:45.420 than the one that he has struck more recently.

00:11:48.080 I like January 2021, Justin Trudeau a lot better

00:11:51.640 than his current iteration of himself.

00:11:54.240 But we know that of course, Trudeau is not alone.

00:11:57.000 Lots and lots of politicians have come out

00:11:59.520 and flip-flopped on this.

00:12:01.600 So the team here at Trunorth has created

00:12:03.180 a nifty little guide to highlight all of the various times

00:12:06.480 that the government, federal officials,

00:12:08.220 Dr. Theresa Tam, Justin Trudeau have completely flipped

00:12:11.020 when it comes to the way that they describe something COVID-related.

00:12:14.220 It's, you can find it over at tnc.news.

00:12:16.620 I'm gonna go through some of them now.

00:12:18.100 So early on with COVID, Dr. Theresa Tam said

00:12:21.800 that COVID is not a risk to Canadians on January 29th, 2020.

00:12:25.560 Tam says the risk is low in Canada.

00:12:27.460 By March 11th, that had changed.

00:12:29.160 And Theresa Tam said, this is an outbreak

00:12:30.940 that's very serious.

00:12:32.240 When it comes to China's responsibility, 0.94

00:12:34.200 again, on January 29th, 2020,

00:12:35.820 Theresa Tam praised China 1.00

00:12:37.800 for its astonishingly rapid coronavirus response.

00:12:41.820 By May 13th, 2020, Trudeau contradicted that

00:12:44.560 and says the world has questions,

00:12:46.320 particularly for China regarding its handling.

00:12:48.960 When it came to travel bans,

00:12:50.340 we all know that Canada famously said

00:12:52.560 that closing the borders was racist,

00:12:54.940 that they would refuse to close the borders,

00:12:57.160 even from Wuhan, even from the very infected area.

00:13:01.240 And as Well Health Canada sort of parroted

00:13:03.180 what the World Health Organization was saying at the time,

00:13:05.320 so on January 19th,

00:13:06.340 they said that there is no clear evidence

00:13:08.100 that the virus is easily transmitted between people.

00:13:10.940 A couple weeks later, on January 29th,

00:13:12.920 Theresa Tam said that there is human-to-human transmission,

00:13:15.560 but those are generally for close contacts.

00:13:17.840 On the issue of closing that border on March 13th, 2020,

00:13:20.820 Liberal Health Minister Patty Hajju famously said

00:13:23.380 that border closure measures are highly ineffective

00:13:26.740 in curbing the spread of the virus.

00:13:29.220 Five days later, on March 17th,

00:13:31.380 both Canada and the US mutually agreed

00:13:33.840 to close their land borders for the first time ever.

00:13:37.480 And they basically remained closed the last year and a half.

00:13:41.340 I think that they're finally starting to open up,

00:13:43.560 but really, really astonishing flip-flop on that.

00:13:47.100 Then, of course, on wearing masks,

00:13:48.600 in March 2020, March 30th,

00:13:50.780 Dr. Theresa Tam said that masks are not beneficial

00:13:52.980 for asymptomatic people and could be dangerous

00:13:55.100 by giving people a false sense of security.

00:13:57.740 And then, on May 20th, Dr. Theresa Tam recommends

00:14:00.820 that Canadians wear face masks.

00:14:03.100 So, again, the government constantly tells us

00:14:05.040 to trust the science, to listen to the science,

00:14:07.680 but the problem here isn't the science.

00:14:09.480 The problem is that this is a virus

00:14:11.320 that we don't really know that much about,

00:14:12.960 that the evidence is constantly evolving,

00:14:14.860 the rules are constantly evolving,

00:14:16.180 the rules are often contradictory,

00:14:17.940 they are often nonsensical,

00:14:19.540 they often just don't really work

00:14:21.580 and aren't really workable.

00:14:23.140 And so, when all of a sudden,

00:14:24.580 you know, usually the people on the left,

00:14:27.300 but the federal officials as well,

00:14:28.880 start beating us over the head, 0.96

00:14:30.540 saying, trust the science, trust the science,

00:14:32.080 trust the science.

00:14:32.840 It's no wonder why Canadians are a little hesitant.

00:14:36.480 I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

Juno News - November 03, 2021

Canada’s goal-posts are moving once again when it comes to COVID-19

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