Juno News - Canadians have a right to have an opinion

In this episode of the podcast, I speak with infectious disease epidemiologist and author, Dr. David Perry, who has been involved in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic in Canada for years. He shares his thoughts on the idea that your voice doesn't matter unless you are an infectious disease expert, and that you can't have an opinion unless you're a scientist.

00:00:00.000 One aspect of the coronavirus conversation here in Canada that has really frustrated me is this

00:00:10.280 idea that your voice doesn't matter, that you can't have an opinion on all these big things,

00:00:16.080 these things of huge consequence that are being done to our daily lives, unless you are an

00:00:21.160 epidemiologist or an infectious disease expert. Otherwise, pipe down, shut up, your voice doesn't 0.97

00:00:26.760 matter. That's a problematic opinion for a number of reasons, and I've spoken about that before, 0.98

00:00:32.160 but I'm now getting worried that there's the potential that that mindset is going to bleed over

00:00:38.280 into other issues and other important matters of debate here in this country moving forward.

00:00:45.320 Now, let's be clear on one thing. There are obviously highly technical matters that only

00:00:48.800 people in their specialties can answer. The question of, oh, I don't know, genome sequencing the virus,

00:00:53.480 which was a conversation back in 2020, or what drugs to give someone who's been hospitalized

00:00:58.880 with COVID-19. I mean, that is obviously a technical matter, and we defer to the wisdom of the experts

00:01:03.960 who deal with those questions, and well, hats off to them for having come up with some answers that

00:01:08.760 have really helped us effectively grapple with this virus. So there's certainly a major place to

00:01:14.440 acknowledge and value that expertise. But when it comes to something like what sort of lockdowns

00:01:19.880 do we want? Well, is that not a whole of society conversation? Is that not about priorities and

00:01:26.080 directions that the community as a whole decides that they want ahead? And yes, I think they are.

00:01:32.480 And yet a lot of people are being told their voice does not matter in those conversations. It kind of

00:01:37.640 makes me think, like about 20 years ago in Canada, we had the debate about whether or not we wanted to

00:01:41.640 enter the Iraq war. And that was a huge debate. I mean, people took to the streets and protests for,

00:01:47.280 and there were passionate opinions for and against and so forth. Now, one could say, well, hold on a

00:01:51.660 second. This is actually a very technical matter. I mean, if you stop a guy on the street, and you put

00:01:55.680 a microphone in front of them, and you show them a map of the Middle East, or you ask them to name

00:01:59.620 different Iraqi cities, you ask them the history of Iraq, or you ask really detailed questions about

00:02:05.080 military matters and so forth, you could find out that person can't actually hardly answer any of

00:02:09.640 those questions. So you turn around and you can say, well, you're not a Middle Eastern affairs

00:02:12.880 expert. You're not a military general. So you know what, buddy, your voice doesn't matter. Everybody

00:02:17.720 doing those rallies and so forth. Now, go back home. We don't care about your opinion. But that's

00:02:22.680 not how we took that. We acknowledge there are obviously technical matters there. But there are

00:02:27.420 components to that conversation that are bigger than that. They are whole of society. And we acknowledge

00:02:33.160 all of those voices. What are we going to do moving forward? I really see that the climate change

00:02:37.960 conversation is one where increasingly we're already trying to push out the voices of regular

00:02:43.580 folks. Carbon tax. You can't have an opinion on the carbon tax, yes or no, or what have you. What

00:02:48.180 do you know? Are you a climatologist? Are you associated with this or that NGO or what have you?

00:02:52.700 You're not? Okay, then be quiet. Your voice doesn't matter. Even you go, well, hold on a second,

00:02:57.340 though. You're talking about all these major impacts on my life related to these climate measures

00:03:02.120 you're bringing in. And you're telling me I can't have an opinion on my life. Yes, some people

00:03:06.320 are telling you that. And I think we have to be on guard against that mindset, which has been very

00:03:11.980 flawed during the pandemic. It continues to this day that these public health officials are not

00:03:17.520 to be questioned, even though you're looking at some of these things and you're going,

00:03:20.960 I don't know about this. Does this rule even make sense? What does this have to do with,

00:03:25.060 you know, quote unquote, the science and all of this? And then you see that some public health

00:03:29.360 officials in Canada are totally doing different things than other public health officials in

00:03:33.700 different parts of the country or across the border and so forth. And you realize,

00:03:37.000 I think this is actually a matter that's up for debate. So don't let them tell you not just on

00:03:42.980 the coronavirus issue, but on other issues on climate change or any other big issue that affects

00:03:48.180 their lives, that you don't have a right to investigate the issue yourself, come to your own

00:03:53.600 conclusions and make your voice heard and lobby for the change that you want to see, because you do have

00:03:59.540 that right.

00:04:03.700 Thank you.

Juno News - March 06, 2021

Canadians have a right to have an opinion

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