The Candice Malcolm Show - Canada’s goal-posts are moving once again when it comes to COVID-19

00:00:00.380 Canada's goalposts are moving once again when it comes to COVID-19 and vaccination rates.

00:00:05.420 I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:12.300 Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.

00:00:14.980 I hope you are enjoying our daily show and we hope that you are enjoying the content here at True North as well as The Candice Malcolm Show

00:00:21.020 as we dive into the daily goings-on in federal politics in Canada,

00:00:25.740 looking at the scope of politics and culture across the country and coming to you every day,

00:00:30.720 which is really fun because we get to pretty much cover every major issue that goes on in the country.

00:00:35.900 We don't let anything pass us by and we always keep an eye out on the media who are often just so dishonest

00:00:41.760 and so manipulative in the way that they present the information.

00:00:44.600 So we usually have a fun mix of critiquing federal politics as well as critiquing the federal media landscape

00:00:51.640 and we talk about provincial politics as well.

00:00:54.300 So today I want to talk about the ever-moving goalposts when it comes to COVID-19.

00:00:58.800 This is a very familiar topic to the audience, to all Canadians, because as you recall,

00:01:04.140 the original call when it came to COVID-19, the original ask from world leaders,

00:01:08.620 from our own prime minister in Canada, from provincial leaders and health experts,

00:01:12.520 was that we were going to take two weeks to flatten the curve.

00:01:15.640 You recall that in what early, it was early March 2020, we saw huge spikes of COVID all over the world.

00:01:21.820 It started out in China, but China is so secretive and dishonest, we didn't really get a full picture of what was going on.

00:01:27.380 There were sort of dissident leaks of videos, so that we kind of got a picture of the authoritarian reaction to COVID.

00:01:35.340 But we didn't really know how bad COVID was until it started to spread to other countries,

00:01:39.200 until we saw it in places like Italy and Europe and the United States.

00:01:43.440 And then we realized, okay, this thing is pretty bad, pretty deadly.

00:01:46.780 We don't know exactly what it is.

00:01:48.320 There's a lot of really shady elements to it, particularly that the source of this virus came from Wuhan,

00:01:54.160 which, as Jon Stewart very funnily, very comically put it,

00:01:58.360 is the same location as the Wuhan Irology Lab, which studied coronaviruses.

00:02:04.840 And so, you know, did this thing come from a lab?

00:02:07.360 Was it man-made? Did it leak from a lab?

00:02:09.220 What exactly is it?

00:02:10.240 There's so many questions. And so, at the time in March in 2020,

00:02:13.900 when world leaders said, let's all just stay home so that we don't spike the healthcare system,

00:02:18.500 so that we don't overrun everything, we're just going to flatten the curve,

00:02:21.460 which didn't mean that you weren't going to get sick.

00:02:24.420 It still meant that you were going to get sick from COVID eventually.

00:02:27.420 You just wasn't going to happen all at once to flood the healthcare system.

00:02:30.400 So it was two weeks to flatten the curve.

00:02:32.740 Famously, in March 2020, it is now November 2021,

00:02:36.440 and we are still living with ongoing COVID restrictions, again, the moving goalposts.

00:02:42.580 So it started out with a mild ask, and then it escalated.

00:02:47.020 And it continues to escalate, continues to escalate, and we see that.

00:02:50.080 So we're going to go through some of these glaring examples,

00:02:51.880 because now it's not just the COVID moving goalposts,

00:02:54.820 but it's also the moving goalposts when it comes to vaccination rates,

00:02:59.280 when it comes to forced vaccinations,

00:03:00.680 and now when it comes to vaccinating your little kids,

00:03:03.720 when it comes to vaccinating five-year-old children in this country and around the world.

00:03:08.100 Before I get to that, though, if you are enjoying the Candace Malcolm Show,

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00:03:58.360 So that really helps us out.

00:03:59.700 Thank you so much.

00:04:00.480 So today, I really want to delve into this issue

00:04:03.080 of COVID moving goalposts

00:04:05.400 because the latest one came out this week

00:04:07.320 that public health experts are changing the definition

00:04:09.820 of what it means to be fully vaccinated.

00:04:12.400 So Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam,

00:04:15.460 says that the general population

00:04:16.720 will now need another vaccine shot,

00:04:19.620 but not until at least early next year.

00:04:21.720 So we're talking 2022.

00:04:23.580 It may be that the general population

00:04:25.660 will need another dose, but not just now.

00:04:28.460 But that's likely to come, said Dr. Theresa Tam.

00:04:30.920 Now, why is this an issue?

00:04:32.120 Well, it was just three days earlier.

00:04:34.960 Three days earlier, Dr. Theresa Tam,

00:04:36.920 the same person,

00:04:37.720 the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada,

00:04:40.420 came out and said that boosters

00:04:42.160 for the general population will not be required

00:04:45.400 as there is no evidence of waning protection.

00:04:48.640 So here she is.

00:04:49.360 She comes out last week and says,

00:04:51.280 look, we're not going to need boosters.

00:04:52.580 That's not part of being fully vaccinated.

00:04:54.900 There's no evidence that there is a huge new surge

00:04:57.820 of COVID cases or that people

00:04:59.460 who have been double vaccinated are no longer protected.

00:05:02.280 They're not seeing a big wave of people

00:05:04.220 who are fully vaccinated all of a sudden

00:05:06.120 becoming more sick of COVID.

00:05:07.960 They're not seeing those numbers go up.

00:05:09.820 But then three days later, three days later.

00:05:13.080 So somehow in the course of three days,

00:05:15.740 we went from being no evidence of something

00:05:18.640 to all of a sudden it's likely to come

00:05:20.900 and it's inevitable.

00:05:21.940 So this is just what we've come to expect in Canada.

00:05:24.940 I don't know if it's a communication issue

00:05:26.520 or just, again, this is evolving,

00:05:28.680 ever-changing goals when it comes to COVID.

00:05:30.780 We can never get out of COVID

00:05:32.160 because we don't even know what that means.

00:05:34.180 What is the final vaccination rate?

00:05:36.360 What is the case count?

00:05:38.400 At what point will we just learn to live with COVID?

00:05:41.340 We all know that Alberta famously tried to say

00:05:44.040 that COVID is now an endemic,

00:05:45.760 just meaning that we're going to live with it.

00:05:47.280 It's going to be something that is always there,

00:05:48.920 like influenza, and every year there's surges in cases.

00:05:52.120 And sadly, some people die of it every year,

00:05:53.960 but it's not debilitating.

00:05:55.620 It's not something that we're going to close down

00:05:57.020 our entire economy for.

00:05:58.380 It's not something that we're going to break the bank

00:06:01.160 and run up mind-boggling amounts of debt

00:06:03.980 to what, to pay people to stay at home?

00:06:06.480 That's not going to happen anymore.

00:06:08.180 So Alberta said that in the summer

00:06:09.600 and it kind of came back against them

00:06:12.400 because they did have that surge.

00:06:13.620 They did have that fourth wave.

00:06:14.620 And the media were all too happy to sensationalize that,

00:06:19.000 to blow it out of proportion,

00:06:20.340 to make it seem more catastrophic.

00:06:22.100 It was constantly in the news, drumming up fear,

00:06:24.740 drumming up anxiety about this,

00:06:27.000 basically to embarrass Premier Kenney,

00:06:29.120 basically to, as a warning sign to any other province

00:06:32.020 and any other government out there,

00:06:33.400 don't say that COVID might be ending

00:06:35.500 because if you say COVID might be ending

00:06:38.440 and then there's a case spike,

00:06:40.360 we will make you live to regret it

00:06:42.140 and it will ruin your political career.

00:06:44.640 So that's the scenario that we live in.

00:06:46.920 This is the world that we live in

00:06:48.100 where we can never shake this COVID thing.

00:06:51.780 It's just here forever.

00:06:53.200 And no matter what we do,

00:06:54.260 no matter how far we get,

00:06:55.340 no matter how much we comply with government orders,

00:06:57.660 they are finding a way to bring back more orders,

00:07:00.260 more heavy-handedness.

00:07:01.400 It's like, I've said this many times on the show before,

00:07:04.060 the authoritarian impulse is real

00:07:06.280 and a lot of political leaders,

00:07:08.940 a lot of public health officials,

00:07:10.660 they like the power.

00:07:11.640 They like, especially public health officials

00:07:13.320 who are usually, you know, low-level bureaucrats,

00:07:16.560 people who aren't really thought of,

00:07:17.840 aren't really considered,

00:07:19.060 aren't really involved in decision-making.

00:07:21.060 You know, they stay in their lane, right?

00:07:24.320 But then in the last almost two years,

00:07:26.660 they've been elevated,

00:07:28.040 they've been, you know,

00:07:29.880 promoted on television every day.

00:07:31.620 They're stars, they're household names.

00:07:33.220 Everybody knows Dr. Theresa Tam.

00:07:34.880 Everybody knows Dr. Dina Henshaw, 0.98

00:07:37.620 Dr. Bonnie Henry out in British Columbia.

00:07:39.380 These have now become household names,

00:07:41.260 Dr. Fauci in the United States.

00:07:42.980 And they like that.

00:07:43.900 They like the attention,

00:07:44.660 they like the power,

00:07:45.560 and they don't want to let it go.

00:07:46.700 And so again, what we're seeing is no matter what we do,

00:07:49.460 they're going to find another way

00:07:51.000 to make us comply,

00:07:54.060 to make us subservient,

00:07:55.720 to make sure that they are lording over us

00:07:57.740 in a way that really is not emblematic of a free society.

00:08:01.520 This is not how free societies go.

00:08:03.700 Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg

00:08:05.660 when it comes to the changing goalposts,

00:08:08.200 even vaccine passports.

00:08:09.940 Who could forget?

00:08:11.240 Both Doug Ford and Jason Kenney came out

00:08:13.140 making sort of passionate cases

00:08:15.360 against vaccine passports.

00:08:16.960 And we saw that they famously flip-flopped.

00:08:19.320 You know, in Alberta,

00:08:19.940 it was because of that fourth wave.

00:08:21.540 In Ontario, it's because Doug Ford

00:08:23.420 just listens to whoever is in front of him.

00:08:25.760 And the person who was in front of him

00:08:27.280 one day said no to vaccine passports.

00:08:29.160 And the next day, they said yes to it.

00:08:31.600 So Ford flip-flopped, Kenney flip-flopped.

00:08:34.060 But one of the prominent people

00:08:35.260 who also flip-flopped on this issue

00:08:36.860 that we don't talk about a lot,

00:08:38.380 we went deep into the archives here to find this clip,

00:08:41.900 is our prime minister,

00:08:43.120 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

00:08:44.480 also adamantly opposed vaccine passports

00:08:47.660 back in January 2021.

00:08:50.440 Trudeau opposed them.

00:08:51.420 He said that they would have divisive impacts.

00:08:53.720 So let's show that interview

00:08:55.420 because we don't see this clip very often.

00:08:57.200 And we don't remember that it was just less than a year ago,

00:09:00.220 about 10 months ago,

00:09:01.520 Trudeau was on the anti-passport side.

00:09:04.540 And he actually makes a pretty decent case here

00:09:06.320 about why he was opposed to vaccine passports back then.

00:09:10.020 Let's play that clip.

00:09:11.020 Will Canada consider requiring people in this country 0.99

00:09:13.000 to have proof of vaccination

00:09:14.360 similar to the digital passports

00:09:16.740 that are being developed in places like Denmark

00:09:18.700 and Greece and the EU?

00:09:20.740 I think it's an interesting idea,

00:09:23.160 but I think it is also fraught with challenges.

00:09:26.020 We are certainly encouraging and motivating people

00:09:29.680 to get vaccinated as quickly as possible.

00:09:33.020 We always know there are people who won't get vaccinated

00:09:36.940 and not necessarily through a personal or political choice.

00:09:41.540 There are medical reasons.

00:09:42.800 There are a broad range of reasons

00:09:45.180 why someone might not get vaccinated.

00:09:46.800 And I'm worried about creating knock-on,

00:09:51.660 undesirable effects in our community.

00:09:53.580 I think the indications that the vast majority of Canadians

00:09:57.900 are looking to get vaccinated

00:09:59.680 will get us to a good place

00:10:01.780 without having to take more extreme measures

00:10:05.980 that could have real divisive impacts

00:10:08.860 on community and country.

00:10:10.540 It's like a different guy, right?

00:10:12.120 It's like the guy that we saw campaigning

00:10:13.820 on the 2021 election campaign

00:10:16.200 was angry, divisive, hateful, spiteful

00:10:19.820 against the population in Canada

00:10:22.300 who are vaccine-hesitant, right?

00:10:24.140 He was coming out with every name,

00:10:26.660 fully demonizing them,

00:10:27.820 not just demonizing the sort of political movement

00:10:30.580 and the political leader,

00:10:31.440 as we've seen him do in the past with conservatives.

00:10:33.260 He loves to demonize conservative politicians,

00:10:36.480 conservative MPs, conservative leaders.

00:10:38.680 But this time, it wasn't just his ire

00:10:42.400 wasn't just aimed at Maxime Bernier.

00:10:44.440 It was aimed at the entire segment of the population

00:10:47.560 who may support Maxime Bernier.

00:10:49.280 It was aimed at all of the people

00:10:50.680 who didn't want to get vaccinated,

00:10:52.560 which I've never seen a prime minister

00:10:54.500 wage a election campaign

00:10:56.560 against a segment of the population.

00:10:59.380 The type of sort of divisiveness,

00:11:02.860 fear-mongering, the hatefulness

00:11:04.700 that he was promoting

00:11:06.100 against that group of people

00:11:08.200 was really unbecoming of a prime minister.

00:11:10.400 The old liberals, liberals not too long ago,

00:11:12.940 including Justin Trudeau,

00:11:14.300 would have made a passionate defense

00:11:15.920 against scapegoating a portion of the population,

00:11:19.340 splitting the population into a we versus them.

00:11:21.620 So January 2021 versus August and September 21,

00:11:27.000 two totally different Justin Trudeaus.

00:11:29.120 And so finally, you notice in that clip,

00:11:30.660 he says not just people who have a health exemption

00:11:33.840 or a health reason why they wouldn't get the vaccine.

00:11:37.680 He also said people who have a political

00:11:39.880 or religious reason for not wanting to get vaccinated,

00:11:43.760 which is, again, just a totally different tone

00:11:45.460 than the one that he has struck more recently.

00:11:48.100 I like January 2021, Justin Trudeau,

00:11:50.920 a lot better than his current iteration of himself.

00:11:54.280 But we know that, of course, Trudeau is not alone.

00:11:57.040 Lots and lots of politicians have come out

00:11:59.560 and flip-flopped on this.

00:12:01.080 So the team here at TrueNorth has created a nifty little guide

00:12:04.200 to highlight all of the various times

00:12:06.520 that the government, federal officials,

00:12:08.280 Dr. Theresa Tam, Justin Trudeau,

00:12:09.680 have completely flipped when it comes to the way

00:12:12.080 that they describe something COVID-related.

00:12:14.280 You can find it over at tnc.news.

00:12:16.660 I'm going to go through some of them now.

00:12:18.160 So early on with COVID,

00:12:20.780 Dr. Theresa Tam said that COVID is not a risk to Canadians

00:12:23.640 on January 29, 2020.

00:12:25.600 Tam says the risk is low in Canada.

00:12:27.500 By March 11th, that had changed.

00:12:29.000 And Theresa Tam said this is an outbreak that's very serious

00:12:32.120 when it comes to China's responsibility.

00:12:34.380 Again, on January 29th, 2020,

00:12:36.260 Theresa Tam praised China 1.00

00:12:37.840 for its astonishingly rapid coronavirus response.

00:12:41.640 By May 13th, 2020, Trudeau contradicted that

00:12:44.600 and says the world has questions,

00:12:46.340 particularly for China regarding its handling.

00:12:48.840 When it came to travel bans,

00:12:50.360 we all know that Canada famously said

00:12:52.600 that closing the borders was racist,

00:12:54.960 that they refused to close the borders,

00:12:57.020 even from Wuhan, even from the very infected area.

00:13:01.320 And as Well Health Canada sort of parroted

00:13:03.220 what the World Health Organization was saying at the time,

00:13:05.360 so on January 19th,

00:13:06.540 they said that there is no clear evidence

00:13:08.140 that the virus is easily transmitted between people.

00:13:10.980 A couple weeks later, on January 29th,

00:13:12.940 Theresa Tam said that there is human-to-human transmission,

00:13:15.580 but those are generally for close contacts.

00:13:17.860 On the issue of closing that border on March 13th, 2020,

00:13:20.860 Liberal Health Minister Patty Haiju famously said

00:13:23.420 that border closure measures are highly ineffective

00:13:26.780 in curbing the spread of the virus.

00:13:29.280 Five days later, on March 17th,

00:13:31.300 both Canada and the U.S. mutually agreed

00:13:33.880 to close their land borders for the first time ever,

00:13:37.460 and they basically remained closed the last year and a half.

00:13:41.360 I think that they're finally starting to open up,

00:13:43.600 but really, really astonishing flip-flop on that.

00:13:47.160 Then, of course, on wearing masks,

00:13:48.500 in March 2020, March 30th,

00:13:50.840 Dr. Theresa Tam said that masks are not beneficial

00:13:53.040 for asymptomatic people and could be dangerous

00:13:55.140 by giving people a false sense of security.

00:13:58.320 And then on May 20th,

00:13:59.520 Dr. Theresa Tam recommends that Canadians wear face masks.

00:14:03.140 So, again, the government constantly tells us

00:14:05.080 to trust the science, to listen to the science,

00:14:07.700 but the problem here isn't the science.

00:14:09.520 The problem is that this is a virus

00:14:11.360 that we don't really know that much about,

00:14:12.980 that the evidence is constantly evolving,

00:14:14.900 the rules are constantly evolving,

00:14:16.200 the rules are often contradictory,

00:14:17.700 they are often nonsensical,

00:14:19.580 they often just don't really work

00:14:21.620 and aren't really workable.

00:14:23.240 And so when all of a sudden,

00:14:25.440 usually the people on the left,

00:14:27.320 but the federal officials as well,

00:14:28.900 start beating us over the head, 0.96

00:14:30.580 saying, trust the science,

00:14:31.540 trust the science, trust the science,

00:14:32.740 it's no wonder why Canadians are a little hesitant.

00:14:36.520 I'm Candice Malcolm,

00:14:37.160 and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - November 03, 2021

Canada’s goal-posts are moving once again when it comes to COVID-19

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