Juno News - The Ontario Government doesn’t seem very “conservative” (Ft. Roman Baber)

00:00:00.000 Ontario doesn't feel like it's being run by conservatives. It feels like just another

00:00:04.240 liberal province being run by a government who thinks that they can make decisions about your

00:00:08.240 life better than you can. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.880 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Now, I am excited to be joined on

00:00:21.200 the podcast today by an independent MPP in Ontario, Roman Baber. So, Roman was elected

00:00:27.920 to represent the people of York Centre, which is in the GTA. Back in 2018, he was elected as a

00:00:33.360 member of the Progressive Conservative Party with the government of Doug Ford. And then in 2021,

00:00:40.160 about a year ago, he was kicked out of the PC caucus for voicing opposition against the

00:00:45.920 government lockdowns. Roman spent his childhood in the Soviet Union and Israel before moving to Canada

00:00:51.840 when he was 15 years old. Before entering politics, Roman worked as a lawyer in the GTA

00:00:57.520 and, like I said, he got kicked out of caucus by Premier Doug Ford for voicing opposition.

00:01:02.960 He wrote a great letter explaining, outlining all the reasons why he opposed the lockdowns and he

00:01:09.520 thought that the lockdowns were worse than the disease and the evidence that he put forward was

00:01:14.480 very, very compelling. Obviously, the Premier didn't like it and out he went. And since then,

00:01:18.800 he has sat as an independent and he's been a very outspoken advocate, articulating all of the

00:01:24.480 reasons why we need freedom and we don't need more heavy-handed measures to deal with COVID. So,

00:01:30.000 Roman, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:33.920 It's great to be with you, Candice. Thank you.

00:01:36.080 Okay. So, before we get into the sort of drama of what happened a year ago,

00:01:39.520 why don't you tell us a little bit about you and what made you decide to run as a Progressive

00:01:45.440 Conservative in the party with Premier Doug Ford?

00:01:49.280 Candice, I've always had an interest in public service and I think that one of the best things

00:01:55.840 one can do is to help other people. But also, I consider myself and I often say that I'm exhibit

00:02:02.560 A for Canadian Opportunity. We came to Canada when I was 15 to the very writing that I'm now blessed to

00:02:09.120 represent and we didn't have this sent to our name, but I've always had a job and I've always had this

00:02:15.040 incredible joy because I had opportunity and so I've always felt compelled to preserve Canadian

00:02:22.080 opportunity because all you need to do to succeed in Canada is work hard and be nice to people

00:02:27.520 and I'm concerned that that is regretfully slipping away and it's particularly slipping away

00:02:32.320 in the last couple of years. Well, I completely agree with that. Some of the nastiness that we see

00:02:38.400 online, it feels like Canada is slipping down a very tribalistic path and I know that social media

00:02:43.600 kind of accentuates the ugliness, but even just as an example, we saw the big trucker convoy going

00:02:50.720 across the country last week and a lot of the comments back and forth both ways were just really

00:02:56.080 really nasty and really un-Canadian to your point. Canadians defined as being nice and being polite and

00:03:02.560 being nice to each other and here we have the country sort of being torn apart over COVID, over the

00:03:08.960 way that the politicians and public health experts have handled this pandemic and crisis. So let's

00:03:16.080 talk a little bit about your opposition and your critique. What led you to write that letter? I know

00:03:23.360 you published part of it in the Toronto Sun and you put the whole thing out on your Twitter page, but what

00:03:27.920 led you to speak out and go against your own government? Candace, just very quickly to your

00:03:34.320 point, I'm very, very perplexed by the way that Canadians behave towards one another and it's not 1.00

00:03:38.160 just on social media. I see that in the store. I see that in everyday life. This fear that has been

00:03:45.760 fostered by government and public health has now turned into hate and it's unthinkable to me that Canadians

00:03:53.200 are capable of such an emotion and it's very, very important and that's why I've urged over the last

00:03:59.200 couple months, especially before Christmas, to try and get back to what makes us Canadian and that goes

00:04:05.440 for all sides of the ideological aisle. We have to show kindness to one another, we have to accept one

00:04:11.360 another and folks that agree with my persuasion should also reach out to folks on the other side of

00:04:18.400 this debate and say we all accept you and love you and we hope for the same thing. Hopefully kindness

00:04:25.200 will help us get us out of this. But in response to your question about the lockdowns, so this was

00:04:31.760 just over a year ago. I'm a friendly guy. I speak to a lot of people and I speak to a lot of constituents

00:04:37.920 and the level of carnage that I started hearing out there has just gotten to be too much. I would hear

00:04:45.040 of overdoses at least once or twice a week. I would hear of attempted suicides at least once a week. I

00:04:50.400 had constituents reaching out to me telling me that their surgeries are cancelled. I've heard from so

00:04:54.880 many parents and and I made children the centerpiece of my letter. I've heard from so many parents that

00:05:01.520 expressed sentiments like I don't recognize my child or I'm estranged from my child or my child's not

00:05:06.000 eating or overeating and and this cannot go on anymore. So I felt that I made an argument for

00:05:15.200 health and mental health. I felt that the mental health toll and the health toll of the pandemic

00:05:21.840 is not factored into or the pandemic response is not factored into our decision making but it should be

00:05:28.960 factored into our policy making. Well absolutely and you know what we see so much is politicians sort of

00:05:35.680 deferring to health experts but it's like which health experts why are they only looking at

00:05:40.720 virologists and looking at one narrow element which is the COVID virus disease why aren't they looking

00:05:47.840 at the broader picture of public health which as as you point out I'm going to just read a couple of

00:05:53.280 points from your letter which was so succinct and and now obviously this is a year old now so so the

00:05:58.800 numbers might not be completely accurate but but they still paint a pretty overwhelming picture you know

00:06:03.920 here you say cancer screenings at Princess Margaret are back to 60 percent with uh doctors fearing a

00:06:10.720 tsunami of cancer. Ontario's overdose rate is trending 50 percent above normal according to the Canadian

00:06:16.400 Mental Health Association 10 percent of adults reported feelings of suicide four times more than normal

00:06:23.840 the uh among young Canadians aged 19 to 35 the rate is 20 percent sick kids is calling the increase of

00:06:30.720 eating disorder in young people an unprecedented crisis tens of thousands of businesses shut down

00:06:35.680 the employment rate unemployment rate is nearly double 320 000 people have not regained work government

00:06:42.080 is criminalizing normal behavior and putting law-abiding Ontario Ontarians in legal jeopardy and and and

00:06:48.000 and then sort of on the on the flip side you know you talk about how the fatality rate for COVID is just

00:06:54.240 really not nearly as bad as what we hear in the media and what we hear from politicians and and sort of

00:07:00.400 talk about how the the picture is uh the the the problem of COVID is is really focused should be focused

00:07:06.560 more on places where they're very vulnerable people especially long-term care facilities and I've seen

00:07:11.680 statistics that um upwards of 85 or 90 percent of all deaths in the pandemic have been from people in

00:07:17.760 this age group and people who live in long-term care facilities so so so why are we taking it out on school 0.99

00:07:23.200 children and business owners and entrepreneurs Roman I just wonder you know uh we have a progressive

00:07:30.320 conservative government um you know Dougford's slogan is that Ontario is open for business and you know

00:07:37.120 a lot of people voted for him because they thought he was a businessman and an entrepreneur and someone

00:07:42.000 who understood the private sector and that was going to stand up to the unions and and and and frankly

00:07:46.880 we haven't seen much of that at all um like I said off the top it feels more like we have a liberal

00:07:51.120 government just because it's always government knows best and always heavy-handed measures uh

00:07:56.240 were you surprised um by the way that Doug Ford reacted to the pandemic

00:08:03.440 I would I would characterize Doug's response as political uh Doug is getting advice that he should

00:08:09.040 not have any daylight between him and the doctors to be clear Doug is in charge of what's transpiring

00:08:15.600 and he has veto power over anything that's recommended by the health table or uh by public

00:08:20.480 health Ontario just that uh they made a decision early on that the doctors are going to be more

00:08:25.200 popular there's a lot of um fear of the virus and now they have to respond to it accordingly and they

00:08:32.720 can't deviate from their direction because that would render their previous action and response to the

00:08:38.240 virus wrong and so they're stuck in this proposition where they cannot acknowledge uh their relative

00:08:46.080 risk and where the risk is but Candace with your permission I'd like to go back to the elements of

00:08:51.440 my letter and compare them a year later okay I I'm not I'm not looking for for vindication I'm not looking

00:08:58.080 to be told that I was right I'm I'm asking for for Doug Ford and Canadian governments to end these

00:09:05.040 lockdowns because the evidence has proven to be correct and I also ask that history judge lockdowns

00:09:12.000 fairly it's very very important for victims of COVID victims of of lockdowns and and the general

00:09:18.640 historical perspective when we deal with future crises or future pandemics that we don't succumb to

00:09:24.800 cancel culture that we don't succumb to groupthink and instead we entertain opinion and and we especially

00:09:30.800 entertain dissenting opinion by honest well-meaning professionals instead of censoring them or firing

00:09:36.800 them or kicking them out of caucus so I cited with your permission very quickly a crisis in in deaths

00:09:43.920 from overdoses and the figure I used at the time is that it was trending over 50 percent I was accused of

00:09:50.720 misinformation because at the time it was 38 percent the figures actually came in from Public Health Ontario

00:09:57.280 and it's at about 78 percent over year increase almost double Candace we have almost three times

00:10:04.080 number of people under age 50 that passed away from overdose the increase in deaths from overdose alone

00:10:10.800 is almost three times greater than deaths from COVID under age 50 and that's just overdose it's a

00:10:16.400 catastrophe on the cancer side and and that data is all available out there and is even cited by the

00:10:21.120 mainstream media I'll refer on that one I'll refer to the Toronto Star on May 12th in terms of uh cancer

00:10:27.840 screenings we have missed a million cancer screenings in Ontario from March to December 2020 that's

00:10:34.480 according to QP briefing and that figure has been verified and now we're seeing delayed diagnoses the

00:10:39.680 game with cancer is the earlier you detect it the better you get at it and we have doctors like Dr.

00:10:45.280 Malik from Mississauga like Dr. Singh from McMaster's Children's Hospital who said that if we just

00:10:49.840 diagnosed many children six months earlier their lives could have been saved that tsunami of cancer

00:10:56.320 unfortunately is here in terms of mental health in today's well mental health day we see remarkable

00:11:02.800 numbers according to Leger about a month ago we see that 17 percent of youth age 18 to 24 are seriously

00:11:10.800 weighing suicide youth age 18 to 45 that statistically thankfully is not at risk of the virus is anxious and

00:11:18.960 depressed we saw hospitalizations at McMaster for attempted suicide and youth triple we have a mental

00:11:25.360 health pandemic that was created as a result of our response to COVID and it's it's a very regrettable

00:11:33.840 mistake to be clear COVID is a very serious respiratory infection and it can be very dangerous to some

00:11:39.360 folks but we know where the risk is as you cited according to Statistics Canada mid-October more than 80 percent

00:11:46.960 of Canadians that passed away from COVID regretfully passed away in long-term care home and two years

00:11:52.800 later more than half of Ontario's long-term care homes are still in outbreak we need to fortify protection

00:11:59.040 of long-term care homes with infection control and staff and we need to focus on the frail elderly 0.69

00:12:04.880 instead of locking down 15 million people and making them sick well I couldn't agree more with that uh so

00:12:11.280 well put Roman now I just want to pick up on something you said because you said that uh premier

00:12:15.680 Doug Ford from your opinion estimation he didn't want there to be any daylight between him and the

00:12:20.080 doctor so he he just sort of goes out and whatever they say he says and he doesn't want to be seen as

00:12:24.800 being anti anti-science or whatever but but you you cite all these other doctors who have all these other

00:12:30.480 concerns about the second and third order consequences of COVID the suicides the cancer all of these diseases of

00:12:37.120 despair what what about those doctors why don't those doctors have the premier's ear and why doesn't

00:12:42.400 he take into consideration what they're saying because if if he if he did he would have a broader

00:12:47.680 picture and perhaps he wouldn't be so quick to to lock down the province again and again anytime there's

00:12:52.800 uh the slightest uptick in in hospital in ICU cases well Candace because up until recently those

00:12:59.280 doctors have been shut out I have not I have not questioned the government politically my letter was

00:13:05.680 respectful and it was well cited and I was removed from caucus two hours after its publication by a text

00:13:12.400 message about a bad breakup unfortunately dissenting voices in this pandemic have been in this pandemic

00:13:21.360 response have been completely dismissed and the the cancel culture the professional threats rendered

00:13:29.200 against doctors scientists academia and and uh accountants for lawyers who who voice uh questions about

00:13:39.760 numbers about data have been uh not just shut out they've been threatened into submission and that that

00:13:47.920 is very unfortunate because that does not that is not good for public health that is not good for public

00:13:53.680 policy and it's always good to have a good baseline of opinion to make an informed decision unfortunately by

00:14:02.000 the time that all these voices uh were able to penetrate and we now fully understand the toll of the pandemic

00:14:10.240 the narrative has become that you have to stop the spread you have to address cases in reality our hospital

00:14:18.960 capacity is now challenged but it's not challenged because of omicron it's challenged because we

00:14:23.520 traditionally have a hospital um shortage and and dysfunction mismanagement in ontario and what

00:14:32.480 i've always urged from from beginning from my letter is we really need to do two things other than ending

00:14:37.600 the lockdown so we need to protect long-term care and we need to build hospital capacity for whatever comes

00:14:43.520 next and two years later doug uh has failed to do that we now have less capacity than we did uh in

00:14:51.600 the at the beginning of the pandemic we have definitely less staff than we did in the pandemic

00:14:55.440 and instead of getting all hands on deck like doug says getting all healthcare workers um on site

00:15:02.320 we're we're firing but we fired uh workers that made a different medical choice we're keeping them

00:15:08.240 home due to isolation protocols we're capping their pay at one percent we're doing everything

00:15:12.960 possible to suppress it so we need to change strategy here we need to return to normal and

00:15:18.000 build healthcare capacity and protect long-term care well i i would i would uh take a different

00:15:24.000 approach and say that we need more options in terms of healthcare we need more people who will deliver

00:15:29.680 it more private options more just more choice because having a centrally planned government-run

00:15:35.040 healthcare system hasn't seemed to work very well and i knew so many people um i mean myself i i was

00:15:42.320 right at the beginning of the pandemic i was pregnant and i had to go and do my uh ob appointments

00:15:48.400 and it was completely ridiculous because it would take four hours just to see a doctor um for a routine

00:15:53.840 appointment and you know there was no other choice it wasn't i didn't have an option to go to a

00:15:57.840 different facility it was like uh i felt really stuck and i i think so many people feel that way with

00:16:04.560 the canadian healthcare system they don't get the treatment they need and they don't have an alternative

00:16:08.720 choice um unlike you know most other countries where you would have a choice of a different uh

00:16:14.160 system but but that's that's probably a conversation for another day roman uh just as a final question

00:16:19.200 for you here it seems to me that with the onset of omicron everything has changed i mean i know so

00:16:27.280 many people who are fully vaccinated and who have still gotten covid so the idea that we have this huge

00:16:32.800 push to get vaccinated even though the the the rationale early on to get vaccinated was to stop

00:16:40.720 the spread stop the transmission the purpose behind the uh covid passports or the vaccine mandates uh was

00:16:48.000 so that we wouldn't have unvaccinated people in restaurants and gyms and bars spreading covid

00:16:53.360 but it seems from the data i've looked at and from you know the the world around us over the last two

00:16:59.040 three months that omicron spreads regardless of vaccination status and so given this change in

00:17:05.760 facts given the change in science i mean we've seen the uk take a step back and pretty much abandon

00:17:11.440 all of the measures that they had they no longer require masks they no longer require vaccine

00:17:16.480 passports they no longer have any lockdowns it seems like that's the direction that some countries

00:17:22.720 are going in sort of admitting that the situation has changed and therefore the old strategy just

00:17:28.160 doesn't really apply anymore frankly it didn't work in the first place but i don't expect politicians

00:17:33.360 to admit that part but at least many are admitting okay let's let's move on to a different strategy

00:17:38.000 different path we don't really see much of that in canada at all certainly not ontario certainly not

00:17:42.080 in quebec uh certainly not federally uh do you think that that we can kind of see the light at the

00:17:47.280 end of the tunnel isn't this pandemic is is almost over given you know the fact that omicron is spreading

00:17:52.640 so much and it's much more mild a lot of people will be able to recover it from it and have their

00:17:57.680 natural immunity it won't matter as much if you've gotten boosted or if you're vaccinated or not if

00:18:02.240 you've recovered from it and have the antibodies do do you see an end in sight here candace the the

00:18:09.280 end in sight if it comes along would be a political end uh where um leadership has to acknowledge

00:18:17.200 that it's impossible to arrest the spread of such a transmissible virus and that you cannot vaccinate your

00:18:24.880 way out of this pandemic public health has and and for the record i'm pro-volunteer vaccination and

00:18:32.080 and it's regretful to me that we're now seeing effectively uh an attempt or suggestion that we

00:18:38.480 need to redesign our democracy because we have a couple of hundred uh folks in an icu for a province 0.99

00:18:44.960 of 15 million people that's shameful to go back to your previous point for a moment um i'm of the view

00:18:51.280 that that we can improve health care significantly we can improve management of health care and

00:18:55.840 delivery still within the framework of the canada health act we just don't have the political will

00:19:02.240 to call out government and bureaucratic mismanagement of ontario's health care we have more bureaucrats

00:19:08.400 working at the ministry of health than physicians in ontario we take 12 years to build a hospital and and and

00:19:15.600 that is unsustainable but to your point the the the mood of the day the suggestion that we need to

00:19:25.760 treat canadians that made a different medical choice is not just uh grotesque to me it's also not based in

00:19:32.720 any science because we understand that the vaccine doesn't stop transmission we even understood that

00:19:37.920 before omicron but especially with omicron with some public health experts suggesting that two shots are

00:19:43.440 are ineffective to stop the spread and the medical officer himself said that um the virus is now

00:19:49.680 circulating amongst fully vaccinated individuals so any suggestion that anyone needs to get vaccinated

00:19:56.480 in order to protect another person it respectfully is off the table and should not be maintained and and

00:20:04.240 what what i would say is that then takes the argument for passports and mandates also off the table

00:20:10.720 not to mention their discriminatory effect the fact that we have segregation running in the province

00:20:15.840 of ontario it's completely unjustifiable it weighs on us as as a as a community and it needs to end

00:20:24.160 immediately well i i completely agree and i remember at one point premier doug ford agreed with

00:20:29.840 that as well because he said that he didn't want to live in a two-tier society and that weren't going to

00:20:33.280 do it uh before before he changed his mind of course uh well roman i i i really appreciate you coming

00:20:38.000 on the show i appreciate your insights we'll have to have you back on the show we can have a a full

00:20:41.920 debate on the uh on the future of canadian health care because i think i think you and i don't don't

00:20:46.560 necessarily see eye to eye there but i think you did raise some some great points uh we appreciate

00:20:51.360 having you on the show i appreciate all you're doing out there in york center and in ontario fighting

00:20:55.920 back against the lunacy and fighting for freedom in canada thank you so much thank you so much

00:21:00.960 candace all right thanks for tuning in i'm candace malcolm and this is the candace malcolm show

00:21:08.000 is

00:21:14.880 you

00:21:15.440 i

Juno News - February 02, 2022

The Ontario Government doesn’t seem very “conservative” (Ft. Roman Baber)

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