Juno News - March 06, 2021


Canadians have a right to have an opinion


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

201.93716

Word Count

827

Sentence Count

42


Summary


Transcript

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