Juno News - “We’re all in this together, you idiots!”

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

00:00:06.600 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.660 Coming up, Brian Pallister's Oscar-worthy performance about lockdowns,

00:00:16.920 the importance of vaccine choice, and people dying on waiting lists in Canada.

00:00:22.960 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:26.560 Hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:33.940 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, still an essential service in the dominion of Canada,

00:00:40.340 at least for the time being. I think I used that joke on Monday, but it's not a joke at this point.

00:00:45.140 You got to keep clarifying that you are essential and make sure you are because all of a sudden

00:00:49.920 you're going to find that the lockdown police, and the lockdown police are actually the politicians,

00:00:54.820 more on that later, that they are out to get you pretty much no matter what.

00:00:59.700 I've seen stories from people in Manitoba about like just pretty much anything and everything

00:01:05.280 being declared non-essential, including at one store, sweaters. Their interpretation I had read

00:01:11.560 on Twitter was that sweaters were non-essential, so they were cordoned off and you couldn't get them,

00:01:16.400 which I've never been to Manitoba in the winter, but from everything I've understood,

00:01:20.920 sweaters are pretty darn essential there.

00:01:22.840 I'm going to say something that has probably never been said in the history of the world before,

00:01:27.960 which is I think Brian Pallister is the most important thing right now.

00:01:32.120 And with all due respect to people in Manitoba, the premier right now is so high on his horse,

00:01:38.040 it's a wonder he can see anything, which is pretty rare for him given that he's already,

00:01:42.080 I think like 6'8 or something.

00:01:43.380 But I want to play this clip and it's going to be a couple of minutes, but I've already shrunk it

00:01:48.800 down here because the original was four minutes and there was a lot to it, but I want you to hear,

00:01:55.040 I'll just talk about it on the other side. I want you to hear what Brian Pallister said in his address

00:02:00.000 to the province this week.

00:02:01.280 Know this about me. I did not get into politics for the adulation.

00:02:07.360 I got into politics to do the right thing, try to save my town, try to help people.

00:02:14.100 I do what I believe is right. I do what I believe is necessary. This is who you need right now.

00:02:20.380 I am that person. I will do what I believe is right. And right now we need to save lives.

00:02:32.560 If you don't think that COVID is real, right now you're an idiot. You need to understand 1.00

00:02:38.640 that we're all in this together. You cannot fail to understand this. Stay apart.

00:02:45.820 So I'm the guy who has to tell you to stay apart at Christmas and in the holiday season you celebrate

00:02:53.980 with your faith or without your faith, that you celebrate with normally with friends and with family

00:02:59.460 that where you share memories and build memories. I'm that guy. And I'll say that

00:03:07.340 because it will keep you safe.

00:03:15.820 I'm the guy who's stealing Christmas to keep you safe

00:03:19.400 because you need to do this now. You need to do the right thing

00:03:24.500 because next year we'll have lots to celebrate

00:03:27.720 and we'll celebrate this year if we do the right thing this year.

00:03:33.000 You don't need to like me.

00:03:35.720 I hope in years to come you might respect me for having the guts to tell you the right thing.

00:03:40.640 And here's the right thing. Stay safe. Protect each other. Love each other. Care for each other.

00:03:47.740 You got so many ways to show that. But don't get together this Christmas. Thank you.

00:03:54.120 Okay. So I don't know what the worst part of that is. I don't know if it's Brian Palliser's

00:04:00.440 martyr complex, if it's him choking up as he tells everyone that he is the leader they all need, 1.00

00:04:06.540 or if it's him calling people idiots in the same breath as saying we're all in this together. 1.00

00:04:12.220 Listen to this. I want you to listen to the gap. It wasn't even a full second between one and the other. 0.99

00:04:17.180 If you don't think that COVID's real, right now you're an idiot. 1.00

00:04:21.500 You need to understand that we're all in this together. You cannot fail to understand this. 1.00

00:04:28.520 We're all in this together, you morons. That's basically the Brian Pallister message when it comes to 2020. 1.00

00:04:34.240 Now, listen, I am all for the understanding that politicians have had to make tough calls

00:04:39.660 and that in many cases it may not bring them any joy or delight to do it.

00:04:44.280 But let's be perfectly frank here. You are not the hero when you have to tell everyone that you're the hero.

00:04:50.200 And more importantly, you're not a hero to the people who are literally being charged by police

00:04:55.940 at the direction of you, at the direction of your government, for the supposed crimes of working and worshipping.

00:05:02.520 These things are illegal and non-essential for a great many people in Manitoba right now.

00:05:07.480 So I'm not going to buy into this myth that Brian Pallister is peddling that he's the real victim here.

00:05:14.380 The I'm the guy that's stealing Santa Claus, oh woe is me.

00:05:17.440 And I mean, he's trying to do this sort of faux stoicism

00:05:20.380 to deflect from the people whose livelihood has been thrown into a lurch because of him.

00:05:27.880 Because of him taking a course of action that not only has not been proven,

00:05:33.880 but has actually been disproven.

00:05:36.100 All of the data available are showing that lockdowns do not work,

00:05:40.780 which is why we are in the place that we are in right now.

00:05:44.340 Lockdowns are not effective.

00:05:46.340 So for him to do the most overzealous lockdown in Canada,

00:05:51.720 this is not something that will have a net positive consequence.

00:05:56.920 I saw a satirical article this week that made me chuckle.

00:05:59.560 Pallister closes province after Manitoba deemed non-essential.

00:06:03.680 That was in The Screaming Goose, which is a newer satirical publication

00:06:07.520 that so far I'm seeing is pretty darn funny.

00:06:10.560 And look, I mean, no offense to people in Manitoba,

00:06:13.180 but if this is what passes for good governance there,

00:06:16.160 yeah, there might be some truth to that idea

00:06:17.720 of the province being declared non-essential.

00:06:19.940 Certainly we can declare Brian Pallister non-essential

00:06:22.380 and then we wouldn't have to deal with these overdramatic pieces.

00:06:25.920 You know, just in time for the Oscars.

00:06:27.380 I read this week that the Oscars are still going ahead

00:06:29.940 with their in-person telecast.

00:06:31.460 So maybe Brian Pallister is looking for a last minute nomination or something.

00:06:34.980 Who knows?

00:06:35.820 And you know, the idea of lockdown versus liberty

00:06:38.860 is one that, all joking aside, needs to be understood

00:06:44.080 as being the real battleground for politics right now.

00:06:48.180 And I think every conservative politician needs to be doing

00:06:51.160 what Jason Kenney is doing, which is standing up and saying,

00:06:54.460 listen, we are not going to lock ourselves down into success.

00:06:58.420 We're not going to lock ourselves down into victory against the pandemic,

00:07:01.920 against COVID-19.

00:07:03.220 And I asked Aaron O'Toole last week about this.

00:07:06.880 He had a press conference, he was talking about a number of things.

00:07:09.420 And I asked him this question, and I want you to listen to the response.

00:07:14.000 Good morning, Mr. O'Toole.

00:07:15.320 In the last week, we've had a pastor, an Ontario legislator,

00:07:19.240 and numerous other Canadians ticketed for attending anti-lockdown protests

00:07:24.320 across the country.

00:07:25.480 And I'm wondering what your thought is on these actions

00:07:28.320 by law enforcement officials and by provincial governments.

00:07:32.480 Well, as you know, I think it's important for all Canadians

00:07:34.860 to heed the advice of public health authorities.

00:07:38.460 I mentioned that in my remarks here, Andrew.

00:07:40.680 I think that that's one of the accomplishments

00:07:43.040 that Canadians can be proud of over the last 10, 11 months.

00:07:48.340 Our country has rallied around some of the advice

00:07:51.640 from public health officials, from elected officials.

00:07:54.500 And we must continue to do that.

00:07:56.900 At the same time, I've also said,

00:07:58.480 we need to give Canadians even more information.

00:08:00.840 I've been asking the Prime Minister this.

00:08:03.100 I suggested this to Dr. Tam in one of my briefings.

00:08:06.320 We need to allow Canadians to make even smarter decisions.

00:08:09.160 Where are transmissions taking place so that they can guard themselves?

00:08:14.060 We've now practiced distancing, mask usage, hand washing,

00:08:18.260 and other things which were the early direction in the pandemic.

00:08:21.460 We need to equip and trust Canadians with more information

00:08:24.300 on that transmission point because that will allow us

00:08:27.660 to keep potentially more economic activity going.

00:08:30.900 That will allow Canadians to be even more prepared

00:08:33.760 to avoid the transmission risk in certain circumstances.

00:08:37.580 And I appreciated that Dr. Tam took my question, my advice,

00:08:42.660 and I would like to see that more common

00:08:44.900 because I think Canadians need more information, not less.

00:08:48.340 Now, I know O'Toole has been dragged a fair bit online for that,

00:08:51.660 and I think with good reason because there was not an answer in that.

00:08:55.840 There was not a response to that in the question.

00:08:58.820 And listen, I know Aaron O'Toole is a new leader.

00:09:00.800 He's been on the job for 100 days right now.

00:09:03.000 But I would like to see conservative politicians

00:09:05.360 unafraid to stand up and say,

00:09:06.880 listen, it is possible to both take the virus seriously

00:09:10.360 while also not legitimizing this incredibly coercive

00:09:14.540 and ineffective approach that the enforcement-minded people have taken.

00:09:18.880 And that, I think, is a completely defensible position

00:09:22.400 and one that people need to own,

00:09:24.460 one that people need to stand up to say,

00:09:26.320 yeah, you know what, this is just plain wrong.

00:09:29.520 I spoke on Monday about the criminalization of everything,

00:09:33.100 the criminalization of a pastor, a politician,

00:09:35.800 and a barbecue restaurant owner as being the emblems of this idea

00:09:40.900 that's going on right now, the lockdown mentality.

00:09:43.240 And the level of misinformation that's gone around about these incidents since my show,

00:09:48.580 not because of my show, but just since that time and those stories,

00:09:52.100 is pretty ridiculous, including people trying to say

00:09:55.060 that, well, you know, Randy Hilliard wasn't charged 0.98

00:09:57.780 for dissenting with the government or protesting.

00:10:00.560 He was charged for attending a mass gathering

00:10:03.260 as though that was not, in fact, the protest.

00:10:06.680 But take a look at this tweet.

00:10:07.780 This was from Toronto Police in response to a criticism from right-wing MBS.

00:10:13.940 Now, I don't know right-wing MBS,

00:10:16.400 but, or maybe it's just MBZ, but I don't know.

00:10:18.980 A right-wing MBS had gotten a good answer out of Toronto Police here

00:10:23.220 about the ticketing of Randy Hilliard.

00:10:25.940 And Toronto Police said each case would have to be investigated differently,

00:10:29.100 yada, yada, yada.

00:10:30.120 It's not an offense to attend a protest

00:10:32.120 so long as you adhere to social distancing laws or have an exemption.

00:10:36.540 And Randy Hilliard was charged for organizing the protest.

00:10:41.900 So what Toronto Police are saying here is that you're allowed to go to a protest,

00:10:47.040 but you can't organize a protest that people could go to.

00:10:50.920 So if a protest just comes about organically, that's fine.

00:10:54.180 If you show up at one, that's fine.

00:10:56.040 If Randy Hilliard were to go to a neighboring protest,

00:10:58.500 then he'd be good, but he can't go to his own.

00:11:01.080 So the only answer I can think of to this is just to have dueling protests set up.

00:11:06.600 Where, you know, let's say Randy Hilliard does a protest in one block,

00:11:10.540 and then a few blocks over someone else does a protest,

00:11:13.280 but they only show up to each other's.

00:11:15.620 They don't show up to their own.

00:11:17.020 I don't know if they still get ticketed for organizing a protest.

00:11:20.720 But the absurdity of this, that you have a right to assemble,

00:11:23.680 you have the right to free speech, you can go to one,

00:11:26.040 but you can't plan one.

00:11:28.420 So it means that what the government is trying to do here is say

00:11:30.780 that you don't have the right to have them.

00:11:33.720 You don't have the right to be there.

00:11:35.800 I mean, because again, if they're trying to say that no one should be allowed

00:11:39.180 to create something for you to attend,

00:11:42.120 they're really trying to say they don't want you to attend.

00:11:44.280 They just know it's not going to look good

00:11:45.680 if they come in and start ticketing absolutely anyone and everyone under the sun,

00:11:49.380 which it's increasingly looking like is happening in a broader context here.

00:11:54.360 Manitoba had in the span of just one week, last week,

00:11:58.020 $181,000 worth of fines issued.

00:12:02.180 Some of those were for not adequately enforcing social distancing in a store.

00:12:06.800 Some were not forcing people to wear a mask.

00:12:09.480 There were any number of reasons,

00:12:11.280 but the reality is $181,000 taken from businesses

00:12:16.260 who again have had to shut down

00:12:18.380 or have had to severely restrict their operations.

00:12:21.380 And the idea that we are now going after these businesses

00:12:23.640 who have very little discretionary cash lying around

00:12:27.500 and are saying,

00:12:28.540 oh, you know, that's $5,000 to old Brian Pallister's enforcement officers there.

00:12:33.520 $5,000.

00:12:34.400 That's what a lot of these fines are going for, 0.66

00:12:36.580 which is just absolutely asinine in a province that is,

00:12:41.120 I don't even know if Manitoba is pretending it stands up for business right now, 0.92

00:12:44.460 but in a country where we should all be standing up for business,

00:12:47.180 it is just despicable.

00:12:49.660 And listen, I know it's not in Canada,

00:12:51.380 but I want to just put into perspective some of the things that are happening here,

00:12:55.320 because in New York, there was a story

00:12:56.920 where a bar owner who defied coronavirus restrictions was arrested.

00:13:02.840 Now that in and of itself is bad,

00:13:04.800 but if you look at what happened,

00:13:06.120 police decided to stage a sting operation.

00:13:09.520 So they sent undercover officers into Max Public House on Staten Island.

00:13:14.260 They all just, you know, pretended they were having a good old time.

00:13:17.140 They ordered food, they ordered drinks,

00:13:18.560 and then, you know, talk about a great bill at the end of it,

00:13:22.800 because the, you know, the guy realizes that he's now been charged.

00:13:26.920 The people he's been serving were actually partaking in an undercover investigation,

00:13:31.040 a secret operation.

00:13:32.600 This is not where you want law enforcement's priorities to be.

00:13:37.000 Now we're talking about New York City here.

00:13:39.240 I believe there were probably some other criminal actions taking place

00:13:42.920 at the same time that might have taken priority.

00:13:45.440 I don't know if they had the, you know,

00:13:46.880 the big NYPD surveillance van parked around the street.

00:13:49.640 I don't know how many people were involved in the operation,

00:13:52.400 but suffice it to say, one is too many.

00:13:55.740 One is too many to have in something like this.

00:13:59.200 But this is now the priority.

00:14:00.880 We're now just transforming our culture into this snitch culture.

00:14:04.420 As I joked last week, we went from we're all in this together to snitch on your neighbors,

00:14:09.560 and now the new one from Brian Pallister, 1.00

00:14:11.500 we're all in this together, you idiots, which is actually my favorite. 1.00

00:14:14.620 That's the bumper sticker for 2020. 1.00

00:14:16.240 We're all in this together, you idiots. 1.00

00:14:18.540 And you could just, there's something for everyone in that line, I assure you. 1.00

00:14:21.700 Not just for Pallister, but I get a bit of joy out of it as well.

00:14:25.480 But this is now what's happening.

00:14:27.140 So Max Public House, their whole thing was, I thought, pretty great.

00:14:30.640 They had declared themselves an autonomous zone.

00:14:33.340 So they had, remember when Chaz was around, the autonomous zone,

00:14:36.880 and not Chaz Bono, the autonomous zone out in the West Coast,

00:14:40.440 where they were deciding to just basically allow the anarchists to run the show for a few days,

00:14:46.260 which is why it didn't work, because these people can't actually run anything.

00:14:49.760 But police just retreated.

00:14:51.020 Police put their hands up, walked back.

00:14:52.660 The politicians were saying, we don't want to challenge this.

00:14:55.740 So the bar decided it would declare itself an autonomous zone.

00:14:59.140 And again, I think that's a novel idea, a good way to skirt lockdown.

00:15:01.920 Didn't work, as we learned from the police doing the undercover investigation there and the operation.

00:15:08.640 There was also in the UK a tequila bar that decided it would do what I thought was, again, quite novel,

00:15:15.960 apply for church status.

00:15:17.380 So not that I view tequila as necessarily a form of worship,

00:15:20.840 but they decided that, hey, if bars are non-essential and churches are essential,

00:15:24.780 this bar thing isn't working out for us right now.

00:15:26.840 So why don't we try being a church?

00:15:28.960 I'm not sure if their status has been approved or denied yet.

00:15:31.980 But this is what it's coming to.

00:15:33.560 And these cases are amusing. 0.98

00:15:34.900 They're silly, for sure. 0.53

00:15:36.160 But they're reiterating, I think, a very genuine problem, 0.99

00:15:40.040 which is that these people are kind of desperate right now.

00:15:43.620 They don't have other options available to them.

00:15:46.240 When the state just keeps saying, no, you cannot be a business.

00:15:49.260 You cannot govern yourself.

00:15:50.620 You cannot run your operations, despite the fact that these places are not the problem.

00:15:56.760 The cases, the transmissions are not coming from bars and restaurants.

00:16:02.260 Take a look at London, Ontario this past week.

00:16:04.420 I know it's my own city, but a lot's been happening here.

00:16:07.000 There was an outbreak, and multiple outbreaks actually, at the hospital.

00:16:11.040 And the people being blamed for this are staff, are a lot of nurses and people working in the hospital

00:16:17.000 who decided they were going to get together on different floors, have a potluck or something like that.

00:16:22.340 And I know people that work at the hospital.

00:16:23.880 I don't think that it's important or good to vilify healthcare workers or any frontline workers.

00:16:30.300 But for all of the people in businesses in Ontario that have been told,

00:16:34.640 I know you can't have your restaurant, you can't have your bar,

00:16:37.180 you can't have your church service the way you want it.

00:16:39.140 And now here we have the essential healthcare workers

00:16:41.980 who are responsible for outbreaks in a hospital in multiple units.

00:16:47.000 And the point of that is to say that, listen,

00:16:49.620 the places that are being scapegoated are not the problems.

00:16:53.880 We're going to talk about the vaccines when we come back here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:16:57.440 Stay tuned.

00:16:58.980 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:17:02.740 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.

00:17:06.500 So this is, I realize, a polarizing topic to the audience here.

00:17:11.920 So I'm interested in hearing what you think about it.

00:17:13.640 And that is the COVID-19 vaccine that is being rolled out to basically everywhere in the world,

00:17:19.880 except in Canada right now.

00:17:21.500 That's kind of what we're seeing.

00:17:23.100 The UK is sending it out, I think, within the next couple of days.

00:17:26.260 The US is going to have it within the next couple of weeks.

00:17:28.920 Canada will have it at some point by the end of 2021, maybe, if we're lucky.

00:17:33.240 That's basically the takeaway from this.

00:17:35.540 Now, I know there are a lot of people that are skeptical of the vaccine.

00:17:39.480 And I know there are a lot of people that are skeptical of the government.

00:17:43.080 And when you have the government, which is responsible for acquiring and rolling out the vaccine

00:17:47.380 and not particularly doing a good job, I get it.

00:17:50.280 Here's the thing.

00:17:51.040 I am pro-vaccine.

00:17:52.340 I am anti-mandatory vaccine.

00:17:55.260 I think those are entirely reconcilable positions.

00:17:57.940 I will have no issues taking a COVID-19 vaccine, but I would never in a million years force other

00:18:03.060 people to do it.

00:18:03.900 And that's a position we need to see more of, which is just saying, hey, I trust other

00:18:08.620 people to make decisions that are right for them.

00:18:11.640 And the whole nature of vaccinations is that if it's important to you, you get it.

00:18:15.860 If it's important to you, you get it and you protect yourself if that's what you're after.

00:18:20.140 So the idea of taking aim at people who want to ensure it remains voluntary, I don't buy

00:18:25.660 into.

00:18:26.060 And this is what's happening with a petition that Derek Sloan, former conservative leadership

00:18:30.380 candidate, put forward.

00:18:31.480 Now, by the way, when an MP tables a petition, a lot of the time, it's not necessarily a reflection

00:18:37.720 of that MP's view.

00:18:39.220 It may be.

00:18:39.940 Sometimes it's just that a constituent handed an MP this big giant petition and they say,

00:18:45.160 okay, I'm going to do my job.

00:18:46.780 And that's been an excuse that the Green Party and the NDP have used whenever they've been

00:18:50.600 caught tabling kind of wacky petitions.

00:18:53.960 But in this particular case, the petition looks at a number of things connected to a COVID-19

00:18:59.760 vaccine, raises issues about the rushed nature of it, the fact that some manufacturers are

00:19:05.440 being granted legal immunity, the fact that the long-term adverse effects may not be known

00:19:09.960 for years.

00:19:10.540 The petition calls on the government to say that it preserves and protects legal, ethical

00:19:16.680 and moral right to inform consent, legally ensure vaccines are voluntary, require that

00:19:22.400 safety studies comply with standards, create a committee with stakeholder representatives and

00:19:26.860 so on and so forth, and develop a vaccine injury compensation program.

00:19:31.860 So even if you disagree with some of the preambulatory clauses of this, such as the safety issues or

00:19:38.460 whatever the case may be, all this petition is really calling for is, hey, make sure they're

00:19:43.760 safe, make sure they're voluntary.

00:19:45.600 And those are things that are not or should not be controversial.

00:19:48.820 But again, the amount of people that are now pushing towards something that is looking like

00:19:55.340 a push for mandatory vaccination is pretty concerning.

00:19:59.920 But at the same time, I'm also of the mind that if people want this, they should have it

00:20:04.620 available to them.

00:20:05.620 And it's a tremendous failure on the part of the Canadian government that this isn't happening.

00:20:10.620 The goalposts keep moving.

00:20:12.240 Look at what Seamus O'Regan tweeted the other day.

00:20:14.620 He said, every Canadian will have access to an effective and free vaccine once it's ready.

00:20:21.180 Yeah, the operative clause of that is the once it's ready, because the government just

00:20:25.760 put all of its eggs in one basket.

00:20:28.060 And that was the CanSino project, which ended up going nowhere.

00:20:31.380 The real success has come from Pfizer, from Moderna, from Johnson & Johnson.

00:20:35.600 That one's a little bit lagging behind.

00:20:37.760 But the Chinese Canadian vaccine project went nowhere.

00:20:41.800 But that was pretty much the entirety of the Trudeau government's vaccine plan.

00:20:46.280 So now we're left with our tail between our legs without the vaccine that everyone else

00:20:50.900 in the world is getting.

00:20:52.040 And we're supposed to be happy that as the Moderna CEO or spokesperson said, we're not

00:20:57.640 at the back of the line.

00:20:59.240 Well, gee, but I mean, second last doesn't seem like anything to celebrate.

00:21:02.980 Meanwhile, listen to what the Americans are getting.

00:21:06.860 What is your expectations come June for how many Americans will have had this vaccine?

00:21:10.520 A hundred percent of Americans that want the vaccine will have had the vaccine by that

00:21:14.920 point in time.

00:21:15.560 We will have over 300 million doses available to the American public well before then.

00:21:19.700 Everyone in the United States who wants it by June will have had it.

00:21:23.680 That is the vaccine czar, the Operation Warp Speed leader in the United States.

00:21:28.880 Now, maybe it takes a month or two extra from that.

00:21:31.760 It's government.

00:21:32.280 You have to allow for a buffer.

00:21:33.400 But we're talking about a, generally speaking, pretty successful and well-planned rollout that

00:21:38.600 in Canada right now simply does not exist.

00:21:42.320 And Brian Lilly, I have to point this out in the Toronto Sun, had a great story about this,

00:21:46.560 about Canada's own rollout.

00:21:48.500 And he found in a planning document signed by Chief of the Defense Staff, General Jonathan

00:21:53.500 Vance, and obtained by the Sun that Canada has announced agreements with seven leading

00:21:58.440 vaccine manufacturers to procure enough doses to potentially immunize all Canadians against

00:22:05.700 COVID-19 by the end of 2021.

00:22:08.900 So 2021.

00:22:10.020 So there's a lot in that, both the potentially and the end of 2021 part, which contradicts

00:22:15.660 what the government has said in some cases, which is that we'll start getting stuff by

00:22:19.480 early 2021.

00:22:21.080 But then it's like that will just be minimal and we shouldn't be too excited.

00:22:24.340 You've got provinces lining up to say, hey, we're ready to receive it.

00:22:27.800 We're here.

00:22:28.320 We're open.

00:22:29.440 And then nothing's coming.

00:22:30.780 So this is starting to be an absolute gong show. 0.82

00:22:33.780 And I don't think this is what is keeping with the government's desire to tell Canadians

00:22:38.940 it's been on top of this.

00:22:40.500 And I mean, just look at the kind of abdication of responsibility that's taking place here.

00:22:45.140 So you've got this one story that says the military is saying it will be ready to deploy

00:22:49.440 vaccines as soon as they're approved by Health Canada.

00:22:51.820 But it's not about Health Canada's approval as much as it's about delivery, because the

00:22:56.360 first doses will account for, they say, just 3 million Canadians in the first three months

00:23:02.600 of 2021.

00:23:03.660 But there still hasn't been a plan distributed that deals with exactly who's getting it first,

00:23:09.320 who's getting it second, who's getting it third, how it's going to be accessed and

00:23:13.180 distributed.

00:23:14.040 And again, there's a big question mark about whether those numbers will actually come about.

00:23:18.540 I would be very surprised if 3 million people have vaccine doses in the first three months

00:23:25.180 of 2021, given everything we've learned, unless someone can pull a rabbit out of their

00:23:29.540 hat.

00:23:30.020 But I don't think that's coming from the Trudeau government.

00:23:32.460 But I go back to this important point here, which is that the reason I'm comfortable taking

00:23:36.560 it is because I want to get on with my life.

00:23:40.420 And I understand there is a limiting factor to that right now.

00:23:43.780 And that a lot of the world is going to be structured around vaccines.

00:23:47.200 Now, that will be the issue for a lot of people, is that even if we do not have state-mandated

00:23:52.460 vaccines, we will have culturally mandated vaccines.

00:23:57.740 And that's something that I agree is a risk.

00:23:59.820 I mean, we already had the Qantas CEO a few weeks ago saying that they may make vaccinations

00:24:04.560 mandatory.

00:24:05.760 Britain has this bizarre thing called a freedom pass, where they may allow people who can prove

00:24:11.860 they've got negative tests to go and do things that they want in their life without being

00:24:15.940 subject to lockdown.

00:24:17.400 Well, it would be conceivable that something could happen where a vaccine, proof of vaccination,

00:24:22.600 became a freedom pass of sort in countries that don't care about protecting your privacy

00:24:27.880 and don't care about your rights.

00:24:29.360 And that's going to be an issue.

00:24:30.700 And I don't know how we navigate that.

00:24:32.480 But the way we navigate it is not by just resisting for the sake of resisting.

00:24:36.980 And that's the challenge.

00:24:38.100 So I defend the right of people who don't want to get vaccinated to make that call.

00:24:41.900 But I also withhold my own right to say, yeah, I'm OK with it.

00:24:45.700 But right now, I'm going to use that right to point at Justin Trudeau and say, how on

00:24:49.820 earth have you bungled this so much when you've had nine months?

00:24:54.940 You've had nine months.

00:24:55.900 You've known this is coming.

00:24:57.220 Yet here we are.

00:24:58.220 And we're supposed to believe and accept that this is the way things are supposed to

00:25:01.400 be.

00:25:01.680 All for the prime minister who told us Canada's back.

00:25:04.580 Yeah, way, way, way back.

00:25:06.200 That's how far back Canada is.

00:25:07.780 Up next, going to be talking about health care, non-COVID health care.

00:25:12.340 Yeah, these things are still happening.

00:25:13.980 People dying on waiting lists in Canada, in a country where the government tells you it's

00:25:19.100 got your back.

00:25:19.960 We'll talk about that with Colin Craig from Second Street in just a couple of moments

00:25:23.360 here on The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:25:24.680 Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:25:33.480 So obviously, we've been talking a fair bit this show and in the past several months about

00:25:37.740 COVID and its effect on health care.

00:25:40.660 But issues that existed before the pandemic and will continue to exist after are still

00:25:45.180 very much going on.

00:25:46.660 And one of the big ones, which we have talked about on the show in the past, is the issue

00:25:50.960 of wait times, health care wait times, not just in isolated provinces, but across the

00:25:56.300 country.

00:25:57.120 This was put into sharp focus by a report that was just put out this week by Second Street,

00:26:02.760 died on a waiting list, a name that I think is exactly as blunt as it needs to be here.

00:26:08.540 The report's author, Colin Craig, the Second Street president, joins me on the line now.

00:26:12.980 Colin, good to talk to you.

00:26:13.880 Thanks for coming on.

00:26:14.900 Well, thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:26:15.840 Well, thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:26:16.600 Now, one thing that I think is important to put into perspective here before we delve

00:26:20.980 into the story that's being told, this is not wait list to do with COVID.

00:26:25.260 This is an issue that existed before the pandemic, correct?

00:26:28.700 That's correct.

00:26:29.500 The data that we obtained was from the 2018-19 fiscal year.

00:26:35.100 And what's the story here?

00:26:36.840 I mean, what's actually happening?

00:26:38.880 Well, we've certainly heard for many years now, Andrew, cases where patients sadly have

00:26:45.200 passed away while waiting for surgery.

00:26:47.420 You know, one very popular, well-known example from Ontario was Laura Hillier, a young 18-year-old

00:26:54.740 girl.

00:26:55.080 She was fighting cancer.

00:26:56.940 She had a bone marrow donor lined up and ready to go.

00:27:00.320 A surgeon was ready, but the government hadn't rationed enough funding for health care to get

00:27:05.340 her that surgery in a timely manner.

00:27:08.080 So she ended up waiting seven months.

00:27:09.620 Sadly, she passed away.

00:27:12.440 And, you know, stories like that that are pretty heartbreaking.

00:27:15.480 We thought, well, how big is this problem in Canada?

00:27:18.060 So we filed freedom of information requests with health regions and hospitals across the

00:27:22.560 country, just asking for data.

00:27:24.900 How many surgeries have been canceled because the patient has passed away?

00:27:28.700 And we also sought some additional information.

00:27:30.620 And we ended up finding that there were 1,480 cases where patients died in that one year because

00:27:36.900 they were while they were on a waiting list.

00:27:39.360 And that figure came from hospitals and health regions that cover less than half of Canada's

00:27:45.040 population.

00:27:46.180 So if you extrapolated across the country, the real figure is probably closer to around 4,000.

00:27:53.180 So this is important to note here that we have in your numbers almost 1,500, but not at

00:27:59.060 all exhaustive as far as the country or the hospitals in the country are concerned.

00:28:03.560 How easy was it for you to get these figures?

00:28:05.300 Were hospitals trying to block this?

00:28:07.520 Because I know FOIs, freedom of information requests, are oftentimes hit or miss when dealing

00:28:12.200 with a lot of sensitive figures, which I think are important.

00:28:15.360 Yeah, it was actually pretty challenging because, first of all, a lot of hospitals and health

00:28:20.420 regions, they just don't even track it, which seems incredible in its own right that they're

00:28:25.120 not tracking data on why particular procedures are being canceled.

00:28:29.920 I would think it would be important to know if the patient had died, especially if they had

00:28:33.700 died longer than the medically recommended maximum waiting period.

00:28:37.540 But that was the case, you know, 29 out of 50 health bodies that we contacted just simply

00:28:42.580 said they don't have the data.

00:28:44.360 And then the ones that did have the data, sometimes they had good data, which was pretty

00:28:49.020 uncommon.

00:28:50.360 And then a lot of them just kind of had like little dribs and drabs of data, but they were

00:28:54.140 able to tell us the number.

00:28:55.660 So there's really a lot of room for improvement here.

00:28:59.500 I know it's difficult with that sometimes spotty data to really understand the whole story,

00:29:05.700 but I want to see, I mean, as much as you can, are we talking about cases here where

00:29:10.460 that surgery would have saved someone's life?

00:29:13.320 Because we know there are situations, however rare they might be, where someone could on Monday

00:29:18.040 be put on a wait list for a hip replacement.

00:29:20.000 And on Wednesday, they get into a car accident and die or something like that, whereas the

00:29:24.480 cause of death might not have been prevented or even related.

00:29:27.660 Do we know or do we have the ability to know how many of these surgeries could have or would

00:29:32.780 have had an impact in the death?

00:29:35.200 Yeah, that's a great point.

00:29:36.500 And we do discuss that a bit in the report because it is important.

00:29:39.780 And I don't want to leave your viewers with the wrong impression.

00:29:41.760 We're not seeing that all 1,480 of these people died because they didn't receive surgery

00:29:45.660 in a fairly quick amount of time.

00:29:49.220 And that's not true.

00:29:51.260 The types of surgeries that people were waiting for ranged from procedures that could have

00:29:56.180 saved their life to procedures where it would affect their quality of life.

00:30:01.340 So it would be everything from, say, some kind of heart procedure to something like getting

00:30:07.000 your hip or knee done.

00:30:08.800 So, you know, you may not die because you don't get your hip or knee done in a fast or short

00:30:13.900 period of time.

00:30:14.660 But it would certainly affect your quality of life if you're stuck for the final year

00:30:18.960 or two or three or whatever it is of your life, stuck in your apartment, living in immense

00:30:22.900 pain because you haven't received hip surgery or knee surgery.

00:30:26.840 I mean, that's certainly disturbing too.

00:30:28.860 Did you find that there were any particular provinces that had a better or worse record

00:30:35.780 on this?

00:30:36.380 Or was it really more specific to individual hospital groups or individual hospitals and

00:30:42.340 kind of a patchwork across the country?

00:30:44.800 Yeah, it's really hard to compare because the data was just, to be blunt, really bad.

00:30:50.360 Governments have very poor data in this area.

00:30:52.480 Nova Scotia actually had very good data and their numbers were not good.

00:30:59.020 There were, I believe, it was over 400 patient deaths during that one year while they were

00:31:04.580 waiting for surgery.

00:31:06.040 And in most cases, they had waited longer than the maximum medically recommended time period.

00:31:10.840 So the numbers weren't good from Nova Scotia, but the quality of the data was good.

00:31:15.720 So I think, you know, if any province that had poor data or is looking for someone to copy,

00:31:20.840 we'd say, well, look at what Nova Scotia is doing because they at least have good data.

00:31:23.960 When you have good data, you can understand where the problems are and you improve accountability

00:31:28.240 for the public.

00:31:30.280 And one other thing I would note for your viewers is that the amount of time that patients

00:31:35.300 waited, it really ranged.

00:31:36.700 In some cases, they had only been on the waiting list for a short period of time.

00:31:40.760 And then on the other end of the spectrum, some patients had been on the waiting list for

00:31:44.340 more than eight years.

00:31:45.700 And those were a couple outliers, but it goes to show you that there's a real range in

00:31:49.520 terms of how long people were waiting.

00:31:50.840 before they passed away.

00:31:53.640 Was there a median or at least a kind of a general area of where a lot of them fell as

00:31:58.860 far as wait times go?

00:32:00.440 You know, again, that too is, it's hard to calculate because in many cases, we just, we

00:32:05.000 weren't even given those numbers.

00:32:07.100 And in some provinces, the numbers that we got, we know that they were low-balled.

00:32:11.960 So early on, we asked the Alberta Health for data on hips and knees.

00:32:17.780 And they said, well, here's the data.

00:32:19.400 These are the numbers that we've got.

00:32:20.700 But we would note that in many cases, you know, it's just simply not tracked.

00:32:25.060 It's not always kept.

00:32:26.060 That data is not always kept carefully.

00:32:28.740 Some systems may not have that option.

00:32:31.040 So it could be within one province where you have some procedures where when you're entering

00:32:35.720 in the cancellation cause, there is an option for noting that the patient passed away.

00:32:39.640 And for some other procedure, there may not, might not be.

00:32:42.380 So there, I think governments would really do well to standardize and start tracking this

00:32:47.060 information and disclosing it.

00:32:48.380 And one of the things that we point out, which is really crazy, if you think about it, some

00:32:53.540 provincial governments will require private businesses to report and disclose workplace

00:32:59.900 accidents that are pretty minor.

00:33:02.040 So there's one example from BC where you can go on the government's website and see, read

00:33:06.260 about how a private business had an accident, a worker fell and had some bruising.

00:33:11.300 So that's their threshold for businesses is you have to report on bruising.

00:33:16.280 And yet you have patients dying in the health care system.

00:33:19.560 And there's no disclosure.

00:33:20.720 It's not something that governments report on proactively each year.

00:33:23.900 So what we've kind of pointed to is, hey, governments, you know, if you would meet the

00:33:27.120 same standard that you expect private businesses to meet, it would be very helpful, I think,

00:33:32.320 for patients and researchers and people who want to address these problems.

00:33:36.760 And it's actually a really interesting point you raise, because when I started reading the

00:33:40.660 report, it seemed like the big conclusions were going to be about how to make the health

00:33:45.280 care system better, which is still a big part of it.

00:33:47.560 But it was amazing how a data collection became one of the key takeaways as well.

00:33:52.300 And you see that near the end of the report where, you know, to really tackle a problem,

00:33:56.700 you have to have the numbers on it.

00:33:58.160 And if you don't have that, it makes it very difficult to get a lot of stakeholders,

00:34:01.940 notably politicians, to agree that there is a problem here.

00:34:05.440 Yeah, exactly.

00:34:06.060 I mean, it's mind boggling that, you know, some health bodies would just not consider

00:34:11.700 it important to track, you know, why it was that these cancellations occurred, like, you

00:34:17.260 know, especially from a customer service perspective.

00:34:19.820 I mean, we as taxpayers are the customers.

00:34:23.280 Isn't the provider, the government concerned if they're not doing a good job, if they're

00:34:27.720 getting around to providing surgery after we've died?

00:34:31.440 And in one case, we highlight in the report, there was a patient from Quebec, 72 years

00:34:37.500 old, he needed heart surgery within two to three months, he ended up lasting five months

00:34:42.680 on a government waiting list before he passed away.

00:34:45.220 And then according to media reports, a few months after he passed away, the government

00:34:49.100 phoned him to schedule his surgery.

00:34:51.440 So, I mean, the stories like that, it's just, it's crazy.

00:34:55.260 And I think we really need to do a better job in this country when it comes to tracking

00:34:58.760 this information and figuring out where the problems are.

00:35:04.140 Yes.

00:35:04.580 And I would say that one important point here, and you note this in the report, is that we

00:35:09.480 live in a country in which healthcare is rationed by government.

00:35:13.420 And a lot of the times people talk about it being delivered by government, but that also

00:35:16.580 means it's rationed by government.

00:35:18.240 And we know that at the best of times, we've had issues with empty ORs just because hospitals

00:35:23.420 have burned through their allotment.

00:35:24.820 And typically, a lot of those are on procedures that are, again, more about quality of life,

00:35:29.420 like knee surgeries, than they are about emergency life-saving procedures.

00:35:33.740 But even so, and this year, it would be very interesting to see what happens, because this

00:35:38.060 year we know that anything deemed elective was cancelled by most hospitals across the country.

00:35:44.040 And you've got to wonder, I mean, how many people were on wait lists that would have had

00:35:47.360 potentially fatal consequences, or at the very least, as you note earlier, quality of life

00:35:52.280 consequences?

00:35:53.480 Yeah, and you've touched on a very important point.

00:35:55.960 And because of COVID, thousands of procedures were postponed across the country.

00:36:00.400 So you have, your natural demand is building all the time because we have an aging population.

00:36:05.280 And it's a reality that as you're older, you tend to require more services.

00:36:09.360 So you have that demand increasing naturally.

00:36:12.640 And at the same time, we have all these postponed procedures that are being put on top.

00:36:16.700 So there's a huge backlog right now in the healthcare system.

00:36:20.660 I would bet it's bigger than ever.

00:36:22.160 So sadly, we're probably going to see these numbers go up, where more people are going

00:36:28.200 to be waiting in pain during their final years.

00:36:31.060 They're going to be struggling.

00:36:32.320 They're not going to be getting the care that they need before they pass on.

00:36:36.120 And, you know, it's a really sad situation.

00:36:38.760 We're talking about everyday people, their lives, you know, people that struggle with walking

00:36:43.940 across the room because they're living with hip pain that's so severe.

00:36:47.240 They're ending up with other health problems because maybe they're on T3s to address their

00:36:55.160 pain.

00:36:55.780 And then a year later, they end up with liver problems because the government's made them

00:36:58.860 wait so long and rely on pain medication.

00:37:02.960 So there's all these problems that really are happening to everyday people.

00:37:07.780 And I think we, more than anything right now, I think it should be a priority for governments

00:37:12.760 to figure out, to focus on health reform rather than, you know, these ideas of great reset

00:37:19.340 and everything else that's being talked about right now.

00:37:22.600 Yeah.

00:37:23.120 And I know it goes away from this particular report.

00:37:25.560 So I hope you'll indulge me for a moment, Colin.

00:37:27.420 But I know when you and I last spoke, it was about a previous Second Street report that

00:37:31.440 looked at cross-border healthcare.

00:37:33.720 So people that were in Canada, specifically in border communities, but elsewhere as well,

00:37:37.560 that were going into the United States for medical treatment and medical care.

00:37:41.940 And I'd be interested to see if it's possible to quantify this or track this, how many people

00:37:47.320 that would have done that this year couldn't because of the border closure and the effect

00:37:51.280 that would have on healthcare. 1.00

00:37:52.520 Because naturally, there are people in this country that are deselecting from Canadian

00:37:57.420 wait lists by going outside of the country, which is still technically possible with air

00:38:01.900 travel.

00:38:02.400 But for a lot of people that would have just picked up and gone from, you know, Abbotsford

00:38:06.280 to Bellingham or would have gone from Sarnia to Port Huron, I mean, that option hasn't

00:38:11.020 taken off the table.

00:38:12.020 So you've got really this two-pronged issue of losing some domestic options for care and

00:38:17.100 losing that ability to go abroad for travel or for healthcare, rather.

00:38:21.100 I think that's a huge problem.

00:38:22.860 And there was a media report from New York State, actually, where they looked at that

00:38:27.120 and they talked about how some Canadians were having trouble getting across the border.

00:38:31.360 In one case, there was a cancer patient who was trying to go from Ontario to New York and

00:38:38.940 receive some kind of treatment.

00:38:41.540 And that patient had two family members with them and they had to stop.

00:38:45.620 I believe what happened was they got to the border and they were told they could only have

00:38:48.680 one family member.

00:38:49.700 So then they had to, like, drive to a Walmart or something, drop the family member.

00:38:54.660 Throw grandma out in Buffalo or, I guess, on the other side in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

00:38:59.600 Say, sorry, we'll pick you up on the way back.

00:39:01.280 Don't put your family member.

00:39:02.340 I mean, it's incredibly tough.

00:39:04.420 If you think about it from their perspective, right, like, if you're not getting the care

00:39:08.680 that you need or that you feel that you need in Canada, you're having to go across the

00:39:12.500 border that's going to cause all kinds of anxieties as it is, throw COVID on top, and

00:39:17.840 then you're having to, like, leave a family member at the last minute unplanned.

00:39:22.420 It's one of those problems where I think you really have to go back to the root and say,

00:39:25.380 well, why is it that this person's having to leave their own country for healthcare?

00:39:28.580 Why don't they have the freedom to try to improve their care with their own money in 0.98

00:39:33.980 their own country?

00:39:34.760 I mean, no other country on the planet does this where we have this system that says,

00:39:40.500 yeah, we're going to force you to, in many cases, wait a long time for the procedure that

00:39:45.340 you need and know you can't do anything about it.

00:39:48.920 You either have to leave the country or you have to take what we're going to give you. 0.63

00:39:52.160 It's pretty incredible what goes on in this country compared to what's happening in other

00:39:57.860 countries when it comes to healthcare.

00:40:00.660 Yeah, it is.

00:40:01.440 And I mean, I don't want to bog people down too much in the legal arguments because we

00:40:04.880 know there is the Canby case, which will be going towards the Supreme Court at some point

00:40:09.360 and all of these.

00:40:10.200 But for a lot of people, it's just, they don't care about the politics of it.

00:40:13.580 They want healthcare.

00:40:14.540 And you know what?

00:40:15.060 They're told that it's going to be there for them.

00:40:16.920 And when it's not, that's a failing of the system.

00:40:19.220 If you're going to monopolize it, you have to deliver.

00:40:22.160 Yeah, and the interesting thing is that so often, at the end of the day, no matter where

00:40:25.620 you are on the spectrum or where you are on this issue, once it hits your family, you

00:40:30.240 do whatever you can to try to help your loved ones, as so many of us would, right?

00:40:34.460 Like you do what you can if your son or your daughter is sick or a mom or a dad or whatever,

00:40:39.580 you do what you can to help.

00:40:40.980 And when you talk to guys like you mentioned the Canby case, Brian Day, who's the plaintiff

00:40:45.640 in that case, he'll tell you that he's had people across the political spectrum in his

00:40:50.540 clinic, he's had people that are, I think, even fighting him in court that will come

00:40:55.140 in because they don't want to wait to get their knee done or whatever.

00:40:58.000 Like it's just incredible, our approach to healthcare in this country and how different

00:41:03.040 it is from the rest of the world.

00:41:04.320 And we see that many other countries are providing better services for a lower cost, they have

00:41:11.920 a public system, they have private options, they're doing better.

00:41:15.200 And yet in Canada, we just kind of have this tunnel vision so often where we don't want

00:41:19.020 to talk about those options.

00:41:20.720 The opponents of change will always try to create this discussion of either we've got

00:41:25.920 Canada's system or the US system.

00:41:28.520 They don't want people to realize that, say, Australia is doing better, New Zealand's doing

00:41:32.800 better, all these countries around the world that still have what I think Canadians value,

00:41:36.680 which is having that public system, but also having private options on the side.

00:41:42.180 The report is dyed on a waiting list, came out just this past week with secondstreet.org.

00:41:48.280 President and report author Colin Craig joins me on the line.

00:41:51.520 Colin, good to talk to you.

00:41:52.380 Thanks very much for coming on.

00:41:53.960 Thanks a lot, Andrew.

00:41:54.740 Appreciate it.

00:41:55.940 All right.

00:41:56.340 That was Colin Craig from Second Street.

00:41:58.420 And that does it for me.

00:41:59.540 We'll be back in just a couple of days with more of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:42:04.140 My thanks to all of you for tuning in.

00:42:05.660 We'll talk to you soon.

00:42:06.580 Thank you.

00:42:07.040 God bless.

00:42:07.540 And good day, Canada.

00:42:08.820 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:42:10.960 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.nons.

00:42:15.540 The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:42:22.960 The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:42:27.100 The Andrew Lawton Show.

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Juno News - December 04, 2020

“We’re all in this together, you idiots!”

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