Juno News - August 28, 2022


Western University students organize massive rally against booster mandate


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

177.00941

Word Count

715

Sentence Count

49


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Andrew Lawton from True North. I am on the campus at Western University in London, Ontario,
00:00:04.700 where Enough is Enough Western, a group of students frustrated and fed up with the vaccine
00:00:09.320 mandate that Western has put in place for booster shots for the next year, were rallying together.
00:00:14.980 Hundreds of them came out, not just current and prospective students, but also Western alumni,
00:00:20.020 some faculty members, staff and supporters from the community. And the message was a very clear
00:00:24.920 one. Enough is enough. It wasn't about opposition to vaccines or vaccines in the context of COVID.
00:00:30.600 It was just about opposition to vaccine mandates. Organizer Kendra Hancock summed that up very well.
00:00:36.440 We need to have choice restored on campus. Well, the first thing was we launched an online campaign
00:00:42.980 and we heard students' concerns and we heard about what they wanted to do. And I'd say the
00:00:49.280 feedback was overwhelming that they wanted to get a student demonstration together. So we had the
00:00:54.580 channels, we had the resources, so we wanted to get that together. And that's what we're doing here
00:00:58.420 today to represent them. Among the speakers was Julie Panessi, a former Huron University College
00:01:04.380 professor of ethics who has not stepped foot on Western's campus in the last two years. She's not
00:01:10.600 returned to this campus since she was fired last year for non-compliance with the vaccine mandate.
00:01:16.220 And as Dr. Julie Panessi said, Western is ambushing its students with this mandate.
00:01:21.340 Today, you know, it was the time to come. It was the day to come. It's Western, their response continuing
00:01:29.340 this mandate is an irrational, evidence-less ambush and assault on students. And everybody
00:01:38.460 should be here today standing up for themselves. Western imposed this mandate with just two weeks
00:01:43.120 to go until classes start, one week after tuition payments were due. So for a lot of students,
00:01:47.980 they still to this day do not know what's going to happen in the year ahead. The hope is of course
00:01:52.680 that Western is going to fold. There are some other legal challenges afoot or prospective legal
00:01:57.240 challenges. One of them is from Lisa Bildy, a London, Ontario lawyer with Libertas, who has sent a
00:02:02.900 letter on behalf of a number of Western students and parents calling for accountability on this. And
00:02:08.180 there's a very narrow focus. This violates Western's own obligations to privacy. Well, we're saying,
00:02:14.540 look, there's a lot of reasons that we could be opposing this mandate. And we may in the future
00:02:19.040 go after them on a number of other causes of action. But to get this matter before the courts
00:02:23.380 quickly, we're focusing on the breach of privacy issue. We don't believe that they have the authority
00:02:28.180 anymore, if they ever did. But under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act,
00:02:33.880 which they're claiming that they're doing this collection of personal medical information under,
00:02:38.240 we don't believe they have the authority. Now that the orders under the Reopening Ontario Act have been
00:02:42.320 lifted and the emergency is no longer in effect, I think they've lost their foundation for that. So
00:02:48.400 if they can't collect the data, then they really shouldn't be mandating this on anyone. Leave it to
00:02:52.840 personal choice and people can make the choices that they want. What's your view on the lack of
00:02:58.180 notice? Is that something that is in accord a compelling argument that this policy did not give
00:03:02.820 anyone an opportunity to make alternative arrangements if for whatever reason they couldn't
00:03:06.620 comply with it? Well, absolutely. Just on a moral level, it's egregious. I mean, there's all sorts of
00:03:11.240 students who've now assumed that Western wasn't going to impose a policy because they, you know,
00:03:16.460 they hadn't done so for so long and have signed leases. I mean, I have one family that signed a
00:03:21.400 multi-year lease and so, you know, it's appalling. There's going to be a lot of people who will,
00:03:26.320 again, either feel coerced or who will be out of pocket a lot of money or will have their
00:03:30.280 educations disrupted. All of those here were very clear, enough is enough. From Western University
00:03:35.840 for True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.
00:03:41.240 Thank you.
00:03:42.360 All right, I'm so human.
00:03:42.980 All right, all right.
00:03:44.540 Thank you.
00:03:46.760 All right.
00:03:48.540 Quote-