Juno News - Public Order or Public Health？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.760 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:13.160 Coming up, how public order is trumping public health in response to COVID-19,

00:00:18.300 the importance of releasing pandemic projections,

00:00:21.220 and some good news and bad news from the research front.

00:00:25.980 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:30.000 We're almost a full month into lockdown.

00:00:35.940 I just want all of you to know that you are champs so far for putting up with this,

00:00:40.780 as frustrating as it might be at times.

00:00:42.660 We're almost a month in, and I don't even know when we start official lockdown.

00:00:46.900 For me, it's probably around March 14th.

00:00:50.280 That's like completely for me personally,

00:00:52.280 and that's only because I was in Toronto until March 14th,

00:00:56.000 and then came home and haven't really gone more than a few blocks away ever since then.

00:00:59.880 But good for you for sticking in here.

00:01:02.280 Welcome to another episode of The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:01:05.400 Hope you're watching this from home or listening in a car or on a walk alone,

00:01:11.420 perhaps if you're listening to the podcast,

00:01:12.980 because it seems like anything else may get you stopped by police

00:01:17.600 or by law enforcement officers, depending on where you live.

00:01:20.980 Especially if you live in Ottawa, which makes sense because it's the seat of the nation's government

00:01:25.260 and, of course, the biggest nanny state place imaginable when it comes to bylaw enforcement, apparently. 0.82

00:01:32.480 You know, I warned a couple of weeks ago that the problem we were going to see here

00:01:36.480 is that it was going to shift from a public health discussion into a public order discussion,

00:01:41.900 and I'm afraid to say that's exactly what's happening.

00:01:45.140 We're seeing it more in a few isolated pockets,

00:01:47.740 but I'm pretty sure this is going to become the norm in the days and weeks to come.

00:01:53.460 I'm going to talk about the enforcement aspects of this right now and also later on in the show.

00:01:58.800 I want to talk about some of the medical things that have come up

00:02:01.600 that we haven't really had time to get around to in previous episodes of the show.

00:02:06.160 The problem is that, you know, you need to have buy-in.

00:02:10.240 People need to believe that what they're doing makes sense.

00:02:12.880 They need to believe it's sensible.

00:02:15.020 They need to believe that there is a scientific rationale behind it,

00:02:19.240 and they need to feel like it is not a burden on them if they go along with it,

00:02:25.220 and this is why the whole, you know, we hope people just go to the grocery store

00:02:29.200 and only do essential things, we hope this, we hope that, only goes so far.

00:02:34.200 And, you know, the public health issues here, and I don't mean public health issues.

00:02:39.420 I mean, issues with capital P, capital H public health bureaucrats in Ottawa

00:02:44.060 has been that they've surrendered their trustworthiness by all of the flip-flops

00:02:49.600 that we've addressed on this show, whether it was the travel restrictions,

00:02:53.640 whether there's a risk, whether you can have human-to-human transmission,

00:02:57.180 more recently masks, which, by the way, they seem to have flipped even further back than they were before,

00:03:04.040 because on Monday they had said, you know, we recommend now masks are fine for people,

00:03:08.880 and then on Tuesday, Theresa Tam was saying, oh, I mean, we're not wearing masks.

00:03:12.980 We don't think they're all that important,

00:03:14.600 so I'm not even going to bother trying to decipher what the real answer is on masks right now.

00:03:19.860 But the public health officials, the intelligentsia to which we are looking to find out what's right and what's wrong,

00:03:28.780 has not really given a huge dose of confidence to people,

00:03:34.060 which means that I think a lot of other people are souring on some of the social distancing advice

00:03:39.460 and measures that have been put in place.

00:03:41.500 And there are two reasons for this.

00:03:43.760 Number one, social distancing was not a term anyone had heard of.

00:03:47.460 I don't even know if it was a new term, but certainly it was not a widespread term.

00:03:53.560 Like flattening the curve, it's one of those things that six weeks ago you didn't even know existed,

00:03:58.420 and now it's like everyone says it and you want to blow your brains out any time you hear it again.

00:04:04.220 So social distancing wasn't even the term that they stuck with.

00:04:08.900 They then switched it to physical distancing because they didn't want to, I guess,

00:04:13.380 create this idea that everyone was going to be isolated and lonely and all of this stuff.

00:04:18.120 So right then and there, they can't even like stick to the one term that they had gotten people to use,

00:04:23.540 and now it's muddled again.

00:04:25.260 So when you hear physical distancing, it's like, oh, wait, well, is that different from social distancing,

00:04:29.500 or is it just the lipstick on a pig thing, a different name for the same phenomenon?

00:04:34.040 So I think that's a big part of why there is some growing weariness in people and weariness,

00:04:41.480 weariness and weariness about what the advice is.

00:04:45.320 But then you look at law enforcement who, and it's hard to say whether this is from overzealous law enforcement

00:04:52.840 or genuine confusion, you know, information that doesn't quite trickle down all the way to the front lines,

00:04:59.040 which I can imagine is very common in situations like this.

00:05:03.360 But either way, it's these situations where you have people's rights who end up being threatened

00:05:10.060 and in many cases, absolutely trampled upon altogether.

00:05:15.000 I want to talk about a few of these different stories because these are certainly exceptional examples,

00:05:20.260 but in the grand scheme of things, they really aren't.

00:05:23.400 I mean, this is forming a pattern very easily detected across Canada, across municipalities,

00:05:30.140 where that letter of the law and the spirit of the law are not necessarily in alignment.

00:05:36.580 They're enforcing the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law.

00:05:40.360 And I get that.

00:05:41.020 That's why they call it the law.

00:05:42.760 But come on, we need to have some common sense here.

00:05:46.040 I mean, the most, I say, egregious example was from the Ottawa citizen.

00:05:50.700 And by the way, there was a Globe and Mail article that touched on this.

00:05:55.800 Apparently, Ottawa is like ground zero for this overzealousness.

00:06:00.660 The story in the Globe says that the city of Ottawa is accused of going too far with its ticketing blitz.

00:06:07.600 The city defended itself by saying that, oh, I mean, we got 500 complaints last weekend.

00:06:13.200 And of those complaints, we only ticketed, I think it was 43 people.

00:06:18.080 First off, ticketing 43 people for using public parks and standing too close to one another isn't a point of pride.

00:06:25.860 It's 43 more than it probably should be in an ideal society.

00:06:30.360 But further to that, you know, that's 500 people that were harassed and questioned.

00:06:35.220 Some of them might have been doing something wrong.

00:06:37.640 I'd say a lot of them were probably just going about their day, going about their business.

00:06:42.060 And I say that because of this story in the Ottawa citizen that I think reinforces exactly why you can't take your rights for granted in cases like this.

00:06:55.840 It's about a man who decided to do what everyone else is trying to do, which is keep to himself, stay away from all of these problems around the world and stay away from anything viral.

00:07:06.520 And he was harassed by a bylaw enforcement officer for playing in the park alone with his autistic son.

00:07:17.220 Now, this is a man in Orleans.

00:07:19.080 His four-year-old autistic son was in an empty field kicking a soccer ball.

00:07:25.300 And this is like just insane alone.

00:07:29.100 There's no one else there.

00:07:30.600 So bylaw enforcement officer shows up, says this is a $700 fine, gives him a warning, not a ticket.

00:07:39.440 The guy thought he was getting a ticket, but gives him a warning and then leaves.

00:07:43.020 That this man and his son, who are socially distanced from absolutely everyone in the world but each other, are told and threatened they could have a $700 fine.

00:07:54.020 Now, the city of Ottawa said, oh, we can't comment on the specific event without further information, they said initially.

00:07:59.780 Then they later confirmed that it was actually a case where they were given a warning.

00:08:05.580 So they had investigated it and figured it out.

00:08:09.060 But it's not quite clear what the problem was.

00:08:12.500 We know that a lot of parks are supposed to be closed.

00:08:15.080 There is a lot of confusion about whether it's all green spaces or just specific things in parks like playgrounds, gazebos and stuff like that.

00:08:25.200 But even then, if a park is empty, if a park is empty and people are allowed to go out for walks, and I never thought we'd be living in an era where you have to specify that you're allowed to leave your house, you're allowed to go for a walk, and you go to an empty park, why does anyone care?

00:08:43.840 Who cares?

00:08:44.320 And, you know, their theory, I guess, is that, oh, well, if everyone's there, then it's not going to be social distancing.

00:08:49.840 But the whole point of social distancing is, as I understand it, you adapt based on where the people are around you.

00:08:56.680 You know, it's just like everyone has to now play Frogger when they're going through the grocery store.

00:09:00.760 You just, like, you go and then you veer left and then you veer right and you go forward and you backtrack.

00:09:05.580 I mean, so, you know, you adapt to the people around you.

00:09:08.640 It's good.

00:09:09.320 I'm waiting to see someone who creates this, like, pool noodle contraption where you've got, like, a six-foot pool noodle, like, spokes on a wheel just to make sure that no one comes in your zone.

00:09:19.800 Actually, that can be perhaps a good invention on my part.

00:09:22.860 It's better than a giant bubble because I feel like you might get claustrophobic on that.

00:09:26.660 But make, like, a pool noodle spoke thing.

00:09:30.100 I'm giving you all my idea before I've done it.

00:09:32.100 And I'm pretty sure pool noodles have not been deemed an essential service, so I might have a hard time trying to find a store that sells.

00:09:38.640 You need, like, at least six, I guess.

00:09:41.300 But in any case, imagine going through the grocery store with that. 0.53

00:09:45.000 No one's going to come near you, not because of the COVID, just because they think you're insane.

00:09:48.760 But you know what?

00:09:49.860 It's all about how the ends are justifying the means in that case.

00:09:54.400 But the point is that if you're in a park and there's no one else around you, or let's say there's someone else on the other side of the park,

00:09:59.920 no one is being harmed by that.

00:10:03.920 And, you know, remember, we've been hearing from the government for years about the importance of everyone being active and getting out.

00:10:09.400 We know obesity is a big public health crisis, and a lot of that comes back to inactivity.

00:10:14.820 Kids aren't having recess anymore because they're not in school, so it's not like kids are having the opportunity to run around.

00:10:20.660 And I'm sorry, but not everyone lives in a suburban home that has a big backyard where everyone can go out and run,

00:10:27.140 especially in urban areas like Toronto, like parts of Ottawa, other cities, when people don't have yards.

00:10:34.300 You know, walking to that park across the street, going around the neighborhood might be the only way they can actually go out

00:10:40.680 and prevent there from being serious mental health challenges because they're cooped up in a 500-square-foot apartment.

00:10:47.880 So if someone is minding their own business, and I said this in a previous show about cops harassing someone on the beach,

00:10:56.300 if someone is minding their own business, they're not near anyone, but, you know, the person they're there with,

00:11:01.920 they are more threatened by the cop or the bylaw officer walking up to them

00:11:06.820 than they are by anything that's happening in those circumstances.

00:11:11.080 And, you know, is that really a way to help anyone?

00:11:15.020 No, it's not.

00:11:15.760 It is absolutely making things worse and undermining trust in the government,

00:11:21.340 which is already wafer-thin at the best of times.

00:11:25.220 I'd say one of the worst ones, though.

00:11:27.120 I know I'm saying everyone is the worst, but they're all just making me pull my hair out here.

00:11:32.020 Comes from La Presse, where a woman on her birthday had a bunch of friends line the street in their cars.

00:11:42.160 They opened the car door to stand outside, and all of them, I think it was nine cars,

00:11:48.040 decided to sing happy birthday to her.

00:11:51.340 Let me show you this clip here.

00:11:52.860 Happy birthday to her. 0.90

00:12:05.480 Thank you.

00:12:12.400 now when i first saw that i assumed that they would have been ticketed just for singing it

00:12:17.540 in english in quebec but no that wasn't the case of it in fact she was ticketed fifteen hundred

00:12:23.560 dollars now by the way not even the people singing it it was the woman who was serenaded

00:12:28.240 with the happy birthday she gets a one thousand five hundred dollar fine by police after her

00:12:34.500 friends surprised her with a happy birthday ambush on her street again she's at her front door

00:12:41.560 they are on the other side of the street they're separate from her and separate from each other

00:12:46.280 singing happy birthday keeping the spirit of the law alive social distancing and she gets on her

00:12:52.920 birthday which she's already spending cooped up she can't go anywhere she can't take a weekend trip 1.00

00:12:58.020 away she can't go and buy the good cake she can't do any of these things on her birthday

00:13:01.880 and to add insult to injury a one thousand five hundred forty six dollar fine now this is melissa

00:13:09.740 leblanc and she says listen it's been four weeks since i've left home she says she even has her

00:13:15.380 groceries delivered so she's going above and beyond what most people are asked to do what most people

00:13:20.900 are doing and she's actually she's apologizing basically she this is the most terrifying part

00:13:27.800 and this is that canadian thing she says oh my goodness police have their arm their their their arms

00:13:32.940 full it was never my intention to go against the measures i mean i want to see more anger from these

00:13:38.260 people so this woman gets serenaded gets a ticket and she still feels bad that you know the police had

00:13:46.960 to spend their time on her like oh my goodness this is where and michael bryant who is the head of the

00:13:54.820 canadian civil liberties association said something very apropos about this he said listen this is all

00:14:00.660 supposed to be about public health not public order and whenever there can be an education

00:14:06.640 approach instead of an enforcement approach it's going to make everyone better in the long run

00:14:12.480 and ultimately it's going to be better for society itself and i wish that the rcmp had learned that

00:14:19.660 lesson a little bit earlier than they did you know in halifax police are worried about rumors in fact

00:14:26.680 police all over canada are worried about rumors of people saying oh my friend was pulled over and

00:14:31.520 questioned where he was going the rumor in halifax is that any car with more than two people in it will

00:14:37.440 be pulled over and they'll make sure that they're still appropriately following the emergency orders

00:14:42.400 i heard i think going back a week and a half ago rumors that people were being pulled over and said you

00:14:48.120 have to have a reason to be out and and a lot of this in a time of crisis you can't really trust too much

00:14:53.840 anyway it's i heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone and and all that stuff

00:14:58.640 but but but where there's smoke there's fire so halifax is saying no no we've not been ordered

00:15:03.760 to stop vehicles although under the emergency act in nova scotia people have to maintain a distance of

00:15:11.200 two meters or six feet and also gatherings of more than five like in other provinces are prohibited but the

00:15:18.640 reason i i find this to be such an interesting dismissal of them saying oh no we're not doing that

00:15:25.120 is that in calgary the rcmp fined two teens for not having social distance between them when they

00:15:33.280 were in a car together now there is a bit of an upside to this in that the rcmp has canceled the

00:15:39.680 ticket but i i think that's too little too late this was last thursday and it was sorry cochran not

00:15:46.160 calgary uh cochran alberta a teenager was given a 1200 fine uh 16 years old because he was driving in a car

00:15:54.160 with his friend after returning from a job interview so you know not keeping to the spirit of the law

00:15:59.680 but they're 16 and police pulled them over asked the two of them for id saw that their addresses were

00:16:06.960 different so the police officer being the astute detective he was determined that if the addresses

00:16:12.160 were different they might not live together and hands out a one thousand six hundred dollar fine

00:16:18.000 for not practicing social distancing and again so the father complained went to the media the public

00:16:24.880 pressure led the rcmp to cancel the ticket but even their cancellation their cancellation bothers me here

00:16:32.560 because fraser logan who's an rcmp spokesperson says well officers do have the discretion to lay that

00:16:40.160 offense notice and the ticket was within the police officers right after further discussions a decision

00:16:46.160 was made to cancel the ticket so they're saying listen we're canceling it but but we don't have

00:16:50.640 to when we we could have ticketed you again and we will ticket you again and look there are cases where 0.93

00:16:58.160 teens are being stupid and not just teens i don't want to single out teens there are cases where people 0.98

00:17:02.960 of all ages are not adhering to what is expected of us right now and go for the people who are being 1.00

00:17:10.400 reckless go for the people who are being reckless if someone's having a giant house party someone's

00:17:15.920 having a barbecue fine go in there and break it up if you absolutely need to but if you get two teens

00:17:21.280 that are in a car i mean from what i've read they weren't even pulled over for anything traffic

00:17:26.560 related it wasn't like they were speeding a bit or one of them was using a cell phone it was a fishing

00:17:31.840 expedition they could have been brothers they could have been roommates whatever but it was a fishing

00:17:36.160 expedition police go and then oh you don't live together you're getting ticketed

00:17:39.920 and one of the things certainly in ontario is that you need to provide identification now you

00:17:46.080 typically don't need to under this you do so if my wife and i were minding our own business going for

00:17:51.440 one of our i don't want to say daily walks but one of our regular walks and police uh stay stop us for

00:17:56.640 whatever reason and say hey we need to see your id to make sure you live together normally i'd say go

00:18:02.000 pound salt not because i disrespect police i have a lot of respect for police but because i disrespect the

00:18:07.920 overzealousness uh that we see from some pockets of law enforcement and in this case i would actually

00:18:14.720 be fined not for social distancing rules but i would be fined for not complying with a demand that

00:18:21.840 i must identify myself and these are the things that there are so many people that would be like well

00:18:28.000 if you have nothing to hide which are the most toxic words in a free society if you have nothing to

00:18:34.560 hide then you have nothing to fear and if we could just completely throw those words out once we're

00:18:40.320 done with covid like we are hopefully going to throw out social distance and flatten the curve

00:18:44.640 i'll be very happy because for so many people they don't understand the bigger picture here which is

00:18:52.560 that government will after this have license have license to do this for situations that are far less

00:19:00.400 dire than the one in which we're living in now and this is not that i don't take covid 19 seriously i do

00:19:06.640 it's not that i don't realize there is a need for added and enhanced measures i do

00:19:11.520 it's that we've been seeing and we're seeing more often now this idea where the remedy

00:19:17.200 doesn't really match the problem and the remedy is opening up worse things for us for society for canada

00:19:26.480 then the problem itself is and these are the cases that we have to resist and and you know

00:19:33.280 there are going to be a lot of people that say well once the virus is done these things will go away

00:19:37.040 you better hope so you better hope so because if all of a sudden we have now in regular flu season

00:19:44.000 say police going down this road saying okay well we've got to start enforcing some of these things

00:19:50.320 that's a case where the imbalance will be very stark but officials will have justification because

00:19:56.720 of what happened now so when halifax is saying oh don't be ridiculous we're not pulling over

00:20:02.560 people for just driving in a car together well some of your colleagues are some of your brothers

00:20:06.720 in blue are out in alberta so yes this is insane that we have to have some of these discussions

00:20:13.840 but it's important that we do it's absolutely important that we do we got to take a break when

00:20:19.600 we come back more of the andrew lawton show here on true north you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:20:29.280 as you know i've been doing a lot of the heavy lifting the work that most canadians don't want

00:20:33.680 to do i've been watching the daily government briefings the daily government press conferences

00:20:38.640 from pretty much everyone justin trudeau christia freeland doug ford sometimes the alberta officials

00:20:44.240 as well and i've been just immersed in this and there was a bit of an odd moment in justin trudeau's

00:20:51.200 briefing on tuesday of this week when he used terms that just you know i don't even think i can describe

00:21:00.240 it adequately without just playing the clip for you uh my understanding of what dr tam explained yesterday

00:21:08.240 is that if people want to wear a mask uh that is okay it protects others more than it protects

00:21:17.200 you because it prevents you from breathing or or speaking uh moistly on them oh what a terrible image

00:21:26.080 so for all of the things we've talked about with masks trudeau comes out with this one

00:21:31.120 it can prevent you from breathing or speaking moistly on others now i do a lot of talking in my life

00:21:37.520 i used to host a daily three hour show there were a couple of days where i was hosting my own three

00:21:42.240 hour show in london guest hosting a three hour show in toronto and a two and a half hour show in calgary

00:21:49.200 so there have been days where i have spoken for eight and a half hours in a row back to back

00:21:55.200 and i have never spoken moistly in my life i have never spoken moistly so justin trudeau has now

00:22:02.080 warned against breathing or speaking moistly and at the end of it says ugh what a terrible image which

00:22:08.720 i think is pretty much the exact thing that anyone watching i've never had this hate on for the word

00:22:14.400 moist but i understand that moist is one of the most detested words in the english language whether

00:22:19.840 moist is spoken moistly or unmoistly moist is just one of those words people don't like

00:22:24.720 so the reason that i i think it's important to mention this is that trudeau's usage of the word

00:22:30.480 moist in any context in any context whether it was for you know illustrative purposes or a misspeak

00:22:38.320 because it's the word moist people don't like hearing it so moist uh anyway so whether it's the

00:22:42.640 least of your worries or the most of them i mean the most of them we will carry on with that i was

00:22:47.200 actually fond of that because it was just a rare sort of human uh levity driven moment in the midst

00:22:53.520 of something very serious but it did sound like a really icky thing it's funny though because i had a

00:22:59.840 message from someone it might have been a commenter so you email or whatever it was and they had said

00:23:05.520 you know why are you not angrier about xyz and it was an interest it's a valid question you know there

00:23:12.000 are a lot of people that i think are only angry and they are too angry and there's no way to do

00:23:18.400 anything about anything if you're always at a 10 on the anger level i get frustrated i get annoyed

00:23:24.800 when things happen when governments try to trample on rights yeah i get worked up about it but the only

00:23:30.720 way you can survive in my view is by laughing and that doesn't mean you're making light of things in

00:23:38.000 the sense that you're diminishing or downplaying them what it means is that the only way to survive

00:23:43.040 and work through and keep your sanity and keep your strength is to not immerse yourself in the

00:23:48.080 negativity of the world and then start parroting that negativity and i don't want to sound like a

00:23:53.280 motivational speaker because i'm not particularly motivational and i don't want to be but you know if

00:23:59.760 i if just because i'm not yelling doesn't mean that i i don't realize there are grave things at stake

00:24:04.800 here and i would hope that all of us through this can learn that yeah sometimes you need to just laugh

00:24:09.200 at something and that's the way that you can delegitimize it and work through it you know the

00:24:14.000 fact is most of what is passed as a serious solution to the world's problems is a punchline and that's the

00:24:21.040 one thing we've seen from a lot of what government has pushed so yeah i'm going to take the bait i'm

00:24:25.600 going to laugh at the punchline because that's the way that we prove to people how absurd a lot of

00:24:29.760 these things are and can move forward as a result so that's my answer to that question and thank you

00:24:35.760 for watching nonetheless speaking of again why we can't just be so consumed by negativity last week

00:24:43.760 we saw projections from alberta and or from ontario rather and in that we heard that up to 15 000 people

00:24:51.120 may die from covet 19 by the end of the crisis now we've heard numbers from alberta as well as from

00:24:59.040 quebec so there seems to be a bit of a pact emerging from francois lago jason kenny doug ford all saying

00:25:05.760 listen we need to have full disclosure we need to be transparent about this and alberta in a probable

00:25:12.720 scenario jason kenny said the province will see between 400 and 3100 deaths now the interesting thing

00:25:21.280 about this projection is that while it's lower than ontario it also seems to be a bit of a shorter

00:25:28.080 time frame so he's saying that there's also an elevated scenario that would see 500 to 6600 people

00:25:35.760 die in the province now this is based on alberta's modeling so again really giving people a sense of

00:25:44.080 what the numbers are on which alberta is basing its decisions and its way forward and there is a lot

00:25:51.600 there is a lot of desire from the public now to see these numbers and even though the numbers without

00:25:57.440 context don't necessarily mean anything they reinforce i think a the fact that yes this is serious

00:26:05.920 but also they they instill trust they instill trust how are we supposed to listen to you if you're

00:26:13.360 not going to tell us how bad things are and doug ford last week in ontario and i know he's not the most

00:26:18.960 popular guy to the left but doug ford has been getting a lot of support from all parts of the

00:26:23.680 country all ideologies all regions and the reason is he has been an absolutely incredible force

00:26:30.320 throughout this entire thing and yes i ran as a candidate under doug ford you can say i'm biased

00:26:35.920 but this is not coming from any allegiance that is really rooted in a past thing that i did this is

00:26:41.680 coming from a place of genuine appreciation and respect for what he's doing right now

00:26:48.240 because what doug ford has done is not just been calm and cool and honest but he has been clear he has

00:26:55.600 been transparent he has not wavered in his approach and by sharing these numbers by sharing this modeling

00:27:03.600 he's saying look i'm not going to lie to you and there was one well there have been a couple of days

00:27:07.920 where he's come out and days where there's been bad news or a difficult announcement of some kind

00:27:13.360 and doug ford has come out and you can see torment for lack of a better term you can see a torment in

00:27:19.120 him and he had said yesterday or two days ago i can't remember which one that he's not sleeping at

00:27:24.240 night about some of these things and that was a very raw and human moment and there have been other

00:27:30.400 premiers that have done well as well and again i've given trudeau credit for some aspects of this

00:27:34.880 i am able to give credit where it's due and criticism where it's due regardless of ideology

00:27:39.920 and politics and all of that stuff but my goodness doug ford will emerge from this i i think is probably

00:27:46.320 one of the if not the most effective and capable politician throughout this crisis

00:27:52.400 and so far i think that's doug ford and i think will probably remain

00:27:56.640 doug ford but you had ontario's numbers you had alberta's numbers and also quebec's projections and

00:28:02.560 i'm going to go into the quebec numbers in a moment but the reason these are important is

00:28:06.960 because it's more pressure on justin trudeau i would hope to release the federal numbers and i

00:28:12.320 guess if all the provinces release theirs you can just add them up but again the thing with modeling

00:28:16.720 it's not an exact science and the numbers themselves may differ so the federal government

00:28:22.560 would have projections that may actually deviate from the provincial projections the reason the federal

00:28:27.840 numbers are important is because they are the basis of what justin trudeau is doing you need to be

00:28:34.640 able to know what their evidence is and what they are actually using as their basis to have an appreciation

00:28:43.760 for it so quebec's is similar to ontario ontario had 3 000 to 5 000 uh residents that could die of the

00:28:52.880 virus over the course of the pandemic which could be 18 months to 24 months quebec has a number of

00:29:01.040 charts as well but quebec didn't do what if scenarios generally so they have actually been very

00:29:08.560 constrained in what they have projected they've only done 30-day projections 30-day numbers and very

00:29:16.080 similar to ontario so very similar paths so it seems like at least there is a consensus there or what

00:29:24.080 looks like a growing consensus anyway about how this could look and you know as we tend to advance through

00:29:35.360 this you know if the models end up being overzealous or they end up being greater than what happens i 0.72

00:29:43.920 wouldn't blame them i wouldn't look and say all those numbers were crap i'd say okay wow we listened

00:29:48.800 and what we did worked and i don't think that is necessarily an unreasonable thing to do to say well

00:29:56.720 yes they were a little bit ambitious but i mean when you have to start getting worried is if the shape

00:30:03.200 doesn't match is if the shape of these projections are against you know the trajectory of the virus and

00:30:09.440 even then it's not about blame it's simply about understanding that hey this is not a perfect

00:30:14.400 science they did it based on what they thought was the best information available but regardless

00:30:19.840 this is what they had access to and that's what ford has stressed here in his talks in ontario is that

00:30:26.560 he wants people to know what he's seeing when he says yes you have to shut down your business when he

00:30:31.520 says no you're not allowed to construct that property when he tells people you are not allowed by force of

00:30:37.280 law to do this this is why and trudeau's consistent refusal to show this modeling is absurd and you

00:30:46.640 know what i think we all look pretty bad about it and speaking of justin trudeau looking bad this clip

00:30:52.960 i have to play for you here because he was asked by a hill times reporter at tuesday's briefing a very

00:30:58.240 simple question which is that you said that the experts back in march told you that we didn't need

00:31:03.760 to shut the border and then you said the experts said they did explain what happened explain your

00:31:09.040 path explain your trajectory and i'm going to play the full exchange here because he asked to follow

00:31:14.720 up and trudeau gave a bit more of an answer but there's something in that follow-up that reveals

00:31:20.080 problems as well let's roll that minister i want to go back uh quickly to ask you about your decision on

00:31:27.760 march 16th to close the border to foreign nationals the health minister had been saying

00:31:34.160 for more than a month by that point that there was no benefit really to doing that it wouldn't keep

00:31:39.440 canadians safe you explained your decision at the time by saying that the advice you've been receiving

00:31:45.360 from public health officials had been evolving can you tell us a little bit more about how exactly that

00:31:51.120 advice changed um i appreciate that your question is taking us back to march 16th uh but i'm focused

00:31:59.040 on today and i'm focused on tomorrow uh there have been a lot of reflections on what is done in the

00:32:04.080 past and we'll certainly keep reflecting on that but everything i'm focused on right now is how to make

00:32:10.400 sure that people are getting the help they need right now how to keep canadians safe how to get through

00:32:16.640 this particular time and that's what i'll stay focused on follow-up question we just yeah sure

00:32:24.320 we we're just looking for some clarity on how exactly the public health advice has been changing how you

00:32:32.320 know the information coming from these officials has been changing and where they're getting it from

00:32:37.200 this is a never before experienced pandemic that is presenting new challenges every single day new

00:32:47.200 facts new data every single day and throughout we're making decisions based on the best advice that those

00:32:54.880 health officials are giving us obviously this advice is best based on modeling on facts on what's

00:33:01.680 happening in other countries what uh predictions can be made around what might help what could make

00:33:08.160 a difference and as that evolves as the information evolves of course we're going to keep adjusting and

00:33:14.960 updating our approach we've done that from the beginning and we will continue to do so so when i said

00:33:20.080 earlier about finding the punchline in life this is the type of situation i was describing here because

00:33:24.560 you have to just roll your eyes when trudeau says oh you know i'm i'm interested i'm i see you want to

00:33:29.520 talk about this but i want to talk about today and i want to talk about moro if i were the reporter i'd

00:33:33.280 be like well i want to talk about march 16th myself but then trudeau said oh but we have all these things

00:33:38.960 in the models and okay so wait so you are saying that there are models and that the models are responsible

00:33:45.280 for these decisions you're making and you're still not showing those models so a the fact that he doesn't

00:33:52.240 want to explain his decision making process on a pretty big government flip-flop that's bad enough

00:33:57.760 but then when pushed he talks about the modeling and the experts relying on the models and still

00:34:02.640 doesn't want to show those still doesn't want the accountability that comes with people seeing it

00:34:08.560 and i think that what we would see is that the government was looking at data that didn't

00:34:12.880 necessarily reinforce the decisions they were making and they don't want people to know that

00:34:18.880 because i bet that they had access to data in march before they were putting travel restrictions in

00:34:25.520 place that showed them hey we should probably put travel restrictions in place and i know that

00:34:30.080 because every other country in the world was doing it so there must have been something there

00:34:34.080 telling them hey this is a good idea for countries right now because this is exclusively a 0.92

00:34:40.080 travel-borne virus for the time being the government has told us it's always a matter of buying

00:34:46.240 time you won't get down to zero cases but you'll buy time to prepare to get ppe and if you could have

00:34:52.880 bought an extra two weeks by closing the border earlier if you could have bought an extra two weeks

00:34:57.920 by banning flights from china if you could have bought an extra two weeks by doing this those charts

00:35:03.600 would be so drastically different the proverbial curve would have been flattened much more

00:35:10.160 but no we were getting lectured about racism we were getting lectured about the importance of not

00:35:15.840 taking out our coronavirus frustrations through racist and bigoted acts which obviously is a valid thing to do

00:35:22.240 but that isn't a public health priority and certainly shouldn't be a public health priority above

00:35:27.440 the actual virus itself talk about the social implications the social effects after write a blog

00:35:34.800 post on it make a little video and upload it to youtube to comment on how you think everyone's so

00:35:40.240 mean in canada but my goodness focus on the virus first then focus on all those social aspects and

00:35:46.560 this is where you get a government that i don't think was listening to the models you have either

00:35:53.040 advice that was being ignored or you just have downright bad advice either way it's something that

00:36:00.560 canadians need to have accountability for we've got to take a break when we come back more of the

00:36:05.360 andrew lawton show let's talk about those who have decided to make the best of a bad situation in

00:36:23.120 particular a dare i say couple who has probably one of the greatest how they met each other's stories

00:36:30.800 ever they went on a first date uh 23 year old nick crawford and his now a girlfriend they went on a

00:36:38.000 first date and they met online they went out and then they ended up in quarantine together because of

00:36:47.840 covet 19 so what happened was they had a night out on march 7th four days before the world health

00:36:55.120 organization declared the outbreak of the pandemic people were seeing it but again a lot of people

00:37:00.400 especially in north america weren't particularly worried about it so they go they exchanged messages

00:37:06.560 they went out for a date it didn't feel real they think everything's fine they have a great time well

00:37:12.800 as it turned out they both contracted covet 19 so his date had flu-like symptoms and was taken for a test

00:37:22.160 she was still awaiting results then her friend tested positive for the virus

00:37:26.880 virus and then they ended up uh once he had developed flu-like symptoms and uh was uh had gone

00:37:34.320 and you know tried to get tested and all that that uh it was i guess worthwhile to just wait it out

00:37:40.720 together so they had a really good time on their first date they ended up isolating together they've

00:37:45.840 spent uh you know 14 days and we don't know if they're still together i've been waiting for an update

00:37:50.320 uh but they decided that they would get quarantined together and you know if that's not like the

00:37:55.600 pressure cooker for a relationship that has at that point only had one date then i don't know what is

00:38:02.000 because not only is it two weeks with someone you barely know two weeks with illness of someone you

00:38:09.280 barely know so it's an interesting dynamic test of how people respond to adverse circumstances and i'm

00:38:17.040 wondering i mean i'm of two minds on this either a this is like the greatest love story ever or b it is

00:38:24.400 just an elaborate setup so that they can sell the movie rights and make a fortune because there was

00:38:29.120 that movie i want to say ashton kutcher and cameron diaz i might be mixing it up with another movie

00:38:35.440 i want to say it might have been called just married i could be making that up about a drunk couple

00:38:41.040 who gets married in vegas and they're going to get it annulled but then one of them wins like some

00:38:47.680 huge jackpot in vegas the next day and then the other one doesn't want to end the marriage so 1.00

00:38:53.120 something like that now this is admittedly less high stakes than that uh but no one would believe

00:38:58.160 it because if you were to see a movie about oh this couple that you know got quarantined together

00:39:02.160 after their first date by choice you're like well no one would do that but nick crawford and his uh

00:39:06.480 lovely uh paramore decided to and you know what we wish them uh many more not pandemics but many

00:39:12.240 more uh years together or weeks together such as the case may be uh this is i think fascinating though

00:39:20.560 you know talk about again spirit of law letter of law this is like the growing theme of the last

00:39:26.240 couple of weeks a new jersey nurse was able to go to gofundme and raise twelve thousand dollars to buy

00:39:33.360 personal protective equipment for her and her colleagues because there's a major shortage 0.75

00:39:37.920 especially in new jersey which is the overflow of new york and the nurse who is named olga matievskaya

00:39:45.360 whose name i did not pronounce correctly most likely was able to use her money to buy 500 masks

00:39:51.360 4 000 shoe covers and 150 jumpsuits for icu nurses she was able to order them from ebay but they were in

00:39:58.720 packaging uh the hospital said thank you very much we really appreciate this we needed this

00:40:04.880 no i'm just kidding the hospital suspended her because they said she was distributing unauthorized 0.65

00:40:10.160 medical supplies which was actually better than the hospital's non-existent medical supplies

00:40:15.680 but she's now been suspended so let no good deed go unpunished that is the message of the day

00:40:21.840 in new jersey apparently now of course nick crawford may have had good luck finding love in quarantine

00:40:29.520 there is a man who's trying to perhaps replicate that in new york city the epicenter of coronavirus

00:40:36.800 he's 30 something years old name unknown he has decided to dispense with online dating he's seeking a

00:40:43.680 quarantine partner and a life partner erecting flyers around new york seeking girlfriend for coronavirus

00:40:51.120 and something i gotta zoom in and see where that and something is uh corona oh coronavirus and

00:40:55.920 beyond he says he's healthy attractive well-employed early 30s seeking germ-free monogamy he would

00:41:04.480 like someone who's healthy fit and clean and all you lucky ladies who are champing at the bit for this 0.92

00:41:09.280 can email steady man for you at gmail.com and i i'm less offended by the fact that he's seeking

00:41:16.160 courtship by flyer than i am by the fact that he used the number four and the letter u

00:41:20.640 in his email address and i don't know what steady man is like is it going steady or is he just

00:41:26.560 really steady i don't know uh but perhaps if you are if that's your thing and you're in new york and

00:41:32.320 you're one of like the seven people left in new york that doesn't have coronavirus uh he is the the

00:41:36.960 man for you for coronavirus and beyond uh you know what i always like mocking socialist dictatorship so

00:41:43.680 let's do this one other fun story here a venezuela warship i'm gonna laugh through this just so you

00:41:50.240 know a venezuela warship was defending the venezuelan naval interests and decided to harass a cruise ship

00:41:58.640 a portuguese flagged cruise ship dubbed rcgs resolute and the warship called the naguata

00:42:07.760 intercepted the resolute off the coast of venezuela about a week and a half ago shortly after midnight

00:42:14.720 on march 30th and the naguata the venezuelan ship ordered the resolute to change its course and then

00:42:21.680 they had a standoff between the ship crews because there was confusion about whether they were in

00:42:26.560 international waters or venezuelan waters resolute was trying to inform its head office of the encounter

00:42:33.120 and figure out what to do and then the venezuelan ship started shooting on shooting at the resolute

00:42:39.840 now you may wonder why i'm sharing this as a fun story well just keep listening so the venezuela ship

00:42:45.040 is shooting at the cruise ship the unarmed cruise ship of a bunch of uh presumably like portuguese uh

00:42:50.480 you know octogenarians who are just on the cruise and haven't been able to dock anywhere yet

00:42:55.520 and then i don't know if the venezuelans just had bad aim or they ran out of ammo or what

00:43:00.080 but then the vessel decided to ram the resolute the navy vessel approached the starboard side 0.96

00:43:06.080 purposely collided with the resolute they continued to ram the starboard bow in an apparent attempt to 0.51

00:43:12.640 turn the ship's head towards venezuelan territorial waters and then the venezuelan warship sank yes the

00:43:22.640 venezuelan warship rammed the uh cruise ship without any weapons on it after firing on it

00:43:29.600 and then eventually just completely shot shot itself down uh and the cruise ship was built for

00:43:36.960 cruising through icy water so it was fine it suffered only minor damage in the collision so

00:43:41.440 this is like a prius trying to you know basically uh ram a bronco off the road and the bronco just has

00:43:47.680 a little dent and the prius is in the ditch this is what happened uh the naigawata started taking on

00:43:53.920 water after colliding uh with the larger ships haul and sank and then uh what happened was the resolute

00:44:01.120 offered to help people they they hung around they hung around said listen we'll help you and then

00:44:06.080 venezuela said no they waited an hour for someone else to uh to come and help them so uh you know

00:44:11.760 what uh you know just keep to the you know feeding people dogs and cats and tanking your economy and

00:44:17.360 depriving yourself of rights don't try to be ambitious like uh conquering you know naval interests even if it's

00:44:22.560 just a cruise ship in your view so that is today in venezuela uh just before we wrap up here i want

00:44:29.600 to mention one thing that i think should be concerning but i also want to couch this by saying that we

00:44:37.840 shouldn't take it at face value just yet south china post which if you're not from or south china

00:44:45.600 morning post which is a hong kong publication it's not a china publication so they're fairly reputable

00:44:51.280 has found that low antibody levels are raising question about the risk of reinfection so they're

00:44:58.160 citing scientists in china so in shanghai so take that with a grain of salt but they're saying that

00:45:03.520 some recovered patients are showing no signs of the neutralizing proteins meaning that their early

00:45:08.720 research is showing them that yeah you could get coronavirus twice you could get this thing a second or

00:45:14.640 potentially third time now why i say to take this with skepticism not even because it's china just

00:45:21.680 because we don't know a lot about this but there is opportunity and there is downside in that because

00:45:29.120 in some senses it means yeah we could learn that things are better or it also means we could learn

00:45:33.360 things are worse but when you hear about the story we had last week about animal transmission is now

00:45:39.680 happening human to animal to animal and now we have this about reinfection like this is proving

00:45:45.520 that we're in for a long haul because when there's this much uncertainty no one is want to go no one

00:45:50.480 is going to want to claim victory and say all right come on in everybody we got it beat so that's an

00:45:56.720 article it was interesting i won't get into the to the minute details of the medical aspects of that

00:46:02.240 except to say that there's still some uncertainty about this pretty key part which is whether you can get

00:46:06.880 it twice so it's not like herd immunity will necessarily be built up in all of these places

00:46:11.920 that have had an outbreak or that have become the epicenter of the virus so that's important another

00:46:17.200 one and i've had a lot of emails about this people asking about hydroxychloroquine and why no one's

00:46:24.000 talking about it look the fact is i i'm very interested in this we're starting to see now canadians

00:46:32.000 explore this mcgill university researchers are actually looking for patients to test hydroxychloroquine

00:46:38.080 as a treatment for covid19 you've had particular states like michigan for example that have wanted

00:46:43.840 to fast track approval it's a malaria drug that has had it seems like some limited success but it's also

00:46:51.520 in high doses very fatal so what's interesting is that this has become a culture war thing in the us

00:46:58.320 because trump has talked about it because donald trump has mentioned it and had it favorably viewed

00:47:03.520 the fda has now approved it for testing now it's like if you support hydroxychloroquine it's like you

00:47:08.560 support trump so this drug which could be a lifesaver we don't know has now become a part of a culture war

00:47:15.920 instead of something that everyone is getting excited about and it's not a conspiracy theory to say hey

00:47:22.640 try it out when people say why is no one talking about it i don't think that there's a conspiracy

00:47:28.160 to shut it down i i think that there's a lot of uncertainty and in canada people are very reticent

00:47:34.080 with drugs in general i mean everyone around the world waits for the fda to make the first call

00:47:39.040 before going anywhere near it so we are following it we're not ignoring it i'm going to be very interested

00:47:44.800 in seeing what happens in this mcgill study uh a clinical trial so i mean we could have some very good

00:47:49.600 news on the horizon in any case i want to wrap things up we will be back next week for a regular

00:47:55.040 edition of the show but we'll have a special edition of the show on the weekend the last of

00:48:00.560 our series for the time being of interviews with leadership candidates i'll explain why we're doing

00:48:05.360 it in a little preamble for next week's episode but that'll be with leslin lewis in the meantime

00:48:10.480 thank you god bless and stay healthy canada thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show

00:48:15.360 support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - April 09, 2020

Public Order or Public Health？

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