Juno News - EVIL： Ronald McDonald House evicts family of 4-year-old battling Leukemia over vaccine status

00:00:00.000 True North has broken an unbelievable story about a four-year-old and his family getting evicted from the Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver because they are not vaccinated.

00:00:09.980 What on earth is going on in our country? I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:18.680 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast. This is one of those stories that just absolutely makes you stop in your tracks and just think about where we are as a country.

00:00:28.220 This is a really, really heart-wrenching story and I'm really pleased and proud of reporter and editor Harley Sims who broke the story.

00:00:37.560 He was the very first one to report it. So basically the story is that a four-year-old boy is battling leukemia.

00:00:45.120 He's in the hospital in Vancouver and his family is staying at the Ronald McDonald House.

00:00:48.840 This is sort of a typical kind of practice that a hospital will specialize in a certain type of treatment in a big city.

00:00:55.960 So a city like Vancouver or Toronto and families from all over the country, all over the sort of rural parts of the province can go and use the Ronald McDonald House to stay to live there because they have to live in Vancouver, which is obviously an incredibly expensive city.

00:01:09.960 They have to live there while their child is undergoing this treatment.

00:01:12.760 And so this new policy got rolled out, the Ronald McDonald House, saying that everybody who was there, everybody age five and up, had to be vaccinated, otherwise they're going to get evicted.

00:01:25.220 And basically the story is a father who just is sort of beside himself, that him and his family are about to get thrown out in the midst of their child's cancer treatment.

00:01:34.680 And he posted a video of himself, it went viral online, and Harley was the first one to talk to him, first one to interview him, first one to get it up.

00:01:42.280 So Harley, thanks so much for joining the show and thanks for your excellent reporting on this.

00:01:47.480 I appreciate it, Candice.

00:01:48.840 Yeah, I think I just finished writing the story about, you know, Quebec Premier Legault's announcement that they were going to make vaccines mandatory in Quebec under the guise of this, you know, health care fee.

00:02:04.000 And of course, there being the second jurisdiction in the Western world to do this outside of Austria.

00:02:09.500 And there's just so much going on.

00:02:12.880 I mean, you can't, you can't even, you can't, it's hard to choose, right?

00:02:16.580 But this, this came across my desk, I think about seven or eight last night.

00:02:21.820 It was a posting on Twitter of a video of a distraught father who is staying, as you mentioned, at Ronald McDonald House with his young family.

00:02:31.660 They are from Kelowna.

00:02:33.680 They had both left their jobs.

00:02:35.900 He was a, he's a electrician.

00:02:39.660 He just passed his test over Christmas.

00:02:41.800 His wife had left her job so they could move to Vancouver while their four-year-old son, Jack, gets treatment for leukemia at BC Children's Hospital.

00:02:51.520 They'd been there since October.

00:02:53.360 He told me all about it.

00:02:54.460 Their son one day had trouble walking.

00:02:56.580 And, you know, they just tripped trying to work around it.

00:02:58.680 And he said one day his kid just gave him this look that was just precociously full of pain.

00:03:05.080 And he knew something was wrong.

00:03:06.420 And the child was diagnosed with leukemia.

00:03:08.940 They airlifted him into Vancouver.

00:03:11.660 They've been there ever since.

00:03:13.580 And on Monday, they received a notice from Ronald McDonald House saying that there was a new policy to be brought in.

00:03:21.100 Beginning January 17th, everybody five and up staying at Ronald McDonald House would have to provide proof of full COVID vaccination.

00:03:31.500 That is two shots.

00:03:33.160 There was a provision or a grace period, as they called it, for people who were already staying there, like the Ferguson family, where they would have until January 31st to get one shot.

00:03:43.840 As I wrote in the story and as he told me, his wife was crying.

00:03:49.880 And he said, look, this can't be this can't be real.

00:03:52.760 This isn't real.

00:03:53.760 There's no way.

00:03:54.940 And he stayed up all night, Monday night, thinking about it.

00:03:58.080 And on Tuesday, he decided that he was going to make a stand and make a video.

00:04:02.940 And he rehearsed.

00:04:04.220 It's quite well done.

00:04:05.380 He's very articulate.

00:04:06.360 That's because he went over everything in his head.

00:04:08.100 And he confronted staff and he demanded to know why this was the case, why it was that, for example, people who both vaccinated and unvaccinated can carry COVID.

00:04:19.680 It made no sense.

00:04:21.220 And it's not just about him.

00:04:22.400 He stressed.

00:04:23.160 It wasn't about him.

00:04:23.900 It's about every five-year-old up who's staying at Ronald McDonald House with cancer, life-threatening diseases.

00:04:31.320 Some of these children are dying.

00:04:32.940 Their families are staying there.

00:04:34.360 Even if the parents are vaccinated and they don't want their child vaccinated, which, you know, there's another family from Kelowna in that situation, they would have to leave.

00:04:45.980 And so he, God bless him, he could not believe it was happening.

00:04:50.580 He said, this is evil.

00:04:52.440 It's straight up evil.

00:04:53.460 And I just want everybody to know about it.

00:04:56.380 And I just called him up and I just said, tell me your story.

00:04:59.140 What can I do?

00:04:59.820 I want to let everybody in Canada certainly know.

00:05:05.140 And I said, what can we do?

00:05:06.340 What can we do for you coming out of this?

00:05:08.960 And he said, I just want prayers.

00:05:10.740 I just want prayers for my family.

00:05:12.240 And maybe if somebody out there knows somewhere we could stay until June, which is when they expect Jack's treatments to be finished, that'd be great.

00:05:20.780 And that's all he wanted.

00:05:22.240 Wow.

00:05:24.680 Well, I mean, it's such a heart-wrenching story.

00:05:27.460 It's just awful.

00:05:29.460 Any story with kids getting sick and dealing with that kind of trauma is just hard enough to grapple with and deal with.

00:05:36.600 You know, I was reading through his post and reading your story and watching the video, and it's just very, very heart-wrenching.

00:05:43.340 And then, you know, on top of that, usually when people are in this situation, the worst situation you could possibly imagine being in, you know, you're met with charity and kindness and love and compassion.

00:05:54.640 And that's sort of the underlying purpose of the Ronald McDonald House.

00:05:58.120 I mean, what an amazing charity.

00:05:59.460 What an amazing service they offer, allowing families a place to stay while they're going through this horrible, horrific thing in their life.

00:06:06.760 And yet here we see sort of the exact opposite of that, saying, you know, because you don't comply with our ideology, we're going to throw you out on the street.

00:06:16.860 It's just so wrong on so many levels.

00:06:20.500 And so tell us a little bit about what happened, because I know that they have a GoFundMe campaign.

00:06:26.560 Their video has gone viral.

00:06:27.760 I know it got picked up by some U.S. sort of influencers or, you know, famous journalists like Stephen Crowder.

00:06:37.520 I don't know if he's a journalist.

00:06:38.420 Famous podcast host, I guess I call him.

00:06:41.940 And last time I checked, as of last night, the GoFundMe campaign that, you know, he was trying to raise $5,000 and he's up at $93,000.

00:06:51.500 So an incredible response from people out there, obviously sympathetic with his situation.

00:06:56.460 But how did this story go viral so quickly?

00:07:04.700 One thing I was asked was, is this the moment when people wake up and realize what's happening with these vaccine mandates?

00:07:12.360 It's, you know, I'm sure we all remember years ago with migrants, there was a child washed up on a beach.

00:07:17.620 Is this that sort of moment where, when we're doing this to children with cancer, families facing children who are dying?

00:07:26.580 Is this when we finally wake up?

00:07:28.140 And I think that's why everybody who saw the video flocked to it.

00:07:34.600 It's certainly why I wanted to cover it.

00:07:36.300 It's certainly why it picked up attention in the United States immediately.

00:07:40.160 Jack Prasobiec picked it up right away.

00:07:42.760 He posted the GoFundMe at the top of his Twitter page.

00:07:46.720 Crowder, you know, I've lost count, actually.

00:07:50.300 I don't think I've checked for a couple hours, but it's been picked up across the world, actually.

00:07:54.840 And I mean, Mr. Ferguson, Austin Ferguson, I mean, he's not he's not naive.

00:08:00.400 He's politically self-aware.

00:08:01.960 He knows what's going on.

00:08:03.000 And that's why he was armed with positions and information when he confronted staff.

00:08:08.800 And I think same thing with him is with a lot of people.

00:08:13.160 They just they can't believe this is happening.

00:08:15.960 They're stunned.

00:08:17.420 And that's what I think one of the reasons why people are so kind of hesitant to push back.

00:08:21.200 They say this is Canada.

00:08:22.640 He even said to the administrator at Ronald McDonald House in his video, look at the national anthem.

00:08:28.100 You know, this is about being strong and free.

00:08:30.020 This is we can't do this.

00:08:31.560 We don't we don't discriminate in Canada.

00:08:33.400 We don't segregate in Canada.

00:08:35.500 And so he said when he was lying there Monday night that this was something that he had to stand up for.

00:08:43.380 And just make people aware that if it's going to happen in a place where children are fighting for their lives,

00:08:52.620 a place where people have donated money to save sick and dying children, that's the end of it.

00:08:58.960 He said this this is if it's happening here, this is the end of it.

00:09:01.540 And he said he can't believe we're at this point that the country has gotten to this where this is actually happening.

00:09:08.320 And I was speaking on Mississauga radio earlier and I just said, well, yes, it's horrific.

00:09:14.400 And I'm you know, I'm I'm not really surprised anymore at the things I'm hearing about this.

00:09:19.280 But the more people like Austin who speak out, record this stuff, who let us know, let True North know, we can remind them that you feel something weird is going on.

00:09:32.480 You're not wrong.

00:09:33.360 And there are a lot of other people out there that feel the same way.

00:09:35.960 And we can start to, you know, raise our voices together and push back because this ends when we say it ends.

00:09:42.420 Well, God bless this man for having that strength and that conviction.

00:09:48.000 Again, such a horrific time in his life and trying to deal with that.

00:09:52.780 I mean, just the logic of it on its own doesn't stand up because, you know, right now we're dealing with the Omicron wave.

00:09:59.380 We know that Omicron hits everybody.

00:10:01.580 It doesn't matter if you're vaccinated or not.

00:10:03.220 It doesn't matter if you're triple vaxxed or not.

00:10:06.000 Everyone's getting it.

00:10:06.820 Look at the hospital statistics over in Ontario, we see that three quarters of the people in the hospital right now are with are vaccinated.

00:10:16.240 They're vaccinated.

00:10:16.900 So so obviously COVID breaks through this this this strain of COVID breaks through.

00:10:22.520 And I think that the justification for vaccine mandates is falling apart because we still have to go into lockdown.

00:10:28.960 And, you know, it didn't it didn't get us out of the pandemic as it was promised.

00:10:32.860 And yet it seems like the people who are imposing it are like tightening their grip.

00:10:36.860 You mentioned Francois Legault wanting to impose an additional tax on to the unvaccinated.

00:10:43.240 You know, Justin Trudeau's rhetoric is like turned up.

00:10:45.700 The dial is like at like 200.

00:10:47.860 And, you know, he's completely OK with scapegoating and vilifying this this one group.

00:10:52.760 It's like, you know, at a time when the when the logic for the vaccine mandates is completely falling apart, you see you see people pushing it with even more more firmly pushing it, which shows you that this is about science.

00:11:06.060 This is about ideology and this is about power and authority.

00:11:09.900 And then and then to add that extra layer on top of that, that you're talking about five year olds, that that anyone who's not vaccinated over the age of five, like, you know, the idea that adults should get vaccinated.

00:11:21.920 It's like, OK, adults can die from COVID.

00:11:24.240 Little kids don't.

00:11:26.120 And I understand wanting to protect the wrong McDonald House because there are a lot of people who are sick in there and, you know, autoimmune compromise and that kind of stuff.

00:11:32.840 But the reality is that COVID is still getting in.

00:11:35.540 So it just it just seems like we're at this impasse impasse now where, you know, one side is ratcheting up their tactics and their and their rhetoric.

00:11:45.740 And it looks like, you know, if this is any sign of things to come, that the other side is starting to stand up for themselves as well.

00:11:53.600 Is that sort of what what you're seeing out there?

00:11:55.280 Yeah, I mean, to start off with, I had two cousins who had cancer as children.

00:12:04.180 They stayed their family stayed at Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver.

00:12:08.060 They're from Kelowna.

00:12:09.460 So this struck a chord with me.

00:12:11.260 And I have profound respect for Ronald McDonald House and what they do.

00:12:15.140 Who can afford to live in Vancouver?

00:12:16.780 I mean, it's the only way that they can keep the family together and get these treatments.

00:12:21.640 And, you know, I'll, you know, I'll take their word.

00:12:25.280 I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

00:12:26.460 That's it.

00:12:26.740 I haven't heard back yet, you know, what they're doing about this.

00:12:30.720 And yeah, just like you, I've stopped looking at this, you know, in terms of science or medicine.

00:12:35.340 And I've started looking at it psychologically, you know, sociologically.

00:12:39.340 Why are people being this way?

00:12:41.460 And there's some pretty gruesome answers about why people start doing this, why they start scapegoating and blaming each other and demonizing each other.

00:12:49.340 And, you know, as some people I know, I was a peace officer in British Columbia before joining TrueNorth.

00:12:57.380 I do have an idea what the ugly side of humanity is.

00:13:01.220 And I don't think the people that, you know, are, you know, so quick to demonize people for not getting COVID shots.

00:13:09.980 I don't think they know what they're feeding.

00:13:11.460 I don't think they know what they're playing with.

00:13:12.920 They've lived, you know, pampered lives, you know, they've, you know, been, you know, spared violence and they've been able to indulge their free speech and all this stuff.

00:13:23.300 But now they're playing with something that they have never seen and other parts of the world have seen it.

00:13:28.660 And I think we're slowly getting there.

00:13:31.720 And I think we need to pull back, especially over something like this, a charity that gives families of young children a place to stay while they fight for their lives.

00:13:42.780 And just throwing this in the lap of a family whose four-year-old has cancer, something that no person should experience, much less parents, is just, it's evil.

00:13:55.500 And I think we should, we should stop, take a breath, and at least agree that this is the wrong place for it.

00:14:03.020 And, you know, from there, start talking about other places where it's wrong.

00:14:08.320 Right.

00:14:08.780 I mean, there's just, there's so much wrong with this story.

00:14:11.880 There's so much wrong with the situation in Canada because, you know, we talked a little bit about how Omicron, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't only affect the unvaccinated.

00:14:20.880 This is simply not true.

00:14:22.160 And that's a reality bearing, being born out in front of us.

00:14:24.660 We can look at the data.

00:14:25.380 We can look at the facts.

00:14:27.420 So it seems like, you know, the government officials don't really have an alternative.

00:14:31.280 Like their alternative is just cracking down even further on the unvaccinated.

00:14:36.240 And, you know, there's so much wrong with that.

00:14:38.600 There's so much wrong with the idea that we're locking people down, that we're not allowing them to, you know, go out and get fresh air, exercise, be healthy.

00:14:45.540 The fact that there's gyms closed in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec right now, it's like, you know, if you want a healthy population, if you want a population that, you know,

00:14:54.660 with so many people dying of COVID, they have all these underlying conditions.

00:14:57.600 It's like, instead of just wanting to have this silver bullet, everyone get a vaccine and we'll go back to normal.

00:15:03.280 It's like, why don't we address some of the underlying causes in this society?

00:15:06.540 Like we, you know, a lot of people who die of COVID have vitamin D deficiency.

00:15:10.360 A lot of people who die of COVID are obese or have unhealthy lifestyles.

00:15:15.740 I know one of the things that you've been reporting on a lot at True North is a group of gyms that have sort of defied government orders and refuse to close.

00:15:24.800 Other ones are being forced to close.

00:15:26.200 But, but this is such an important issue that, that kind of, again, goes against the justification that the government's imposing.

00:15:33.560 Like if people are sick, don't you think that them going and exercising is healthy, not just for like their physical health, but also mental health?

00:15:41.540 We've seen a huge issue with sort of diseases of despair, suicide, depression, alcoholism, drug overdoses during this time.

00:15:49.320 And it's like they're ignoring one side of the equation and, and, and only focusing like single-mindedly on this one aspect, like vaccines, vaccines, vaccines.

00:15:59.320 So anyway, all that's just to say, I, I wonder what, um, like, you know, from, for you from talking to gym owners and, and, and sort of speaking to these people, what, what, what, what do you think of the mindset of, um, the gym owners, for instance, that are defying these orders?

00:16:14.520 Um, what, what, what, what is it like for them?

00:16:16.440 Well, I talked to Sarah Hodson, who was, uh, who's, uh, president of the fitness council of Canada.

00:16:24.540 And she told me, and she's a gym owner as well.

00:16:26.780 And she told me that, you know, uh, gym owners are actually responding to this lockdown very differently from last time.

00:16:32.580 I think last time they agreed.

00:16:33.780 Yeah.

00:16:34.020 Okay.

00:16:34.440 Well, you know, we'll, we'll see how this goes.

00:16:36.660 We'll take you at your word.

00:16:38.220 And since then they haven't seen the data, um, or at least they have seen data that completely goes against the lockdowns.

00:16:44.100 Uh, as far as they know, 0.06% is the transmissibility, transmissibility rate of COVID in gyms.

00:16:51.300 That's the only data that they have.

00:16:53.640 And, uh, they're, they are business owners foremost, but it's also their livelihood.

00:16:58.680 I mean, no one just decides to open a gym, uh, you know, out of, out of, you know, because they want to open a business.

00:17:03.720 They're usually fitness enthusiasts.

00:17:05.880 Um, they're people concerned about health.

00:17:07.380 They want to get people healthy.

00:17:08.700 It makes them feel good to watch people, um, get in shape.

00:17:12.540 Um, and so, uh, it's not just, you know, about being locked down financially, although that's huge.

00:17:18.420 Um, it's also about just the hypocrisy of saying, we're trying to keep people healthy by shutting down a facility where you go to get healthy.

00:17:26.660 Um, and not only that, but if we're trying to keep people healthy, what about mental health?

00:17:31.260 We've heard about mental health, like constantly over the past 20 years.

00:17:36.840 Um, people's mental health is, is, is, it's in terrible shape right now.

00:17:41.540 I mean, people like we're not, we're talking about shot lockdowns and, and, and, uh, avoiding COVID, but we're, we're not really talking about what it's doing to people.

00:17:49.580 Not only individuals, but also like societies, communities, people are sick, the way people deal with each other is different.

00:17:56.180 The way we look at each other is different.

00:17:57.780 We are in an age of unprecedented incivility right now.

00:18:01.220 And, uh, I mean, as I'm, I'm a fitness enthusiast.

00:18:04.680 I have been my whole life.

00:18:05.840 I was a bodybuilder.

00:18:06.940 I was a power lifter.

00:18:08.720 Um, I, I run, I lift, um, and I'm, I've been very aware that my standards are kind of, you know, beyond most people.

00:18:17.520 So I actually don't talk about them much because it makes you sound vain.

00:18:20.920 Um, but in this situation around and I say, well, you know, you politician, you know, I can see you're not in great shape.

00:18:27.760 Why are you telling me I have to get a shot, but I can't tell you to go jogging.

00:18:31.960 You know, like I, I trust my body.

00:18:34.500 Most people like we're looking at the Olympics coming up.

00:18:37.660 A lot of people pushing back, back against this are athletes or people in athletic professions like law enforcement.

00:18:43.740 They know their bodies.

00:18:45.200 They know what they can take.

00:18:46.440 They're willing to take it.

00:18:47.520 They've suffered from, you know, avian flu and swine flu, which were, you know, um, pretty serious back when they happened.

00:18:53.600 I had both, you know, they, they weren't great, but you know, here I am.

00:18:58.300 Um, and, and so, uh, it's just come full circle and it's great to see, um, gyms, one of which is in Kelowna.

00:19:04.900 And actually it's interesting because, uh, Mr. Ferguson at, uh, Ronald McDonald house, just before he loaded the, uploaded the video of him confronting staff.

00:19:13.840 Uh, he had posted a video in support of that gym.

00:19:15.840 Um, and so, uh, it's good that they're standing up.

00:19:19.840 Um, and again, like Mr. Ferguson, they, they don't quite understand what's happening.

00:19:23.840 We have a constitution.

00:19:24.840 We have rule of law.

00:19:25.840 Um, we can't just willy nilly shut places down, especially when there's no, um, you know, scientific support for it.

00:19:31.840 And, and so, um, I, I think it's good.

00:19:33.840 I think we're on the right track and I think, uh, the more people support, um, any opposition to, to these rules that make no sense, the sooner we get out of this.

00:19:44.840 Well, it's great that there's a network of people that are starting to find each other and finding sort of kindred spirits or like-minded people to rally around because it makes you feel like you're not alone in this.

00:19:54.840 And that you're, you're not the only one that, that thinks that everything going on in politics right now is totally crazy and totally offside.

00:20:01.840 Uh, what, what you were talking about there about taking sort of control of your own health and not taking the advice of politicians.

00:20:07.840 There's just, there's a funny meme going around.

00:20:09.840 Like I'm a big, uh, tennis fan.

00:20:11.840 And obviously when Djokovic got a night entry or he got detained at the Australian border, uh, people were saying, you know, there's a really healthy guy here.

00:20:19.840 And, and yet, you know, you have these like kind of fat politicians, um, telling him that he's unhealthy.

00:20:24.840 And meanwhile, you know, the meme is like a picture of him, this like perfect specimen of like male athleticism, like incredibly healthy person.

00:20:33.840 And then, you know, you have like a picture of overweight, uh, Bill Gates over here.

00:20:38.840 And it says like, one of these people is a world leader in public health.

00:20:41.840 And it's like, you know, it just says, it says a thousand words right there.

00:20:46.840 But I, I, I think in some ways it's an opportunity because people can take control of their own health, right?

00:20:52.840 It's like, I know how to protect myself and my family.

00:20:54.840 Uh, we're all taking vitamin D supplements and I make sure that we all exercise and we go for walks and we eat healthy.

00:21:00.840 You know, we have good diets, we don't eat junk food and stuff like that.

00:21:03.840 And it's like, that's, that's going to do a lot more than following whatever latest hoop that, uh, you know, Justin Trudeau or some idiot, uh, top doctor is, is telling us.

00:21:15.840 Like, I know how to protect myself and my family a lot better than their ever evolving, uh, set of restrictions and recommendations that are constantly changing.

00:21:23.840 And half the time they're totally contradictory.

00:21:25.840 Well, Harley, I really appreciate this.

00:21:27.840 I hope that you'll continue to report on the Ferguson family and we can find out what's next.

00:21:32.840 I'm so pleased that their story got picked up so broadly and that, you know, they've been able to raise money hopefully that they need to be able to stay in Vancouver and stay comfortable.

00:21:42.840 And I'm sure that they are, you know, being, um, inundated with letters of support, um, and people sort of praying for them and wishing them well.

00:21:50.840 So, um, kudos to you for finding that story and really just well done.

00:21:54.840 Thank you so much.

00:21:55.840 Thank you, Candace.

00:21:56.840 I think I'm grateful to be here and thank you for allowing me to speak up for the Ferguson's and everybody else in these situations.

00:22:01.840 Absolutely.

00:22:03.840 Such an important story.

00:22:04.840 Check it out over at TNC.News.

00:22:07.840 I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace Malcolm show.

00:22:09.840 The Candace Malcolm show.

Juno News - January 13, 2022

EVIL： Ronald McDonald House evicts family of 4-year-old battling Leukemia over vaccine status

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