Juno News - January 24, 2021


The Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies


Episode Stats


Length

3 minutes

Words per minute

151.69557

Word count

586

Sentence count

38


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Seasonal flu season is officially over, but there are still too many cases across the country. Is this a good or bad thing? And why is there still so much confusion about the cause of the pandemic?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 One thing we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that a healthy dose of skepticism
00:00:10.480 is necessary when listening to our political leaders and public health officials.
00:00:15.640 Brian Lilly did a great summary of quotes in the Toronto Sun.
00:00:19.080 It's stunning really how wrong these folks were out of the gate and they have kept it up to this day.
00:00:24.060 The target keeps moving and our leaders keep guessing, much to the chagrin of the rest of us.
00:00:30.600 Government policy has been driven by the daily number of cases, not the number of hospitalizations or deaths,
00:00:38.280 although even that number is skewed in as much as most of the deaths have occurred in long-term care facilities.
00:00:44.740 But even that is not instructive.
00:00:47.400 Many, if not most, residents in LTC facilities have other medical problems.
00:00:52.440 The question then becomes, what did they die from?
00:00:56.660 Was it a coronary condition or was it the virus?
00:01:00.640 In most cases, we just don't know.
00:01:03.240 We have all seen the stories of COVID-19 being blamed for all manner of routine deaths.
00:01:08.360 While on that subject, it seems remarkable that the virus has managed to eradicate seasonal flu.
00:01:13.900 It's a miracle.
00:01:15.280 Health Canada tracks seasonal influenza.
00:01:17.620 This is from their website on a page entitled Flu Watch Summary.
00:01:21.040 They track the stats on a weekly basis.
00:01:23.520 Quote,
00:01:23.960 All indicators of influenza activity remain exceptionally low for this time of year,
00:01:29.320 despite continued monitoring for influenza across Canada.
00:01:33.780 Unquote.
00:01:34.420 Typically, we have thousands of cases of flu,
00:01:37.180 and many people die from ramifications such as pneumonia and other respiratory issues.
00:01:42.900 Magically, that's all gone.
00:01:44.820 How is that even possible?
00:01:46.200 Then, just this week, we learned that the WHO says the much-vaunted PCR test for the virus returns many false positives,
00:01:56.680 as much as a 25 to 50 percent ratio.
00:02:00.100 Yet, these are all new case numbers that are put out by governments across the country regularly,
00:02:05.780 and which drive public policy.
00:02:07.620 Public policy across the country is different as different jurisdictions decide what exactly their policy and response should be.
00:02:18.000 This is perhaps the worst in Ontario, which is under a broad lockdown and curfews.
00:02:23.320 Some police agencies in Ontario seem to have somehow decided.
00:02:27.880 The Charter of Rights and Freedoms no longer applies, given the strict regulations.
00:02:32.460 This is dangerous ground.
00:02:36.000 Nowhere in the Charter does it say, quote,
00:02:38.600 except in the case of a pandemic, unquote.
00:02:41.420 It is the paramount law of the land, and protects the rights of us all, or at least it should.
00:02:46.680 In Canadian law, there are sometimes one-off cases,
00:02:49.860 which allows the police to do something they otherwise wouldn't.
00:02:53.660 But the action must be lawful and reasonable.
00:02:57.020 That is not absolute either.
00:02:58.740 Many of these cases must still withstand a charter challenge in court.
00:03:04.320 In Toronto last week, two persons engaged in an anti-lockdown protest in Yonge-Dundas Square
00:03:10.900 were arrested for reasons that seem unclear.
00:03:14.700 They were engaged in their right to free speech and their right to protest.
00:03:18.940 How is that lawful or reasonable for police to make those arrests?
00:03:23.820 Ontario is also the only jurisdiction that has closed ski hills and toboggan runs.
00:03:28.740 One wonders where the logic in that decision comes from.
00:03:32.280 Wasn't being outside one of the best ways to lower transmission rates?
00:03:37.080 And when did tobogganing become a lethal sport?
00:03:41.060 It would seem that COVID-19 has driven common sense from the room.
00:03:45.700 One wonders when there will be any sign of it returning.
00:03:49.340 For True North, I'm Leo Knight.