Western University forcing booster mandate onto staff and students
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Summary
The University of Western Ontario has a new vaccine mandate that affects all students, faculty, and visitors to campus. I talk about why this is a big deal, why it's unfair, and what Western should do about it.
Transcript
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This is the Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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This is another edition of Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show,
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the Andrew Lawton Show on True North on this Tuesday, August 23rd, 2022.
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I just realized like a minute and a half before the show was on late enough that I couldn't do
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anything about it because the introductory music was still playing that I am wearing a purple shirt
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right now while I do a lead into a show that's going to be predominantly about the University
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of Western Ontario which is all about the purple I was not doing this on purpose so I'm going to
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say this is not exactly celebrating Western in this moment but I'm I'm reclaiming purple I went
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to Western. It is a school that has done a lot of good. It's a very good school and it's doing
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something right now that is absolutely unconscionable. It has been the first school in
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the country, so far as I can tell, to impose a three-dose vaccine mandate on anyone that needs
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to or wants to step foot on campus in the year ahead. Students, faculty, even visitors. So I
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don't know if like the mailman that is dropping off or sorry, the postal carrier, I don't want
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to be gendered the postal carrier that's dropping off a package to the department of whatever
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if he or she has to be triple dosed one person asked me an interesting question on twitter a
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moment ago what if like a visiting football team comes so someone is playing the must the western
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mustangs at the western mustang stadium do they all have to be vaccinated thrice to be able to
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play because that's like a good way to guarantee that all the other teams are disqualified say oh
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Well, they need to comply with our booster mandate if they want to come here.
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So these are all of the different eventualities that we can talk about here.
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Yesterday, Western announced, and by the way, I don't even know if they were going to announce it the way they did,
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because they had initially quietly, quietly changed this policy, which was buried in a link on a post from July on the website.
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and they said that all of a sudden the vaccine policy which they had last year that everyone
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needed to have two doses to go to Western was now going to be updated so that everyone needed a
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third dose a booster University of Toronto has done this for students in residence Western had
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done it for students in residence I have not been able to find any other university in Canada at
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this point that has gone this far for just a blanket mandate for students just yet and by the
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way, so this is in London, Ontario, where I live and where I'm coming to you from right now.
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Like four kilometers away from Western is Fanshawe College, a large, reputable college.
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And they've done the opposite. They've said no mask mandate, no vaccine mandate. And they initially
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said, and this is the great part, that they were following the advice of the Middlesex London
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Health Unit. Western has also said it's generally following the advice of the Middlesex London
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Health Unit. So I emailed the Middlesex London Health Unit today and I said, okay, we've got two
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people here that are saying opposite things. What was your actual advice? And I am still waiting for
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my phone to ring. If they call me back midway through the show, I'll just put them on speaker
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and you can hear for yourself. But I'm not holding my breath that I'll even get a response.
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So right now, if you are a prospective Western student, or not even prospective, if you are
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planning in two weeks which is when classes start to be going to western but you are not comfortable
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or not willing for whatever reason to get a booster you now have to make alternative alternative
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arrangements and let's talk a little bit about what the timeline has done here because it was
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one week ago yesterday when the policy was announced that students had to put in their
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first tuition installment so that was a week before the vaccine mandate was announced two
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weeks to go for classes to start now western has said not publicly but they've said privately
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and i got a copy of an email from them that it was going to be a refund policy if someone wants
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it if someone wants a refund and they ask by september 1st they'll get their tuition money
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back but even if that happens it's not going to deal with the disruption for hey i plan to be in
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school and to be this many credits more closer to my degree and now I can't do that. It doesn't
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deal with a lease if you had signed a contract for an apartment for the year ahead and now you
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can't go to school. And if you want to talk about how punitive this mandate is, it even applies to
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online students if there is any in-person component. So that could even be an exam. If
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you're doing a class that for eight months you can do from your own home from your computer,
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but you need to go for like one day to do an exam all of a sudden you're subject to the vaccine
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mandate so let's dispense with this idea that has anything to do with science at all they're going
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above and beyond what the government is asking of them they're going above and beyond what any other
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post-secondary institutions in the country are doing and at a time when people around the country
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and around the world are trying to move beyond this 2020 covid mentality you've got institutions
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like Western in London, Ontario that are doubling down and tripling down. It's no longer a post
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secondary education. It's a dose secondary education, three doses to be exact. And that's
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only now until they updated in the winter term and say you need the fourth dose. If you want to
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go back to finish the second half of whatever class you started in September, we're going to
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talk about this from a couple of different angles. And I also want to get into the bigger picture
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here. But fortunately, I have to point out, students are fighting back. Students at Western
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are pushing back against this. And one notable example is a Twitter and Instagram campaign that
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launched called Enough is Enough Western. The creator of this, Kendra Hancock, joins me on
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the line now. Kendra, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming on today.
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so let me start first off with what this disruption means for students i mean i think you can argue
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about whether vaccine mandates are right or wrong in general but at the very least people should be
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able to buy into the fact that the timing of this is absolutely atrocious unfortunately that's been
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the pattern a lot of the universities were kind of so a lot of the official mandates came out
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on terribly late considering that for most institutions yes the timing has been definitely
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less than ideal i mean we're hearing fine leases um taking out flights back to london in all their
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No, it's important. I hate to cut you off here. We're having some issues with your audio. So
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we're going to get you to reconnect and we'll try to sort that out in a moment, Kendra. I got bits
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of that about the importance of this issue. So I want to hear the rest of it more clearly. We'll
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get that sorted out in just a moment. But I want to right now just point to a couple of the key
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issues that have come from this. So Western, and by the way, I reported on this yesterday,
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just as, to be honest, I sent my request for comment because I was trying to do the right
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thing here. Because at the time, the policy was only buried on Western's website, and you couldn't
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actually get publicly any statement where they had announced this. And it was after I asked them,
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hey, what's up here that they released it. Now, I'm not saying they did it because I asked. They
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may have been planning on releasing this yesterday anyway. But I've asked a number of questions of
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Western and they have not responded to anything. I've sent questions about the policy itself.
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I also sent further questions today about the refunds because I had parents of Western students
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and Western students asking me, yeah, I've already paid my tuition. I'm planning on being on campus
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in two weeks. In some cases, these are people that have made significant changes, significant
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changes in their lives to be there, to be in London. Not everyone is local. And now they're
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being told, now they're being told that they cannot go and they have to get vaccinated three
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times to continue on with this. I believe we have Kendra back on the line here. So we're going to
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try to reconnect with Kendra Hancock of Enough is Enough. Kendra, we were talking a little bit
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about the disruption aspect here, but let me just first off talk about how many students are affected
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by this, because I know you may not have exact numbers, but we know that booster uptake has been
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very low in general, certainly for people that are in the student age group. I imagine that there
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are a lot of students who last year were fully vaccinated that this year are ineligible to
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continue their studies. Yeah, absolutely. We actually just did some polling on that on Instagram.
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Obviously, it's a pretty casual poll. It's not like it's a full-fledged investigation or anything,
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but we asked point blank who got the mandate or who got the vaccines last year because of
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Western's mandate and versus who got it out there on a cord. The numbers were very stark for people
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who got it because of Western. And we also asked right after that, if you got it because of
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Western's mandate, did you feel forced? And so far, it's overwhelming for people feeling like
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they're absolutely forced into this situation. And the challenge is that if someone was, let's
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say, in their third year last year, and they figured, okay, I'm halfway through, I've got to
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get the mandate and go the next year, this year, they're even more invested. And it's challenging
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because Western would look and they did last year and said, oh, wow, we have almost a 100%
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vaccination rate. Yeah, but you got that through coercion. Yeah, that one is always really funny
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to me. I heard it mentioned actually a couple times today. It's the go to defense. It's kind
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of like if you if a country said, oh, well, 100% of our citizens have drafted themselves into the
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war have joined the war effort. But then you say, yeah, but don't you have conscription?
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so it's either you get an exemption or you get kicked out of the country so yeah yeah if you
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expel anyone that's not vaccinated you are left with curiously a 100 vaccination rate it's funny
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how that works out what's been the effect on you personally of this where are you in your studies
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and what will this mean for you um it's actually been quite a long road and it's been just about a
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year since the first news hit about the pretty strong vaccination mandate. I just finished up
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in my bachelor's through Huron at Western after being technically kicked out. That was a very
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interesting long process, but I know a few people were able to fight it and obviously take advantage
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of good timing and just being resilient in order to get their degree. It cost me a few extra
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thousand dollars to do it because i had to do online studies at an outer province school to
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finish up worked really hard to do it on a tighter timeline but i was able to get my degree so happy
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now to go back to western for a master's program a year-long master's program and now obviously
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that's completely up in the air so dreams have been a little crushed but i'm putting that aside
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because i know that all the people we're representing right now through the account
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are all in the same situation and they're obviously unhappy too you mentioned on your
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well maybe not you but someone on your uh enough is enough account may have been you tweeted out
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hey western you a lot of students are ready to request refunds we're curious are you ready i
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don't know if it's a you know a thread or a prediction or however we want to characterize
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it but but you're thinking here that there's going to be a noticeable financial hit to the university
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yes uh that's what we're seeing i'd say it's um legal reasons it's not a threat no it's definitely
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just to put a little bit of pressure and put them on the spot because they need to be they
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need to be held accountable um but yeah from everything we've been seeing countless of people
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are reaching out to us um are sharing these infographics on how to request a refund as you're
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saying um how if you do it before a certain time you get a full refund um a lot of people have told
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as they've already done it you know a lot of people are saying they're going to wait to see
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sort of what happens with obviously the advocacy coming from us and from the student councils and
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hopefully we can get some things to change because it needs to change but it's it should be a fear of
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theirs because it's going to happen because students have had enough so enough is enough
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i looked at the western timetable is posted publicly so anyone can go and look at what
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courses they offer and there are not a lot of courses that are available online there are a
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Yeah, absolutely. I think that's got to be part of the goal. It was really difficult
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to do it last year. Not a lot of people were able to. Some people were able to do things
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differently and able to get through the year. Kudos to them, of course. But I'd say Westerns,
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it seems like they're trying to make it more impossible. And that's the feeling among students.
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And that's obviously really discouraging, considering they are so, I'd say, so distant
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That's something that an administration should be proud of
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Have you gotten any sense as to who's really pushing this?
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I mean, I know some theories have been that the faculty
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where you have some that are quite COVID paranoid
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And you can kind of see this in the mask policy
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because if you look at the Western mask policy,
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where students are seated, generally not talking,
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you don't have to wear a mask, it's just encouraged.
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So the fact that COVID only exists in the classroom
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that were saying, you know, we will not teach in classrooms
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And I feel bad for the professors who are not for this
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I mean, I've witnessed it, I've talked to professors,
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who thought they were unfireable were fired last year
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because they couldn't comply with the VAX mandate.
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I mean, it's indicative of academia at the moment,
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but it's so against fundamental academic principles.
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I know so many people who have gone through the last year
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If you want to be employable, if you want to move on the rest of your life, you're already so invested, you have to continue.
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And I would also add that, you know, we were talking about coercion earlier.
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And I think for students who just have a timeline, like I remember when I came out of high school, I had I mean, obviously, every prediction I had for my life ended up being wrong.
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But, you know, it's like, OK, I've got four years to do this and then I'm going to do this and then I'm going to do this.
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And it's easy to set those targets and timelines and you don't anticipate that you could be a straight A student, you could be getting 80s, 90s.
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And for nothing to do with your academic performance, you will not you will you will be at least a year behind, maybe two years behind last year plus this year because of this vaccine mandate and unable to complete your studies at all or unable to complete them on the timeline you wanted and for no scientific basis.
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and that's the part that really stings i mean we saw it last year and i hope we can avoid it this
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year i truly do um where good students um people who do extracurriculars who put the hard work who
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are perhaps on a roll who really care about their studies they're putting all this work in and
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they're getting trespass notices when their exemption fails they are getting carried out
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class by security for failing to comply so it's it's backwards obviously and i hope it's not
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obviously from our position from what i'm seeing from students i don't think it's too far gone i
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think we can take it back i think we can get back to being united in the reasonable and actually
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focusing on what matters which is education and the student experience i mean obviously there are
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under the Human Rights Act, and Western has acknowledged this, exemptions that people can
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get for medical reasons and also for religious or conscientious reasons. Now, these have been
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very difficult for some people to obtain, although I know there have been some examples of it. Some
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students can go this route, but obviously if that process becomes overrun, you know, Western's
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probably just going to say, no, we're not playing ball here. Do you think Western will cave on this,
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Or do you think that, you know, they're just committed at this point?
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Obviously, if their motivations aren't the Middlesex London Health Unit or the Chief
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Medical Officer of Health, if their motivations for this aren't directly from public health
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recommendations, like they have said, if that's not the case, then their motivations are
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there's obviously something else going on, which could overpower their, obviously, their interest
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in hearing students out. But I think they won't have much of a choice because students are really
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passionate and obviously are getting organized. And I think that this is, that we have a good
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chance at making an impact here. Just because you brought it up, I will have to ask you about this
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idea of the guidance and advice. And there was something that was very interesting that you
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pointed out to me when we were speaking earlier that the previous policy the two-dose policy had
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all of this uh pre-ambulatory stuff about where the policy basically came from the new one doesn't
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have that it doesn't say this is a direct response to the guidance and advice we're giving here and
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so far i can't find anyone giving guidance and advice saying this yeah absolutely and um i had
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a sneaking suspicion that that could happen and that they might try to do something along those
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lines so I saved that document just so even for my own reasons so I could compare because last
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year of course the guidelines were pretty the parameters were pretty laid out and there wasn't
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too much of a choice on their on their side just because of the state Ontario was in and the
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direction the Ontario government was going but that's not the case now so I know what a lot of
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people and what a lot of students are thinking and are saying, thankfully, is where is the data?
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Where is the recommendation? What is the reasoning? Where is this coming from? We need to know.
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We need the data that actually shows that someone with two or less doses is a physical threat
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to others on campus because that has to be the bottom line. I know you touched on this a little
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bit before, but the audio was not as great on that first answer. So if you need to restate
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anything, please do. But why have you made the decision to speak out? Because I know a lot of
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people don't want to go down this road of opening themselves up for all of the naysaying and, you
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know, negativity that comes from from speaking out on anything, but certainly on this issue. Why have
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you decided? Yeah, I'm willing to put my name and face behind this. I'm actually a really private
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person. So this whole thing has been a bit overwhelming. But it's just one of the situations
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where it needs to be said um last year i attempted to speak out it didn't go quite as well just
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because um i'd say people weren't ready yet people weren't ready to see it yet people were thinking
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okay we go along with this and then everything will be fine things will resume it's just one
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year it's just that most of us are vaccinated anyway it doesn't matter it's really that
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mentality you were up against yeah yes and then people i guess people who maybe didn't believe
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that or maybe who were sympathetic it would just maybe there wasn't a point in in trying to speak
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up or support it um i just say it people were probably looking forward to the future and things
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getting better and now that more people know that places like western are hung up on not moving
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forward um things have to be said so basically as soon as i saw the announcement um i knew this had
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to be done and i was kind of preparing beforehand and i thought about some things that might be
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helpful for the community to know or to have one central spot where people could talk and
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could support one another but i did not expect it to go so well as it has so far i've definitely
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had to take on some extra support and we'll have to continue doing that because um i was able to
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keep up with messages now i'm probably 700 messages behind so it's gone a little out of
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hand but obviously in a great way well i'm glad you got to my message then and we're able to uh
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to come on the uh the twitter account is students for agency it's called enough is enough western
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and i know you're also on uh what's the instagram handle as well i'm not never as good on instagram
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oh it's the same so it's students for number four agency all right good and i i think there's a
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tremendous value in what you're doing not only because you're right and i think on the right
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side of history here but but also because when western touts that 100 vaccination rate or 99.99
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bajillion percent vaccination rate they're trying to isolate anyone that's not in that group and
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they're trying to say that you are alone and i think when you stand up in the way that you've
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done you're telling people hey you're not alone and there are hundreds if not thousands of us
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absolutely and that's what it's about we're going to be united it's your own choice if
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you want four vaccines go for it if you want zero go for it if you want to wear a mask for
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however long you want to wear it for go ahead it's not it shouldn't keep us apart there's no
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reason for it to keep us apart especially as a school so she has a community so i just hope we
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can continue this momentum and keep moving forward well said well what's next for enough is enough
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what can we expect from you in the coming days um well there's definitely going to be some more posts
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and the students have spoken they want if it is needed which um we'll have to kind of keep an eye
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on the next couple days they want a in-person demonstration people students are ready to have
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their voices heard um in that format so um we'll have to keep an eye out for that but we're
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definitely very willing to get something like that going well let me know and i will be there
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as a fellow monitor kendra hancock creator of enough is enough thank you so much and truly
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congratulations on launching this movement thanks for having me all right thank you very much this
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is great and i say not that i'm not saying that about the western thing i'm saying that about the
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response to it because so often like last year kendra mentioned this you had western moving
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forward and all universities in canada moving forward with this and effectively they just get
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to say yeah well that's what it is and and at a time when if you go back a year most people were
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what was then called fully vaccinated now no one says fully vaccinated and interestingly
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if you look at the western policy they've removed any reference to the term fully vaccinated so it's
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it's just like the federal government now fully vaccinated doesn't exist anymore because now it's
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about up to date so there's no there will be no surprise whatsoever when in six eight nine months
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time western says it's not just about having three doses everyone needs to have a dose within the last
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six months within the last nine months whenever it is and we're talking about an age group here
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that is not at risk, an age group that simply is not at risk of COVID to justify this mandate.
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And I'm not saying there's zero risk. I'm saying that you're at an age group where there is
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legitimately a risk that will come from vaccination for some people. And I'll look at what Dr.
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Quadmo Kiramatang, who's an associate professor of University of Ottawa. He's a critical care and
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palliative care doctor. He is on TV. He'll be on CBC and CTV. So this is not some like crank that
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I found on the internet. This is a very intelligent, very educated man who says about this
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mandate, and I want to quote exactly from his tweet, low risk of severe disease, hybrid immunity,
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shutting out many racialized students, myocarditis risk, I'm at a loss. He says it's exclusionary,
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it defies the fact that some people have immunity from infection, from prior infection,
00:26:00.280
that students have low risk of severe disease and there is in fact a myocarditis risk a heart
00:26:04.720
disease you're not supposed to say the m word when you talk about vaccination but it is there
00:26:08.980
and this is not coming from someone who is against vaccines this is coming from someone who believes
00:26:14.760
in choice and who is pointing out how follow the science has very quickly become a race to who can
00:26:21.020
be the most paranoid and who can let fear dominate their policy approach and i have a column coming
00:26:28.340
out about this in the next couple of days, which means I need to, when I say something's coming out
00:26:32.940
in the next couple of days, it means I need to finish it. But it is going to be coming out in
00:26:36.040
the next couple of days. And I have a theory here that what Western is trying to do is curate its
00:26:42.440
student population. I bet Western knows this isn't scientific. I bet Western knows this has nothing to
00:26:47.940
do with science. And the mask thing proves that. Because if you look at their policy that you have
00:26:56.860
to be masked in the classroom, but not in the hallways or the common areas. And trust me,
00:27:00.840
I'm not saying they should require masks in more places, but I'm pointing out the inherent absurdity
00:27:05.000
in that. COVID does not end at the classroom. I mean, maybe in like a biology class, if you're
00:27:10.000
studying COVID and you have COVID out in the vials, like you're in the Wuhan lab, perhaps.
00:27:14.720
But generally speaking, I don't think in your philosophy seminar, there is a risk of COVID.
00:27:19.760
And then outside in the hallway, there's no risk. So if you are passing COVID around in the hallway,
00:27:25.380
it's not going to stop because you go in and put the little piece of paper over your face so
00:27:29.600
the idea here is that western must know this is ridiculous and i bet western professors of
00:27:35.780
medicine and virology and epidemiology probably know this is not scientific but they are trying
00:27:42.980
to attract i believe a particular type of student they want the type of student that has three doses
00:27:49.400
of covid vaccine they want the type of student that's comfortable wearing masks they don't want
00:27:53.720
the renegade libertarians they don't want the ones that are like hey you know maybe I have done my
00:27:58.100
due diligence and I think that two doses is enough for me or one dose or perhaps even zero doses
00:28:03.380
that's what western doesn't want those people don't belong in the western community this
00:28:10.020
university says and I don't think you even need to be against the mandate to find it utterly
00:28:17.640
offensive for them to drop this on students two weeks before classes are about to start
00:28:22.820
when us, Kendra and I were talking about a few moments ago,
00:28:29.820
they have not made plans to go to another school,
00:28:32.240
which now may be completely out of reach for them at this time.
00:28:35.480
And this is something that will only continue to happen
00:28:41.280
unless people say this is not what I am willing to put up with.
00:28:49.400
that we are willing to sacrifice youth's education
00:29:01.080
but this mandate that serves no one's interests
00:29:17.900
from controlling the individual decisions of other people.
00:29:24.320
And let's take a realistic look at where this is going.
00:29:28.460
And I want to play a clip here from the mayor of Peterborough,
00:29:37.940
She is the one who made a little bit of a name for herself
1.00
00:29:41.140
because she tweeted a bunch of F-bombs a couple of weeks ago
1.00
00:29:44.520
when that like absolute nutcase queen of Canada
1.00
00:29:47.500
a nonsense woman went to Peterborough and Diane said, you know, F you F wads or something like
1.00
00:29:52.700
that. And everyone said, Oh, wow, she's so edgy. She tweeted at the crazy woman with mean slurs.
00:29:58.660
Okay, fine. Have fun, Diane. And Diane then was doing the rounds and she was doing an interview
1.00
00:30:03.640
with CBC. And she decided that her issue wasn't just with the Queen of Canada. Her issue was with
00:30:09.640
effectively all people who are part of this protest movement protesting for freedoms.
00:30:15.040
And I want you to just take that context in mind and listen to what Mayor Diane had to say.
00:30:22.520
I saw this play out in the city of Ottawa, which is a much larger city with a much larger police force.
00:30:29.800
You know, this past winter, the Peterborough Police Service, again, did, you know, an outstanding job at dealing with these people.
00:30:45.520
and so I think the fact that there's finally been
00:30:49.440
some arrests and consequences for their actions
00:31:07.840
because they've got nothing else better to do on a saturday they should go volunteer
00:31:11.200
or help the community but they don't so she says people are protesting because they're
00:31:17.920
bored on a saturday they have nothing to do uh okay that's fine she says they could go
00:31:23.040
volunteer instead as though they're not helping their community by standing up for freedom
00:31:29.040
okay that's fine um but she says there's no mandates anymore now at the time that she said
00:31:36.240
this when she said this there was no three dose mandate at western i'll give her that
00:31:42.160
but the whole point of the people who are right now protesting mandates
00:31:47.440
is that they believe there is a mandate still in place and the reason they are so foolish as to
00:31:53.600
believe that is because there is there's right now a vaccine mandate for many civil service jobs
00:31:59.760
including in Peterborough Ontario so to work for Mayor Diane's city you have to be vaccinated and
00:32:06.720
she says there's no mandate talk about a woman who doesn't read the briefing memos and beyond that
00:32:12.260
there is the risk that government will reimpose all of these things when they've lifted them
00:32:16.400
they've said they're suspended and we're going to monitor and watch and in the fall they may come
00:32:20.800
back and then you look at Western and Western has now taken not for two weeks to flatten the curve
00:32:26.600
but for the entire year, a three-dose vaccine mandate that will exclude thousands, I suspect.
00:32:34.660
And I want to just point out the numbers here because the numbers are very important. We say
00:32:39.160
follow the science. Well, let's look at the data here. In Canada, the vaccine rate is generally
00:32:45.320
very high. When you bring it to boosters, it's very low. In youth, incredibly low. So just 36.39%
00:32:54.700
of 18 to 29 year olds have received three or more doses 36 so just over a third when you go to 12
00:33:01.820
to 17 year olds because some people are 17 when they start in university that's what i was 19.27
00:33:09.260
percent so less than one in five now if you were to break this down further by region and by
00:33:15.580
education you're going to find variances but but let's say that there are probably no more
00:33:20.460
more than 30 to 35 percent of Western's student population who are vaccinated with three or more
00:33:29.980
doses. That's a pretty big denominator that is going to be forced to decide whether it's worth
00:33:37.040
getting boosted just to stay in school or not. A lot will. A lot will. And for many of them,
00:33:42.960
it will be simply because they were forced to, simply because they were coerced to,
00:33:47.120
not because they wanted to. And for others, they will decide, you know what, this is not
00:33:51.360
what I signed up for. And I think the problem with mandates is that they are all invariably
00:33:57.000
a slippery slope. They all open the door to future mandates down the road. You look at what's
00:34:04.080
happening right now, the challenge, the legal challenge against the federal government's
00:34:07.980
vaccine mandate for air travel. The liberals are trying to have the court challenge thrown out,
00:34:12.920
and their rationale for this is that it's moot.
00:34:23.040
So maybe we need to just have this seen through the courts
00:34:28.000
that you will not be able to bring it back again.
00:34:34.820
But the point is that you don't just get to say,
00:34:41.640
Heck, Western withdrew its mask mandate over the summer, and now the mask mandate is back.
00:34:46.500
The vaccine mandate, they said, yeah, we're going to let everyone know by the week of August 8th,
00:34:50.620
and then they didn't. So a lot of people said, okay, I guess there's no change to it.
00:34:55.380
And then this comes out just two weeks before classes start that you need to have three doses
00:35:01.820
if you want to go to Western University. And if you don't go to Western, you don't want to go
00:35:06.620
to Western, you don't live in London, Ontario, you may think, Andrew, why have you devoted
00:35:10.020
an entire show to this one university's vaccine policy. Because it's proving the point
00:35:16.240
that these mandates are going to be perennial. And they are always just a pen stroke away. All
00:35:23.400
it takes is one bureaucrat, one administrator, one lawmaker, and these things are a pen stroke
00:35:28.160
away from coming back. And I'm sorry, but Diane Tarion, how dare you look in the camera with a
0.86
00:35:35.200
straight face and say, there are no mandates. How dare you look at people in this country
00:35:42.020
and say that if they're standing up for freedom, they're doing nothing for their community. They're
00:35:46.580
doing nothing for their neighbors. How dare you look at the people who voted for you and the
00:35:51.640
people who didn't and the people who live in communities outside of Peterborough who don't
00:35:55.620
have to put up with your nonsense. How dare you look at them and say, you know what? They just
00:36:00.020
have nothing better to do. They just have nothing better to do if they're standing up and saying,
00:36:06.120
you know, we don't think government should be exacting this control over its citizens.
00:36:10.580
These mandates, whether you're talking about a public sector employment mandate or an air
00:36:15.640
travel mandate, or you're talking about a mandate to go to school, are not just problems for the
00:36:22.440
people they're affecting directly. They're problems for the entirety of society because
00:36:26.700
they say that it's government that gets to decide and these administrative bodies and these school
00:36:31.440
administrators that get to decide what you do with your own body. What do you do with your own life?
00:36:38.340
Imagine if you, and I pointed this out on Twitter earlier, imagine you are someone who is about to
00:36:42.740
start your second year or maybe your first year at university. The last three years of your life
00:36:50.740
have been affected by COVID. The last three school years, the 2019-2020 school year,
00:36:57.840
the 2020-2021 school year, and the 2021-2022 school year. In this time, extracurriculars
00:37:05.340
have been suspended. School has been intermittently thrown online. You've been taken out of the
00:37:09.660
classroom. Maybe last year you were denied the right to go to school because you weren't
00:37:13.640
vaccinated if you're talking about first year of university. And you've gotten through all of that.
00:37:21.980
oh, by the way, you thought this year was going to be normal.
00:37:30.640
If you want to say, oh, well, vaccination is good and it's good
00:37:33.420
and everyone should get it, that doesn't matter.
00:37:37.840
It's not about whether vaccination is good, whether COVID is bad.
00:37:43.260
The question is who gets to decide what your life should look like,
00:37:48.420
what your body should look like, what your academic future is.
00:38:00.200
You could have scholarships coming out your rear end.
00:38:02.640
I don't recommend that's where you put your scholarships,
00:38:10.320
But if you don't get a third COVID shot to Western, you are nothing.
0.62
00:38:16.020
you are the problem in canadian society right now and i hope everyone involved in this
00:38:24.000
knows it we've got to end things there we will follow this story and hope that no other university
00:38:30.120
in canada goes down this road we'll talk to you in a couple of days time folks this is canada's
00:38:34.880
most irreverent talk show on true north the andrew lawton show thank you god bless and good day to you
00:38:40.200
all listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news