00:00:00.000Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
00:00:12.460Coming up, we talk about civil liberties and religious freedom with lawyer Lisa Bildy, Pastor Aaron Rock, and Pastor Henry Hildebrandt.
00:00:21.820The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.
00:00:25.340Hello and welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
00:00:31.980As you've no doubt realized during the last two years, this show has had to devote a lot of attention to civil liberties,
00:00:38.640and part of that has been because there's been no shortage of material in people trying to, and in many cases succeeding, in trampling on civil liberties.
00:00:47.160I wanted to focus on one of those in particular, I guess a couple of related ones.
00:00:51.040At the core, religious freedom, but within that we also have freedom of speech, freedom of association,
00:00:56.620all of these things that are supposed to be hallmarks of a free society.
00:01:00.580We've got a panel of people that have very direct experience with how this has been unfolding in Canada,
00:01:07.440specifically in the province of Ontario.
00:01:09.860I'm joined by Lisa Bildy, a lawyer and the founder of Libertist Law,
00:01:13.440Henry Hildebrandt, who is the pastor with the Church of God in Elmer, Ontario,
00:01:17.660and also Pastor Aaron Rock of Harvest in Windsor.
00:01:21.360Thank you so much for being with me. It's great to talk to you all.
00:05:49.440The monies have been paid, but I'm hoping that, that, that we have not seen the end of that because it is extremely, extremely hard to see that that would be happening in Canada.
00:06:01.460Extremely unfair and wrong, in my opinion.
00:06:03.840And same question to you, Pastor Rock, where are things now, just in the landscape of what you've had to go through?
00:06:24.900But beyond the $400,000 and fines that I personally face, my bigger concern is that a lot of our people have lost their jobs.
00:06:32.320People that are career engineers, hospital executives, nurses, even a local physician.
00:06:38.240So we have several people in our church that won't show their papers, so to speak.
00:06:43.220And so we have a little bit of a concern for some of them.
00:06:47.120Some of them are finding work elsewhere, but the, the fines to, to my, myself personally are one thing.
00:06:52.780But what really breaks my heart is so many good people that have been working, municipal government and whatnot for many, many years.
00:06:59.340Seasoned police officers have been tossed out on their ear with no recourse.
00:07:04.580Yeah, and, and that actually raises a question I wanted to put to you, Lisa, which just shows just the sheer inconsistency and callousness of a lot of these assaults on religious freedom.
00:07:14.660Because what we've been going through in society for the last two years are things where people, I think, have been more drawn to spirituality, more drawn to faith, more drawn to religion.
00:07:23.760Because they're finding that there are a lot of struggles that the world and, I mean, the government are heaping on them.
00:07:29.300And in so many ways that was taken away from people.
00:07:31.820Right, and the government, right at the outset of this, declared churches and other religious venues to be non-essential.
00:07:40.680And that was, that was our big beef right from the beginning.
00:07:43.220You know, Pastor Hildebrandt, I helped him get his, his drive-in services legalized.
00:07:48.480We, we managed to have the government walk that back after we sued them way back in the beginning.
00:07:53.000And in those early days, it seemed like maybe, you know, the government still had some respect for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because when you drew it to their attention that they were overstepping, they did pull back.
00:08:03.900But it seems as we've gone on, they've become more and more emboldened.
00:08:17.740It's not just churchgoers, but, but certainly at this time, you would think that people would, would need those services, need that access to that community more and more.
00:08:27.420And, you know, a lot of what I've been reading and thinking about lately is just, you know, how our society was so susceptible to all of this.
00:08:35.220And some of the darker sides of things that we're seeing now with these vaccine mandates, our fellow citizens being really quite, well,
00:08:46.600I don't even know what the word is, callous towards their fellow citizens.
00:08:52.180And I do think that the lack of community, the lack of, of connection, the lack of roots that we experience in our society and have over a number of decades is kind of coming to, to fruition here.
00:09:04.000We, the people who are connected in communities seem to be doing better.
00:09:07.920And the churches provide that for people.
00:09:10.740Without it, a lot, a lot of folks are left kind of, you know, drifting in the breeze sort of thing.
00:09:17.380Pastor Rock, I know a lot of Christians, and some may argue this is to their detriment, tend to shy away from politics or certainly individual churches as institutions try to avoid politics.
00:09:27.680Now, I think that becomes very difficult when politics is directly impeding your ability to, to function and your ability to gather for worship.
00:09:35.600But, but was being political, was this something that was uncomfortable for you initially?
00:09:40.020Or was this something that you've always welcomed when it comes up?
00:09:43.460I wasn't as political as I am now, because I've become more awakened to the fact that politics isn't primarily about building roads and bridges anymore.
00:09:54.420It's about the government taking a status position, a totalitarian position, literally seeking to control every single aspect of people's lives, right down to their expressions of faith, how they spend their money, whether they can work or not, how far they need to be removed from a loved one, these sorts of things.
00:10:13.220So I think historically, I just did a podcast on this that will come out today.
00:10:17.500Historically, Christians sort of had the notion politics has no place in the pulpit.
00:10:20.940I think that's a myth, actually, because if you're silent on some of the tyranny or the cultural wars that we're fighting, that's a political statement.
00:10:29.980So you basically have a choice to follow the politically correct narrative or to push back like Elijah did to Ahab or Joseph did to, or Moses did to Pharaoh and to hold the state to account, to govern in a lawful, moral way.
00:10:43.820So, yeah, we're engaging more of the issues.
00:10:46.680And, you know, as per Lisa's comment, they just seem to be building and stacking up one upon the other day after day.
00:10:52.820And Pastor Hildebrandt, I mean, a similar question to you.
00:10:56.120You've been speaking in front of large groups of anti-lockdown rallies and so on.
00:11:02.740And a lot of these people I know are not Christians, and they may not have ever heard someone preach before.
00:11:07.520So this is you going into a world that I don't think you had previously to the pandemic.
00:11:13.660I mean, was this uncomfortable for you, this idea of taking on a political fight as much as your religious fight?
00:11:19.320It's definitely something that we have not done before, as you imagine.
00:11:24.860I think Lisa and Aaron said it so well.
00:11:27.880I don't think we have a choice at this point but to take a stand because it's not that we as the church have gone into the lanes of the politic, but it's the other way around.
00:11:39.220They have stepped into God's lane, so to speak.
00:11:41.740And we either let them rule us and tell us and shut us down and do with the churches whatever they feel like doing, or we take a stand.
00:12:39.060That's, I think, a very interesting point you raise, Pastor.
00:12:42.080And I'm going to revisit that in a moment.
00:12:43.680But I want to turn to you first, Lisa, because I've heard a lot of people that have said,
00:12:47.660Well, yeah, I support religious freedom, but, oh, I don't like what this church teaches, or, oh, I don't like how this pastor, not referring to present company, might speak out about X issue or something like that.
00:12:58.340People do this when it comes to free speech as well.
00:13:00.560They say, well, yeah, I support free speech, but maybe I don't like that particular expression.
00:13:04.580And I do think that, in some ways, we've seen the last two years has made some strange bedfellows, so to speak, of people that are coming at this from all different angles that might not agree on some core ideals, but they do agree on some of the bigger picture items.
00:13:20.120But I also see some people that have decided, well, maybe this isn't the hill to die on.
00:13:27.100You know, I think Pastor Hildebrand has certainly seen this with his church, that he's actually, he's now ministering to a much broader group of people than he would have expected to, and I'm sure Pastor Rock as well.
00:13:39.160But, you know, there are a lot of people who are finding them through all of this that's going on.
00:13:45.020There are some very interesting realignments that are going on as more and more people start to become uncomfortable with where this society is going.
00:13:52.440They wouldn't have necessarily been on the same page before, but are now prepared to take up the cause a bit more, and do recognize that religious freedom is kind of the canary in the coal mine for a liberal society.
00:14:05.280You know, it might seem counterintuitive, but, you know, we have to, in a liberal society, we do, and that's small L liberal, we do protect the individual rights to worship the way we want,
00:14:17.500and to believe what we want, and to speak how we, how we wish, and as we start to see more and more pressures on, on churches to conform with these sort of statist ideologies,
00:14:30.340you know, that, that's an alarm bell that we ought not to miss, and so, you know, I think maybe some of these things were percolating in the background before, and, and more people, and people weren't as aware of them, unless they were actively in the Christian faith,
00:14:43.060but a lot of what's gone on over the last 20 months has, has, has, well, I think it's, it's awakened a lot of people to, to other problems in our society that they may not have been aware of before,
00:14:55.680so in some ways it's good. In other words, you know, we're sort of getting a mass red, red pilling going on, that, that would have taken a lot longer to achieve,
00:15:03.700as to where the, where the weaknesses and fault points, fault lines are in our society.
00:15:08.920Have you been seeing that just in your, your conversations with your congregation, Pastor Rock, that there are more people that are awakening,
00:15:16.460not just to some of the spiritual truths you've been preaching, but, but even some of these societal level issues that Lisa has just alluded to?
00:15:23.820Yeah, I mean, ultimately, we would attribute it to a worldview crisis,
00:15:28.080so we have, for many years in our country, peddled humanism, secularism, the myth that secularism is spiritually neutral,
00:15:36.760the myth of the secular state, and people have sort of gone along to get along,
00:15:41.380assuming that if we just sort of have this broadly secular mindset that everyone sort of can fit in,
00:15:46.460but what we're discovering is secularism is actually a religious worldview in and of itself,
00:15:51.140and it assigns ultimate morality and law to the state, so if the state says this is right and this is wrong,
00:15:59.460then it becomes right and wrong, and then out of that, that sets the, the perfect atmosphere,
00:16:04.960milieu for totalitarianism, and so I think, I think people are awakening to the fact that, yeah,
00:16:11.080there's all these little issues we're fighting, so lockdownism, medical tyranny, Bill C-4,
00:16:16.860all these different issues that we're fighting in culture, but the ultimate problem is a broken worldview
00:16:23.560that has denied the supremacy of God and has rooted human law and civil law and criminal law in
00:16:30.200humanity, and the state, of course, represents that, so whoever happens to be in office at the time
00:16:36.960decides what's right and wrong, and so we have really a breakdown of social order,
00:16:44.900because every man is doing what's right in his own eyes, so to speak, or every state is doing what
00:16:49.420is right in his own eyes. Yeah, and to you, Pastor Hildebrandt, I'll add to that. It's the idea of
00:16:54.900secularism is supposed to be in its purest form about a society that is religiously neutral or a
00:17:01.560government that's religiously neutral, not anti-religious, and I do feel that that's a very
00:17:06.120important distinction here. It's one thing for the state to be a-religious, it's another for it to be
00:17:10.860targeting religion. I think, as Lisa said earlier, I think, I felt that a big attack on churches was
00:17:19.220when, at the very beginning, they made it so clear that church was non-essential, and I think that was,
00:17:26.420that was a, well, I know it was a bad mistake to say that and to think that to, and to act like it,
00:17:31.920and we are still standing on it as we would have right from the beginning, that church is essential,
00:17:38.900and it's not hard to give the reasons. I mean, look at the time we're in right now,
00:17:44.180there's more people seeking God, there's more people wanting help now than ever before. I mean,
00:17:49.800our workload has doubled and multiplied. It's obvious, it's obvious that church is very essential,
00:17:57.680but I think over the past decades, the big mistake we have made, and we're speaking generally, is that
00:18:03.920we've let that slip. I don't think it came overnight. I think just in the last decades,
00:18:08.800just grew callous to it, and just accepted it, that the state, of course, they have their,
00:18:15.200our best in mind, and now we all of a sudden see that they don't, and church is not essential in
00:18:20.940their eyes, and they sure, and made sure that everybody noticed that and saw that, but I think
00:18:27.400it's definitely gone in the wrong direction. Just looking at, I mean, the panel we have today,
00:18:33.600and also other cases that have been of note across the country, Lisa, whether it was the arrest of
00:18:38.820Archer Pulaski, James Coates, Tim Stevens, Tobias Thyssen, I mean, one thing that they have in common is
00:18:44.780they're all Protestant Christian ministers and Protestant Christian churches. Have we seen any of
00:18:50.440these measures directed towards non-Christian houses of worship? And again, to be fair,
00:18:56.760the absence of that doesn't mean that anything untoward has happened, if some of those other
00:19:01.180houses of worship have not been as vocal in these things, but I've not come across any cases that
00:19:06.700don't fit that narrow categorization. Yeah, neither have I, and I don't know if it's because they've
00:19:13.300flown under the radar better, or whether they were just following the rules better, and I don't want
00:19:17.780to make any assumptions either about that, but certainly I do think that there was a certain
00:19:22.680amount of targeting that was going on over the last two years of particularly certain Christian
00:19:28.940groups, those that were more outspoken particularly. I mean, I get contacted by the media,
00:19:34.140and certainly did when I was with the Justice Center quite frequently, but the mainstream media
00:19:38.800was really only interested when there was a pastor who was in trouble, and then they were all over that
00:19:43.460story. Otherwise, they weren't interested, they weren't interested in the violation of civil
00:19:48.620liberties, they were interested in getting the dirt on some pastor that had stepped out of line.
00:19:53.520And then, you know, the other thing was, citizens were targeting churches. I was hearing stories
00:20:00.160of small country churches, Mennonite churches, for example, with people driving up and down the roads
00:20:05.660looking for them to have cars in the parking lot on a Sunday that shouldn't have been there,
00:20:10.140and then reporting it to the police. You know, so, and meanwhile, the Costco was open, and there
00:20:16.320was just a lot of inconsistencies along the way that made that extra offensive. But this sort of
00:20:22.440follows on a pattern that pre-existed the COVID-19 as well, which is that increasingly, the state has
00:20:28.800been encroaching on religions and demanding fealty to certain views that are supposed to be the
00:20:36.260consensus views in this country, but which many Christians have a problem with. So the federal
00:20:42.520attestation in order to get summer job grants, the Trinity Western case, I had a case still with the
00:20:49.900Justice Center now, but involving a prospective foster parent not able to foster children, infants, because
00:20:57.200of his Christian beliefs. You know, so there's been this kind of targeting of Christianity to some degree
00:21:04.440already, and I just, I think that that just was given an opportunity. People who didn't like,
00:21:12.500don't like Christians were given an opportunity to target them more during the last 20 months.
00:21:17.840Pastor Hildebrand, I know this has happened with your church and your community, and again,
00:21:22.700you're from a smaller town. The old traditional vision of that is a sense of community and being good
00:21:27.800neighbors and good citizens. But I know you have had people in your town that have very much turned on
00:21:33.580you and your church for taking the stands that you are. So, I mean, perhaps there's a general point
00:21:38.400here about the state of community or lack thereof now, but did this surprise you that your church
00:21:44.200was to a lot of people no longer a part of your community, but painted as the problem in the
00:21:49.080community? Very much so. I am still in shock to see, I mean, I'm not new to Elmer. We're not new.
00:21:56.860We've been here the last 30 years and we're very much seen as part of the community. And we're
00:22:03.940obviously, we did our part to make that work and provided jobs and work in the local workplaces and
00:22:12.640whatnot. For it to change overnight like this, I was shocked at the targeting. I was shocked at how
00:22:20.300quickly that could change where a friendship that you thought was there or a reputation that was
00:22:26.720built up over the years of people knowing us as a community friendly people that how fast, how fast,
00:22:35.160how overnight that changed. And not just that they didn't accept it, but vandalism was a part of it.
00:22:42.000And I mean, banging on our windows at three o'clock in the morning and just unreal, just unreal. Just
00:22:49.040the way people were acting towards me, towards the church members and whatnot. Very, very troubling.
00:22:56.160I would have never, never thought that that could come so quick.
00:23:00.040I know Windsor is not a small town as much, Pastor Rock, but in general, when you talked earlier about
00:23:05.200people in your congregation who have lost their jobs, who have faced some of that, there is still a
00:23:10.660significant aspect in these times of citizens turning on each other, of people putting these
00:23:16.360division lines in society, separating them from their, their fellow men and women.
00:23:21.660Yeah. I mean, I mean, early on, I think we've all been targeted on social media. You get hate
00:23:26.500messages and people telling you, I wish you were dead. Or, you know, I've, we've had members of our
00:23:31.600own family chased out of grocery stores and said, you know, I hope your family dies, your mother dies,
00:23:36.980your kid dies, your uncle dies and all this sort of stuff. So you get the verbal onslaught,
00:23:41.460a little bit of vandalism. We had roofing nails scattered in our parking lot. It punctured about
00:23:45.680four tires on four different cars. So we had that, um, lots of surveillance. We've had people come in
00:23:52.140and take secret pictures even two weeks ago in our service and submit those to the authorities. So
00:23:57.480we've had to heighten our security in that regard. So we've had those sorts of things take place.
00:24:02.180Um, I will say just in reference to your previous question, the Orthodox Jewish community in Toronto
00:24:07.600has been fairly vocal, uh, against the lockdowns and we worked with them early on. They perhaps
00:24:13.080didn't take as much heat because, uh, you know, their laws require the 10 men for a quorum and they
00:24:18.240were able to receive that early, early on, which led from the, uh, movement of minimum of five to a
00:24:24.660minimum of 10 for worship services. So they've kind of been involved in this and taken some heat as
00:24:28.940well. But I think the reason why Christian churches, especially Protestant churches tend
00:24:33.740to be targeted is because like it or lump it, the Western world was originally known as Christendom.
00:24:39.420And so the Judeo-Christian ethics were part and parcel of our law and our culture and our system.
00:24:46.220And those have largely become out of vogue. So in many respects, there's a certain undercurrent in
00:24:51.260culture that would say, yeah, you know what, the Judeo-Christian ethic is kind of old fashioned.
00:24:55.660It kind of gets in the way. So let's, let's make way for new worldviews. And so I think that is
00:25:00.460probably one of the underlying reasons why Christian or Christianized people tend to be
00:25:06.060targeted maybe a little bit more than other groups. And I would point out as well that,
00:25:11.260you know, a lot of people, and I've said this on the show in the past, a lot of people would
00:25:14.380withstand a lot if it were just for two weeks, that proverbial two weeks to flatten the curve where
00:25:19.900the government wasn't forcing it as much. You could have just as a good citizen said, okay,
00:25:23.660I'm going to agree to do X or refrain from doing Y. But a lot of this, a lot of these conflicts
00:25:30.220we've seen between government and civil liberties, government and the church are not temporary.
00:25:34.780They're proving to be enduring. And just earlier this month, New Brunswick put out its own rules
00:25:39.820in which they've said that churches will have to start checking vaccine passports unless they agree
00:25:45.580to do a bunch of things like no singing, mandatory masking, social distancing, these things. So
00:25:50.940the idea of putting a vaccine passport on church has now been tried, at least in some form. So Lisa,
00:25:57.260I do think this underscores the point that it is paramount to address these concerns now rather
00:26:03.100than just waiting them out, as some people have suggested. Right. But those challenges have already
00:26:09.260been undertaken to some degree. I mean, there have been cases trying to challenge the restrictions on
00:26:14.460religious liberty throughout the pandemic, and they've been unsuccessful so far. That's not to say that
00:26:19.260they will continue to be unsuccessful. But there are still cases before the courts. And nothing has
00:26:24.540gotten to the appellate level, I will emphasize as well, which may make all the difference. But
00:26:30.380nonetheless, we're seeing this sort of snowball effect across the country. And as we learn more
00:26:37.580about the limitations of the vaccines, it seems that the doubling down on insisting that every single
00:26:42.780person get one, you know, man, woman, child, baby and zoo animal, you know, it doesn't make any sense
00:26:51.020that it's continuing to be enforced. The evidence has been clear for many, many months. I remember
00:26:55.740speaking about this in the spring, that there was no evidence that these vaccines were designed to
00:27:02.700stop transmission. So there should be no case for a vaccine passport. It's purely a private benefit. If you
00:27:09.340want it, great, have it, you know, maybe it'll see you from a hospital trip. That's super. We should
00:27:14.940declare victory and move on. But instead, we've moved into this just unreal situation. I mean, I'll
00:27:21.740just say the work that I've been doing since I started my own practice a couple months ago has been
00:27:25.980almost exclusively around these vaccine mandates and university students being kicked out of school,
00:27:34.140their mental health, nobody cares about their mental health. These kids have gone through so much.
00:27:39.340people being terminated from their jobs, and the rest of society saying who cares if they don't
00:27:44.460get any safety net, throw them to the throw them to the streets. And now we've got places like New
00:27:50.780Brunswick talking about banning or banning people, or at least opening the door, I should say to banning
00:27:56.620people from grocery stores, if the store wants to implement a passport like that. So, you know, we,
00:28:03.980we should be stopping it. But it's just seems to be picking up speed and getting uglier and uglier by
00:28:09.820the day. I don't know where this goes. But we need to be thinking about safety nets for this for these
00:28:14.540people who are going to be in very dire situations come, you know, as we head into winter here. And as
00:28:21.500for the churches, yes, I, you know, I, when you see stuff like that happening, you know, it's just a
00:28:26.140matter of time before they start implementing these, these measures more widely, and it's not
00:28:31.420optional anymore. So by all means, you know, everybody who's concerned about this should be
00:28:36.220putting pressure on their politicians. These are not things, these are not things that are based in
00:28:40.220science, they are based on politics and polling and the culture generally. And so that's where the
00:28:44.860decisions have to be changed, the mindsets have to be changed. So everybody needs to get vocal about
00:28:49.820this and fast. Yeah, and I'll go to you on this, Pastor Rock, I think you tweeted about the the
00:28:54.940grocery store example a few days ago when this first came up. And one thing there that I find
00:29:00.700fascinating is that the joke that a lot of Christian friends I know used to make is, we'd all say,
00:29:05.420well, you know, we should just have our church in the Costco or have our church in the grocery store.
00:29:09.580And even now that might be off the table for people who are unvaccinated. So this idea of
00:29:13.980essential non essential is morphing very dramatically or has more very dramatically to
00:29:19.980if you're unvaccinated, you're not even entitled to go get food necessarily.
00:29:24.860Yeah, I mean, they're tightening the screws. I mean, apparently, people haven't read a lot
00:29:28.220of history recently, because while the circumstances are different. These are the classic movements of
00:29:34.060despots and tyrants. So you you you fire people, you actually put them on unpaid leave,
00:29:40.380you don't allow them to apply for EI, you threaten to permanently fire them if they take a side job to
00:29:46.300try to pay for groceries. But then you ban them potentially from the grocery stores to buy groceries.
00:29:51.740I mean, it's just, I'm surprised there hasn't been riots in the streets yet. Nobody wants to see that.
00:29:57.900But you're you're literally whittling people's freedoms down so that their most basic human needs,
00:30:03.820employment, food becomes increasingly unavailable to them. And we don't know where this is headed.
00:30:12.700But unless the brakes are put on pretty quickly, it's probably going to get even worse than this.
00:30:17.420And I think what happens is these sort of little measures that they put out these little threats,
00:30:22.300or these these laws are sort of tested at one jurisdiction. And if if society doesn't say anything,
00:30:27.580the populace doesn't rise up, then it starts to spread across the country. So we don't have,
00:30:33.100for example, mandatory vaccine passports in Ontario. But the health unit will come and say,
00:30:38.780hey, you know, if you want to be a good little boy, if you put your vaccine passports on the people in
00:30:44.220your church, then we'll let you open up a little bit more, we'll have a few more people in. So they're
00:30:48.380sort of testing the waters. And unfortunately, a lot of churches are now requiring vaccine passports
00:30:53.420when they're not even required by the state. And the state looks at that says, Well, if the rest of
00:30:58.060churches don't seem to mind doing it, let's just make a blanket law. So it is quite tyrannical. And
00:31:05.420as Lisa said, it's, you know, I've gotten to know a lot about politics in the last couple of years,
00:31:11.420so much of this is driven by political liability, a desire to be reelected and public polling, it's not
00:31:18.780driven by the science is not driven by the medicine really at all.
00:31:21.500You just brought up a point I wanted to get to Pastor Rock. So thank you for providing the
00:31:26.620natural segue there, which is the power that exists in these unelected local health authorities. I know
00:31:33.100you Pastor Hildebrandt have been up against this in Elgin County, where Elmer is, you had the local
00:31:38.300health department a while ago, ask you to voluntarily shut your doors. And I remember reporting because
00:31:44.140I got documents through Freedom of Information that showed when they did that, they were considering
00:31:49.180shutting you down involuntarily if you didn't comply. And now the health unit didn't do that,
00:31:53.660but they would have had the power to under I believe what's called a Section 22 order. So
00:31:59.100these local public health officials, which tend to fly under the radar in terms of scrutiny,
00:32:03.820and they certainly don't have democratic accountability, do have a lot of power.
00:32:07.660They do, they do. And they have way too much power, unelected officials. And they come across,
00:32:15.980I know it might be a little strong to say it like this, but they act, they act as if they're God. And
00:32:21.740I think Edmund Burke said that one time he said, when humans try to act like God, they behave like devils.
00:32:29.580And it truly is that way. You know, what's shocking to me is, so just was it two weeks ago,
00:32:35.900all of a sudden, our health official here in Elgin County, just all of a sudden, he's just one line
00:32:40.700in the London Free Press, just saying he's no longer there. Mr. Summers is in. We still don't
00:32:46.300know what happened. What happened? Is he, was he very sick? Or did he resign? Did he change his mind?
00:32:51.820What happened just quietly? He's gone. The next one is in. Why is this? What's the secrecy? Like,
00:32:57.660what is, what is going on here? I heard there's also similar things happening in Saskatchewan,
00:33:03.260I think, as we speak, or has just happened. Why is that? Why is there? What's the, what's the,
00:33:08.380like I said, what's the secrecy about it? But in my mind, they have far, far too much power.
00:33:14.620Like Lisa said earlier, if people want that, have it, do it. But where is our freedom? Who has the right
00:33:23.100to demand of me to, to expose my medical situation or tell people where I am, where I stand medically,
00:33:31.260whether I'm vaccinated or not? Why am I forced to declare it? Yeah, and Lisa, I mean, prior to last
00:33:38.940year, I had never read into the act that gave them these powers. And admittedly, when I did, I was
00:33:44.780shocked at just how much was there. The only thing you're, you're limited by, or the only thing they're
00:33:49.180limited by is perhaps their own self-determined restraint, which for public health officials
00:33:54.300hasn't been as ubiquitous as perhaps we'd like to see. I mean, this is a huge, huge gap in the law.
00:34:01.340Well, it's perfectly legal. You know, we have a system of legislative supremacy,
00:34:06.300and the government can make whatever laws it wants. And it made laws that delegated significant powers to
00:34:11.420public health officials, which, you know, most of us had never really seen them used before.
00:34:14.940Who knew that they had public health officials that, you know, in such number in this province,
00:34:21.420you know, they were really not part of our daily lives. But all of a sudden,
00:34:24.780they had these powers of pre-existing COVID-19, and they, there are very few limits on them.
00:34:31.100Basically, if there's a presence of a contagious disease, they have pretty much unlimited powers,
00:34:36.220as far as I can tell. So, and yes, it's contagious, but there doesn't seem to be
00:34:40.860much in the way of, you know, built-in restraint on, you know, how contagious and how, you know,
00:34:47.900how virulent and who is it impacting and all that kind of stuff. You know, all these measures are
00:34:53.340subject to the constitution, of course, to the charter rights, but they aren't going to be found
00:34:59.660to be in violation of that. So, it really is up to the government to say, okay, you know,
00:35:05.500we're going to pass legislation that limits this. And they haven't been. They're quite happy to,
00:35:10.940I don't know, keep this going. I mean, I'm really quite surprised by it. There have been a number of
00:35:14.460off-ramps that were available to the government along the way, and they haven't taken them.
00:35:19.420I don't quite understand it. So. Now, what do you mean by off-ramps there?
00:35:25.820Well, like I said earlier, you know, when the vaccines became readily available in this country
00:35:30.860and accessible to the elderly and the vulnerable who, you know, anyone who looks at the statistics,
00:35:36.220and I don't think most people do, frankly, because I think most people seem to think that this is
00:35:40.380absolutely dire for all age groups and all, you know, measures of health, but it's not. I mean,
00:35:47.180this has been an age stratified disease from day one, and we could recognize that back as early as
00:35:52.380March of 2020. You know, the vast majority of people who have been, who have passed away have been
00:35:59.100very elderly and with multiple comorbidities. It doesn't mean that it never hits younger people,
00:36:06.380but other contagious diseases do as well sometimes, and it's just, it's an unfortunate part of life.
00:36:12.860But nonetheless, once those vaccines became available and we were able to protect our vulnerable
00:36:18.140much better, because they did eliminate, at least for a while, the severity of the outcomes,
00:36:25.180that's when the governments probably could have said, all right, you know, great job,
00:36:28.700we've done it. We've got shots in the arms of everybody who needs it. It's time to move on.
00:36:32.940The rest, for most other people, it's going to be relatively harmless, and we'll manage, you know,
00:36:37.980we'll build up some intensive care capacity so that if there are problems, we can, we can,
00:36:44.220you know, accommodate, but they never really did that. And remember, the whole flatten the curve
00:36:48.940notion from the beginning was not crushing COVID. It was flattening it so that we didn't have to deal
00:36:55.420with everybody being sick at once. We were, there was never at the outset, this idea that we would
00:37:00.220eradicate the virus from the face of the earth, but that has, that is now the policy, it would seem,
00:37:06.220to eradicate it from the face of the earth and come hell or high water. And I think we're getting both,