00:01:41.420So no surprise if it ends up becoming a four, a five, a six-dose mandate, which is why a lot of people who went along with it the first time around are saying now enough is enough.
00:01:51.720And that was the message on the banner that the student protesters were holding up on Saturday.
00:01:58.300This is about mandates in general and the way that we still have people imposing on us this 2020 mindset in a 2022 world.
00:02:07.300I want to talk about this with a fantastic panel that we have assembled.
00:02:11.380Dr. Martha Fulford, who is an infectious diseases specialist in Hamilton.
00:02:15.880We have Bruce Party, who is a Queen's University law professor and the executive director of Rights Probe.
00:02:22.600We have Professor Julie Panessi, who is formerly of Huron University College.
00:02:27.180Now she's the ethics scholar at the Democracy Fund.
00:02:29.800And Kendra Hancock, who we had on the show last week, the student activist who founded Students for Agency and organized that fantastic demonstration on the weekend.
00:02:39.820All of you, it is great to have you aboard the program today.
00:02:43.520Let me start with you on this, Kendra, because you started this thing really a week ago, less than a week ago,
00:02:49.260because that was all the notice you've had from Western that this mandate was in effect and was going to be affecting you and your fellow students moving forward.
00:02:58.120Just to confirm, has there been any response from Western at all, not in the context of you doing this protest, but about the mandate?
00:03:08.160No. I believe they might have clarified one thing about the donor issue.
00:03:13.140But no, in terms of the policy itself, they have not communicated anything to the student body since then.
00:03:19.080What was your perspective of the showing that you had from the community and I'd say in many respects the country on Saturday?
00:03:26.700It was great. It was a bit overwhelming. The support has been fantastic.
00:03:32.600We couldn't have asked for a better day on Saturday.
00:03:34.700We spoke to parents and alumni and students and to have everybody there together was nothing short of incredible.
00:03:42.040Let me turn to you, Dr. Fulford, because you spoke and I thought you were absolutely spot on on Saturday about the first principle of medicine.
00:03:51.600If someone knows nothing else about medicine and about the Hippocratic Oath, they know first do no harm.
00:03:58.080And what I thought you articulated quite well is that the idea of mandates are really coming from this perspective that medicine is supposed to be one size fits all, which is not the case.
00:04:08.940And you had said on the weekend has never been the case.
00:04:11.280This is true. And we can talk about any medical intervention, but I mean, obviously, at the moment, it's the topic of vaccines.
00:04:20.260But you know, we think of any vaccine before we even would think about talking specifically about COVID, that vaccines, we always have to have a clear understanding of what a vaccine does, what it doesn't do and who it benefits.
00:04:34.260And it's actually very uncommon to have a one size fits all recommendation, even for for vaccines.
00:04:40.760And so we always have a conversation about who is most at risk, who is most likely to benefit from from the vaccination.
00:04:46.820And of course, these are the possible side effects.
00:04:49.660So then when we come to the COVID vaccine, for me, it's very clear that some people and we have very good understanding out who's a very high risk for COVID.
00:05:00.380If that person gets COVID, particularly the beginning when we didn't have a lot of population immunity, there was a very high risk that person would do very poorly in hospital mass mostly advanced stage, certain medical conditions, and particularly people say who are profoundly immunocompromised.
00:05:14.860And we also noted that obesity was was a significant risk factor for poor outcome.
00:05:19.940People with those conditions were going to almost certainly do better if they chose to be vaccinated.
00:05:26.420But the converse is also true that a young 18 year old, that person's risk of a poor outcome from COVID was was essentially zero.
00:05:36.500And so that the benefit there is a lot less clear, but then there's a risk and we've known about the risk for well over a year.
00:05:43.020However, just one in particular is is the risk of heart inflammation or myocarditis.
00:05:48.540And so if I have a conversation with a patient, I always think medical ethics should be non-negotiable, quite frankly, is what is the benefit to you with your particular history and medical conditions?
00:06:01.060This is where if you choose to be vaccinated, I think it will do a really, you know, you'll do better.
00:06:07.500These are some of the side effects we've noticed, but but for you, I think that the benefit still weighs any potential risk.
00:06:14.440But that conversation will be very, very different in a fit, young teenager or even a young adult.
00:06:20.880And then that person is going to say, you know, COVID, sure, it sometimes causes a poor outcome, but it's very, very uncommon in young people.
00:06:30.540We know these are the conditions that might put you at higher risk.
00:06:33.020But if you choose to get the vaccine, you have in the range of, you know, we don't know the numbers, but but at least one in 5000 from what we're seeing, a risk of heart inflammation.
00:06:42.940So the risk benefit conversation, of course, I'm in favor of vaccination.
00:06:48.480I'm just saying I'm in favor of an individualized approach, which is first do no harm, ensuring my patients have true informed consent.
00:06:55.960And then I always respect all the autonomy.
00:07:58.300I don't think, though, that that this mandate situation is trumping a broader culture of academic freedom.
00:08:04.400You were right when you quoted Western's policy, but we have seen a slow, I would say, sort of stricture of freedom in the academic community for many years prior to this.
00:08:16.780And so when the when the freedom policy says that students are free to to be curious, to to to think what they think, to say what they think, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry,
00:08:26.240that is in some sense a vestige from from a former time.
00:08:30.180I think the culture on campus is much different.
00:08:32.240I actually spoke to a student at the rally on Saturday who said that the her professor said to the class, I know there are dirty, unvaxxed students here.
00:08:42.880And that, from what I've heard from other students, is not anomalous.
00:08:47.880It's more the rule than the exception to the rule.
00:08:50.520And that kind of ideology, that kind of thinking is factoring into not only classroom dynamics, but also questions that students are getting on their exams.
00:08:59.760So I think that academic freedom, there's a question about how much of it there really is when it started to shift.
00:09:06.440And I don't think it's restricted just to the covid issue, but but this covid vaccination issue has just punctuated what I think has been building slowly for a long time.
00:09:14.440Well, you know, this full well, Bruce, is not only a lawyer, but also a member of a university faculty right now.
00:09:20.980There are a number of different fronts that we see this on.
00:09:24.220There is, of course, a human resources aspect.
00:09:32.160To go back to what we've heard from all of the panelists today about is this a right that belongs to the individual student or is this a right that belongs to a university or an employer or whatever the case is.
00:09:42.780So what do you think is the most likely front on which we could emerge victorious in this?
00:09:48.020Do you think it is going to be in law?
00:09:49.820Do you think it's going to be through the university just realizing the error of its ways?
00:09:53.600Where do you think that weak point is?
00:09:57.060Well, there are some legal avenues to pursue, and I trust that they will be and hope they will be successful.
00:10:04.500But I think even better than that is the possibility that the students themselves will take this into their own hands and say, I'm not doing this.
00:10:14.420I mean, I love the name of Kendra's group, you know, Students for Agency, and agency is the key word here.
00:10:21.560And in a way, this might be a moment of truth for a lot of people in her peer group.
00:10:29.980It might be the moment to figure out, you know, a moment to have a real education in the sense that reading books won't provide to you.
00:10:40.300In the realization that the world does not always work the way it's portrayed, and your elders might not actually have your best interests at heart.
00:10:50.080And our institutions and our governments might not be the benign places and outfits that they're portrayed as.
00:10:57.740And there's an old saying that education is not the filling of a pail, but the starting of a fire.
00:11:05.040And maybe, just maybe, enough students will be in a corner now and realize the pressure that's being put on them in the interests of other people, other people's fears.
00:11:20.440Because, as Dr. Fulford alludes to, the case for, on balance, these boosters being a net benefit to this age group is really not very good.
00:11:39.900And so, if you're not given the opportunity to make your own cost-benefit analysis, that means you're being taken advantage of.
00:11:48.020And, you know, I hope that enough students will say, not me, I'm not doing that.
00:11:54.060I want to get to Dr. Fulford on that in a moment, but let me first get you on this, Kendra.
00:11:58.700Because I know that the Twitter chattering class, which is never, I think, what you want to extrapolate too much from,
00:12:04.320was kind of doing the frame-by-frame analysis of all the footage from the weekend and saying,
00:12:08.780well, that person looks like they're not a student, and that person looks like it.
00:12:11.760And you had a lot of people there that were parents, faculty.
00:12:14.080So, I didn't take having an age demographic that wasn't just 20-somethings to mean anything significant here.
00:12:20.340But are you finding that there are actually students that are prepared to speak up about this?
00:12:26.180Because I know there was one gentleman who spoke who was a med student who didn't want to use his last name, understandably so.
00:12:32.200And I spoke to some other students that, as well, didn't want to be identified on record.
00:12:36.340And there is a lot of fear, students that don't want to jeopardize their academic career by even criticizing this.
00:12:43.180So, what are you finding in the students you're talking to with, you know, classes set to start in just a little over a week?
00:12:51.000We've had a lot of students come forward in private.
00:12:53.980A lot of the parents we spoke to at the rally came without their children.
00:12:58.760And they told us, my daughter's scared to be here, or my son's going into his third year, and he doesn't want to get another shot, but he didn't want to come today.
00:13:09.920They're put in a position where the pressure is already mounting.
00:13:13.580And when you are, especially for the students coming out of high school, the students who haven't, maybe haven't been vaccinated at all yet, because it wasn't required, now have to get three, now have to wear a mask.
00:13:24.540And they're going to a school, maybe Western, maybe a smaller classroom dynamic, such as King's in Huron.
00:13:32.640And they want to make a good impression.
00:13:34.420They want to network and meet professors and ensure good job perspectives after school.
00:13:39.940And they want to fit in with their peers.
00:13:41.900So speaking up is, you know, is becoming a much more difficult option for a lot of students.
00:13:48.140So the fact that we have some momentum building between students is something we want to take advantage of.
00:13:52.620And we want to make sure students do not get silenced by the university.
00:13:57.120Dr. Fulfur, you said something on the weekend that really stuck with me, in that you talked about how people have different priorities.
00:14:05.380And for some people, it might be taking every preventative treatment available, taking every vaccine available, really making sure they're the very portrait of health.
00:14:14.340For other people, religious values or cultural values of some kind might be more important to them.
00:14:20.940And that's an idea that I think is very difficult for a lot of people that may not have that same identity to wrap their heads around.
00:14:28.540And I was wondering if you could elaborate on that, because that really seems to be one of the real fault lines here, is that people who are vaccinated themselves, who support mandates, don't understand or respect why someone wouldn't be vaccinated, it seems.
00:14:42.360And this is, again, I think it comes down to the issue of patient autonomy, we've always respected somebody's decisions, there are some people who, for example, if they have a critical illness will choose every conceivable medical intervention to prolong life at any cost.
00:15:00.200And that might involve very invasive surgeries, it might involve really toxic chemotherapies, even understanding that, that, you know, the chances of a good outcome are poor, but they still want that outcome no matter what.
00:15:15.100There are other people who might choose to say the quality of life is more important, and they refuse all treatment.
00:15:22.020We have, there are a great many people, for example, who refuse all blood products, and now maybe I personally don't share that belief, because I don't, I'm a physician.
00:15:34.900On the other hand, I would never, ever impose my thoughts on the pros and cons of a blood transfusion on somebody who is fundamentally religiously opposed to that.
00:15:45.020And this, this idea of respecting the sort of the values and the beliefs of other people in our society has always, at least up until now, been a fundamental part of the kind of medicine I was taught to practice.
00:16:00.720There's one thing I just want to backtrack a little bit on, one of the justifications for mandates, which clearly do trample on a lot of these principles I'm talking about,
00:16:09.960was that it would, that they would, that being vaccinated would also keep other people safe.
00:16:15.420And this is a really important thing to clarify.
00:16:18.300The individual benefit for the vaccination remains, and of course, that would be most seen in somebody who's at high risk in the first place.
00:16:28.300But this thought that the vaccines stop onward transmission is pretty obviously not happening.
00:16:35.140And the studies are very, very clear that the vaccines, and even possibly a booster, maybe they reduce transmission for two to four months.
00:16:48.680And so that, that community value, or that sort of public health value, that somehow we're going to stop all transmission simply is not there.
00:16:56.520And so that is a rationale for imposing, you know, a medical decision on somebody with, with very coercive means, because we are clearly coercing young, young people.
00:17:09.120If we're saying, do this thing you don't want to do, or you cannot come to school, get an education.
00:17:14.920Is, is that even that argument that maybe we have to sacrifice individual rights for, for the greater good is simply not true.
00:17:23.720And, and I think anybody looks around at what's happened with Omicron, what's going on now, it's, it's very clear.
00:17:29.480So that in no way does, what is, does this take away from the individual decision to decide whether or not you want this, that, that my beliefs and my values say it's better to, to get a boost than not.
00:17:41.400But that's for me, or for the individual making a decision, it's not for the benefit of anybody around you.
00:17:46.160And this is a really important clarification, because I still hear a lot of people saying, oh, it's to keep everybody safe.
00:17:51.220And, and it, it, it's not stopping transmission, which means that we really do need to return to exactly, you know, what you're saying in your question, which is respecting people's individual values and what's right for them.
00:18:08.520And I'd like to get you, Julie, to continue along that vein, if you don't mind, because one thing that would also strike me, if you look at the list that Western has published of who this applies to and who it doesn't, is that Western knows it's not a public safety, which is why there are certain situations.
00:18:23.940Like if you're a, an entire visiting athletic team, you don't need to be triple vaccinated, but if you are a parent going to your child's convocation, you do.
00:18:32.340And if you are, as the text says, if you're a visiting donor or visiting alumni, you don't need to be.
00:18:37.700But if you're a visiting donor who is enrolled as a student, you do.
00:18:41.340So if it's, if everyone is a disease vector, you have to have a policy that applies to absolutely everyone.
00:18:46.920So do you think, Julie, that these sort of exemptions they put are indicative that they themselves don't believe in this idea that you being vaccinated is to protect someone else?
00:18:59.500Well, it's very hard to see because on paper, on the screen, it's very hard to see the rationality of it.
00:19:05.980As you pointed out just now and on Saturday, viruses don't distinguish on the basis of economics or on the basis of political participation or on the basis of ideology.
00:19:16.920Or on the basis of whether or not you're an athlete, you know, so it's very hard to understand.
00:19:21.420We certainly have been hearing a possibility that the Western Faculty Association has very much been pushing for this.
00:19:29.320I also spoke with a member of senior administration on the weekend at another Ontario university, one that's close by,
00:19:36.680who said that there was some thought among senior administration at all the universities in Canada that,
00:19:41.560that they would move in lockstep with one another about these mandates that Western would announce first and that the others would follow.
00:19:49.200Western did announce early comparative, you know, relative to them, and it has not gone well for them.
00:19:55.460So it's very hard to understand, you know, but I have to emphasize, you know, making this announcement at this point,
00:20:02.400within two weeks of the start of class and ambushing students who have, and it's not that they can't say no at this point.
00:20:10.040And I certainly hope if they, if it is not their free choice to get this booster dose,
00:20:16.260I certainly hope they do say no and that they will incur the consequences of that and try to find alternative options.
00:20:24.480But what Western should have done, I mean, nothing scientific has changed since the spring.
00:20:29.900If anything, as Dr. Fulford has said, it's becoming less and less clear that there is any benefit to the vaccination for the population,
00:20:38.920especially for a young population like, like Western's population.
00:20:42.380So it's not like they've gained any new information that they didn't have a month ago or three months ago
00:20:47.580to suggest that the students are more at risk or that the faculty is more at risk than they might have been.
00:20:52.340So this is something they should have publicized.
00:20:54.780And then the students would have had in March or June, even an option to apply to or enroll or transfer to another university in the province or out of out of province at a college.
00:21:06.960They could have had the option to enroll at Fanshawe and actually know a couple of students who are pursuing that option or not or not pursue their studies at all.
00:21:15.220Now they've paid some portion of their tuition and there's a financial penalty for withdrawing at this point.
00:21:19.880As Bruce was saying earlier, you know, what is the the goal of education is not to put ideas into the student's mind,
00:21:26.960but to sort of light a fire of curiosity so that they can pursue their own ideas.
00:21:31.300And I think, you know, in sort of sync with that idea is that the mark of a truly free, successful education system is that the students feel free to disagree with their educators.
00:21:42.400And if you have created a context in which they do not have that freedom, if there isn't a culture or a spirit or an atmosphere of that kind of freedom,
00:21:49.980then that's a sign to us that we are failing massively as educators and institutions.
00:22:55.920Yeah, no, but the occasional claim that this is about keeping other people safe, as Dr. Fulford alludes to, is, I mean, I don't think very many people would seriously make that claim now based upon the data.
00:23:08.960So it's really a paternalistic, patronizing idea that, you know, in some kind of abstract way, vaccines are good and we have a population and we think you should do this and therefore we're going to make it mandatory.
00:23:25.380And it's hardly a thing to gloat about that you have made your population do a certain thing and they've gone along with it.
00:23:36.080In an institution that is supposed to be promoting independent thinking, to gloat that you've managed to get 99% of your student body to go along with it is no victory.
00:23:47.000That that's, that's, that's a very bad sign, you know, in some ways for, for many students, many young students, this may be for some of them, the, the, the first real crisis or the first real political crisis anyway,
00:24:04.800in terms of dealing with external authorities who want to tell you what to do in a way that it's contrary to your own interests and it's very important for them to, to recognize the moment and not just go along, to be very careful, to think it through, act deliberately so that they don't do something they may regret for the rest of their lives, both in health terms and in terms of being,
00:24:31.340showing some integrity to themselves, to be able to look in the mirror and say, you know what, I did think for myself, I did act in my own best interests.
00:24:41.160Don't just put your head down and go with the crowd. This is not the moment for that.
00:24:46.680Kendra, you may, you would know better than me and those, the rest of us on the panel here, but Western, it does not seem like from my perspective, has done all that much to try to be accommodating with online classes, for example.
00:24:59.660You know, I was talking to a couple of people on the weekend who had said that the online offerings are, are minimal, especially compared to last year when it was a bit of a hybrid and two years ago when eventually it was all online.
00:25:10.480So it's not even like this is something that they're approaching in good faith and making sure that students that aren't able to come to campus have options and quite the contrary,
00:25:18.380because students who are online students still have to be vaccinated if their class has an in-person exam.
00:25:24.160So to come in person for that three hours in April, you need to be fully vaccinated in October.
00:25:30.320So when you're looking around here, students that are still holding out hope that this will change in the next week, what are the options realistically that you have?
00:25:40.740And I mean, in your case, you're in a master's program, which I know is even narrower as far as options you have compared to undergrad students.
00:25:47.540The options are slim, and that's the, that's the case.
00:25:52.420We heard from students last year who went to submit exemptions, both the religious creed exemptions and the medical exemptions, who got their exemptions denied.
00:26:00.260There were plenty of students who had genuine medical exemptions who were denied.
00:26:03.800And when they, when they reached out to, you know, their own students council or the accessibility resource center through campus, they were told, it's okay, you must just be, you know, this must be just kind of like an outlier will help you.
00:26:21.680So there is a contradiction in effort.
00:26:24.260And I'd say like the motivations behind things and the concern for students that doesn't really appear to be there.
00:26:30.440So yes, I'd say that I'd say most of the online classes are not going to be available for students who do not have the three doses.
00:26:39.440That was the case last year because of those in-person exams.
00:26:42.820I don't think I could name five classes that would actually have an online exam personally.
00:26:47.680So the limit, the options are limited and they, we can assume that's because they want you to be put into a corner.
00:26:56.200They don't want students to be able to make that choice for themselves, which is sad as, you know, as Bruce was saying, but these students, especially coming out of high school are typically 18 and older.
00:27:07.680We can choose the political trajectory of our country, but we can't choose what we want to do with our own health.
00:27:12.900Well, have you heard from students that got the two doses last year because Western or another university made them, but this year they're saying, you know what, the booster is a bridge too far.
00:27:25.900Students that went along but are not prepared to this time.
00:27:29.240Yes, I'd say that that was actually a good portion of the students we heard from from the rally who got it, thought it was a sort of an admission fee for freedom.
00:27:40.880You know, we were going to resume normalcy.
00:27:58.420That was the lie that we were sold and people are going to put their foot down and rightfully so.
00:28:03.040Yeah, and I think there is understandably a fear that people could have that is not going to be over.
00:28:09.920I mean, Dr. Fulford, you were mentioning about how there may only be a real tangible benefit on transmission for a few months.
00:28:16.140So it could be very likely that Western in January is saying fourth dose or whatever the advice goes there.
00:28:21.960So when you hear about some of these concerns, whether it's from someone that has a religious objection or someone that perhaps has had a vaccine injury or knows someone who has had one, and it goes back to that individualized approach.
00:28:36.520But institutions have also been very reticent to honor exemptions.
00:28:40.740You've had doctors that have been very reticent to give exemptions.
00:28:43.340And I'm wondering if you could speak to how that issue has factored in here, not even just with Western, but in general with vaccine mandates, this politicization of exemptions.
00:28:54.360I mean, it's something extraordinary for me to see.
00:28:58.100I mean, to the point that our college, the College of Physicians and Surgeons Ontario even sort of said that there'd be very, very few reasons for an exemption.
00:29:06.940You know, under normal circumstances, the medical history of a patient of mine is confidential.
00:29:16.920In the past, before COVID, if I wrote a letter for somebody for medical reason, one of the actual, you know, I don't say rule, but we weren't supposed to talk about the actual details of a person's medical history.
00:29:30.800So I would say this person is exempt, you know, please excuse this person for whatever, because the reason might have been, could be a mental health issue.
00:29:39.980It could be perhaps the person had in the past HIV infection.
00:29:44.540It might be for severe mental health struggles.
00:29:48.300I mean, we don't reveal a patient's medical history.
00:29:50.980This is very confidential between the physician and the patient.
00:29:53.960And now we're suddenly in a position where not only are we supposed to breach that, in a lot of cases, we're supposed to disregard our patient's sort of values and preferences.
00:30:03.520For some, we were supposed to disregard their history.
00:30:07.040There were actually, you know, some people saying, well, myocarditis is mild.
00:30:18.620We had people in our intensive care unit from vaccine-induced myocarditis.
00:30:22.440Again, I'm not saying it was that common, but it was real, and it remains real.
00:30:28.180And so we need to, for me, I mean, we need to go back to honoring that sort of physician-patient relationship and honoring that.
00:30:40.880I mean, I tried to write some letters, for example, for people who had just recovered from COVID.
00:30:45.520A person who's just had infection develops a very strong immune response to this.
00:30:50.240And it is, for me, immunologically, epidemiologically highly bizarre to say somebody who's just recovered from infection needs to be vaccinated.
00:31:31.360And it made me, I personally felt extremely uncomfortable in what was going on in terms of, again, and I'm going back to medical ethics.
00:31:43.120Because we, when talking about these vaccines, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of understanding what they do do, who benefits, but also what they don't do.
00:31:54.700And, and, and that's this part about, they don't stop a person from testing positive and they don't stop a person from transmitting.
00:32:02.380There may be some small decrease in, in transmission for the first few months, but, but that's what the studies unequivocally show.
00:32:10.220And the studies unequivocally show that men under the age of 40 are at a higher risk for myocarditis from the vaccines than they are from the infection themselves.
00:32:20.660And the, this information should be transparent, it should be open, and it should be part of the conversation when encouraging, or at least when discussing with a patient, whether or not that individual should, you know, basically risk and benefits to that individual.
00:32:38.500One of the interesting demographics I've heard more and more people fall into is those who know someone who's had a vaccine injury, and because of that knowledge, they're a bit reticent, which I totally understand.
00:32:51.880I mean, I have talked to people that had a very terrible reaction from a first dose or second dose.
00:32:56.620They can get a doctor to sign off on that and say, okay, you're exempt because of this reaction.
00:33:01.060But if you have a loved one that went through that, and you may say, well, I'm not sure if I want to go through that as well, that doesn't get you an exemption, even though I think you have a very real reason to be frustrated about this.
00:33:12.660And I'll go to you on this, Julie, because I think all of these different situations really show the complexity of this.
00:33:18.620There is, there was a woman I met on Saturday who's a member of a faculty.
00:33:22.360She was really enthusiastic, got her first dose, and had a terrible reaction, had partial paralysis.
00:33:28.900You know, doctor recognized it, Western recognized it, but now Western wants to make her reapply for her exemption, and she's worried that because she's not as acute this time, she could have an issue, or that she just has to go through it again.
00:33:42.540And, you know, you can point to lots of different people that have very good reasons for not wanting to, but I feel in a way, once you go down that road, you're missing the mark to some extent, because the whole point is that it's not Western that should be the arbiter of this.
00:33:56.840Well, that's exactly right, and reasons come in all kinds of different forms.
00:34:01.200And informed consent, which is, as Martha has been saying, it's so core, not just to medical practice, but to who we are as persons.
00:34:10.680And now we're at a place in our country where young people have to choose.
00:34:15.740You choose between your right to have an education and your right to bodily autonomy, your right not to have your body invaded.
00:34:24.160And making an informed choice, it's not about, it's not as though, as a group, we're going to figure out what the best medical choice is, and then we download that to each individual.
00:34:35.600And if you don't make that choice, then we consider you not to have the capacity to make an informed choice, right?
00:34:42.540So informed consent and capacity assessments are very complicated, and my concern now is that someone who chooses not to be vaccinated is considered not to have the capacity to make an informed choice to be vaccinated or not.
00:34:55.420I mean, I think we've been at that point in the country, and I hope we're turning around, but I think, I would hope to say, I hope people who are listening realize that one of the very best reasons why this should always be a matter of personal choice
00:35:07.040is because you, not your professor, not Western, not our Prime Minister, will bear the consequences if it goes badly for you.
00:35:17.280And for that reason, and almost no other reason, it should be up to you and your choice should be supported.
00:35:23.600You know, I did want to say, I've had some really encouraging, I mean, there's a question going forward, what do we do about all of this?
00:35:30.060And I've had some really encouraging emails from people in the Western community who are donors, who said, after they saw the rally on Saturday, so Kendra, this is a testament to all your effort there.
00:35:39.740They are writing strong letters to the President's Office, to VP External Affairs, and threatening to withdraw support if this mandate isn't rescinded.
00:35:50.020So I think we're at a really crucial moment.
00:35:53.620I would not want to be responsible for, you know, for Western's public image right now, but that could, we're at a precipice, right?
00:36:03.020It could come or go depending on what students do in the next days, in the next week or two, and we have to do everything possible to support them.
00:36:11.300There is, Kendra, you might know this better than I, but University Students Council is having a vote on the 31st, I believe, so two days from now, about whether or not to challenge the university's mandate.
00:36:21.080That would be huge. I mean, I think the more students can come together and say, this is not really about the science anymore.
00:36:27.720This is about the fact that we are independent, autonomous people, and we're paying tuition to make ourselves more so, and you're trying to counter that at every turn, and we're not going to take it anymore.
00:36:39.840Yeah, and I think on that note, too, I mean, you look at the number of students that are triple vaccinated already, and if you just extrapolate from the age data that's available, it's probably about a third.
00:36:51.980And that's a lot of people that need to decide to go along with what Western's doing without seeing a huge drop in enrollment for the upcoming term.
00:37:00.060I'll be fascinated to see those numbers. I'll give you the last word on this, Kendra. I'll ask you, first off, are you optimistic that this will change in the next week?
00:37:09.860And also, you said at the beginning that Western has clarified this donor thing, so I would love for you to explain what you've learned on that.
00:37:17.640Oh, gosh, the donor thing. That was, I think I was just tagged in it.
00:37:20.440There's so much information coming through where I didn't give too much of a look, but I think they've been very careful to not make it very public,
00:37:26.760because if it was public, I would have seen it. We do know that they're very slick sometimes in their messaging, but yeah, I would have to look into that for you.
00:37:37.900No, that's okay. Yeah, because just for, if you hadn't seen the video, I found, and other people pointed out as well,
00:37:43.040that Western says if you're visiting the campus because you're a donor, you're exempt from the vaccine requirement, but also if you're a prospective donor.
00:37:50.280So I like waved a $5 bill in the air and said it's going to take me a whole year to think about whether I want to give this to them.
00:37:55.100But in any case, the real question, are you optimistic at this point?
00:37:59.360Yes, 100%. We are optimistic because we are Western. Students are Western. Without us, they have nothing.
00:38:08.580We are, they're a publicly funded institution. They rely on us as paying customers.
00:38:13.580They rely on these alumni donors who are upset, and they're in a terrible position, to be honest.
00:38:19.940And they went through this without any student consultation. And I think if they did the bare minimum student consultation,
00:38:25.440they would see the overwhelming direction this is going and would know if they're in the wrong.
00:38:30.940So I am optimistic because this is what's right. This is what is supported by the data.
00:38:35.440It's supported by the science. It's supported by public health and the people who pay to go there.