COVID news reports often look more like propaganda than journalism
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Summary
The legacy media team up with the political class to push information and sometimes flat-out propaganda when it comes to COVID, vaccines, and vaccine mandates. Anthony Fury has been on the front lines reporting on this important story, often going against the narrative that is being pushed. He is often attacked for it, but still relentless in his reporting.
Transcript
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The legacy media team up with the political class to push information and sometimes flat-out
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propaganda when it comes to COVID-19, vaccines, and vaccine mandates. I'm Candice Malcolm and
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this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. One of the
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biggest stories of the year has been not just COVID, not just the persistence of COVID still
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in our lives despite the fact that we have jumped through every hoop that public health experts have
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asked us to, whether it's, you know, 15 days to stay home to flatten the curve, the creation of new
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things in our society that we never had to use before, like masks and social distancing, the idea
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that when vaccines came out, if we all just got vaccinated, we'd be able to go back to life as
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usual. Well, like I said, the biggest goal, the biggest story of the year has been these moving
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goalposts. The fact that it's never enough, there's always something more, something new, and I want to
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bring in a guest today who has been on the front lines reporting this important story, often going
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against the narrative that is being pushed by the political class and the legacy media, often
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attacked for it, but still relentless in his reporting. I'm talking about Anthony Fury. Anthony
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is an editor and columnist for the Sun newspaper chain in Canada. He's written for Time, the New York
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Daily News, literary review of Canada and other publications. He's also appeared on television
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programs and talk radio all over the world, including Fox News and BBC. He is the host of
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post-media podcast, Full Comment with Anthony Fury. And since the start of the pandemic, like
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I said, Anthony has been one of the few voices in the legacy media who has been pushing back
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against the government's draconian measures and the sometimes nonsensical public health measures.
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Candice, great to be here. You're so kind, but I got to say, all I've really been doing the
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past year and a half or 20 months is a government report will come out that says, okay, here's
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what's going on with COVID. Here's what the data actually shows. Here are the myocarditis
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hospitalization rates post-vaccine. Here's the comorbidity data on a government website.
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And I'm just reporting what is in government reports. It should be really actually the most
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boring and easiest and least controversial journalism there is. But for whatever reason,
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yes, reporting government statistics has kind of upset a few people here and there. It's an
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It is interesting because Anthony, we see, I mean, look, the problem of groupthink in the
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media in Canada is a long running problem. It's nothing new, nothing with COVID. But what we see
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is, you know, there'll be some kind of a main message that's coming from the government,
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coming from Justin Trudeau or even provincial authorities. And the media is sort of like a pack.
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They all just completely take the narrative, take the talking points, hook, line and sinker and start
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promoting it. Not like journalists, but like little activists pushing, pushing one side of the story.
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And like you said, you sort of take the step to dig a little deeper. You're often demonized and
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attacked on social media by some of these other fancy, fancy journalists writing in the other
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organizations. They've called you dangerous. They've called your stories fake news. And, you know,
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like you said, you're just pulling government data. So I know this is an impossible question to answer,
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but why is there so much groupthink in the Canadian media? What is happening in Canada where
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all of the journalists and most of the political class have the exact same opinion when it comes to
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major issues? Yeah. And I will preface my remarks by saying I have heard from a number of politicians
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across the spectrum. I've actually heard from people who work at media outlets, pretty much every
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major media outlet in Canada, people who I didn't know before who have reached out to discuss
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this issue, people who may want to do journalism a little bit differently. And it is interesting to see that
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there are folks out there, I'm not going to name them or the outlets because we spoke in confidence,
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but there are people out there who are kind of uncomfortable with things and they do want to
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see things go in a different direction. I found it always very enlightening to have those conversations
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with people. Why are we at this point though, Candace? I mean, I think back in March 2020, April 2020,
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public health wanted everybody to take this seriously. They were not exactly sure what we were dealing
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with, what the fatality rate was, how this thing spreads. They said, look, we've got to make sure
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everybody does things to take protocols, got to take it seriously. So we had a very blanket,
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blunt message that basically said, anybody can get COVID at any time, in any situation,
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anybody can die from it. And you've got to stay home, not do anything. And the only way out is for
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like a 100% vaccination rate or what have you. I know initially they said 70, 75, numbers change and so
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forth. But that was kind of the blunt message that was communicated. And one can appreciate
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initially why someone like Dr. Teresa Tan would maybe think that's a good strategy to just make
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sure someone who actually is quite, you know, maybe not a healthy individual, but mistakes themselves for
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being healthy. They, oh, I don't have to worry about COVID. And you go, well, I don't know, sir,
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maybe you do. Or I don't have to get the vaccine. And you go, oh, I don't know, maybe you do.
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I appreciate why they want to sort of oversell things to a degree. But come on, we're way beyond
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that. Everybody out there is much more informed about the nuances. A journalist's job is not just
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to amplify a tone that has been set by a government official or public health official. And may I remind
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you that public health talks a lot about behavioral sciences or what they call nudging, encouraging
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people to take a certain attitude. And it's just not the job of media to be pushing all of that out
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there. If there's some contextualized and nuanced data that suggests that that sort of blunt message
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that I articulated perhaps is not 100% true, well, you still report that data because that's your job
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in an independent press and to inform the people out there. So I think that's kind of largely what's
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going on. That's where the sort of the pack journalism, the narrative and the advocacy journalism
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has come from. And it's a shame because the general public is much smarter than that and deserves
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to be treated with much more respect. I couldn't agree more, Anthony. And what I find interesting
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is that it isn't necessarily a left-right issue. The way that many journalists sort of painted is like,
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oh, look at these right-wing muckruckers who are spreading this sort of information that goes
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against the narrative. I mean, look down in the States. I know we've had this conversation before,
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but we saw in the Atlantic magazine, a sort of mainstream leftist organization going through
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and saying, well, look, maybe the way that we calculated COVID deaths was wrong and that this
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thing was never as bad as we thought. We saw Vanity Fair come up with a really comprehensive piece
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talking about how putting little kids in masks is probably not the best idea. In fact, it probably
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causes far more harm than good. Whereas these kind of opinions, like the two that I just mentioned,
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you know, if you put anything up like that out in Canada, well, first of all, you don't see anything
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like that. You know, the Atlantic is the equivalent of like McLean's Vanity Fair would be like the
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Walrus. I couldn't imagine those left-leaning mainstream publications. They're hardly mainstream
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because they have such small audiences, but the legacy media, they just, they don't, they don't have
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that. And, and, and it's sort of sad that we're, that we're sort of missing out on that other,
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other viewpoints. So I, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but, but how, how come in the U.S.,
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which is, which is a political culture very similar to ours, there is so much more array of
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opinions and thoughts being, being promoted? Yeah, you're so right. I mean, here where I am
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in Ontario, we suffer from what I would call an information silo. In Ontario, people, and
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particularly in Toronto, like to congratulate themselves as being so worldly and cosmopolitan
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and informed. And yet they were deeply ignorant throughout COVID of what was going on in say,
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Michigan, a place that had less COVID rates in Canada, but was always much more open. Michigan
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is a bit more of a left-wing state. Governor, Democrat Gretchen Whitmer is very much connected
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to Joe Biden. Also in Ontario, we didn't know what was going on in British Columbia. I appreciate a lot
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of my BC readers. They're still unhappy with some of the restrictions in BC, and they hate that I
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talked them up as a great success. But I do think the only NDP government in Canada has actually
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been the most balanced government in its response to the pandemic. Here in Ontario, the idea of
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children not wearing masks in schools, which is still going on right now, and I believe the kids
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should not be wearing masks in schools. In British Columbia, they actually did revert back to it. But
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for most of the pandemic, particularly elementary age kids did not wear masks. To your point about the
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United States, you're right, much more nuanced. New York Times, Atlantic, they're all saying things that
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generally would not get published in a Canadian outlet. Here in Canada, we would know, we would
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have followed, say, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, which has nothing to do with our lives. We would
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have followed every minute of it, every nuance. We would have sort of micro-analyzed all of it,
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but we don't really pay attention to the US COVID response. And I think a lot of leading Democrats,
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forget Ron DeSantos in Florida, forget Greg Abbott in Texas, prominent Democratic voices have called
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for much more balanced response. Lori Lightfoot, Mayor of Chicago, she's a very left-wing individual.
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In January of 2021, she said reopen the restaurants, reopen the stores. That would have been considered
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far-right crazy talk here in Canada. The former acting Democratic Mayor of Boston, Kim Janey,
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she compared vaccine passports to slavery. She is a Black lady, just for the record,
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to put that into context. She later withdrew the remarks, but it's still interesting to see that
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that is the sort of things that are being said by Democrats, by left-wing individuals in the US.
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It's much more balanced there. And I think it's been able to allow them to live in a much more
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balanced way in terms of responding to COVID. I think that when so many Canadians, especially in
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Ontario, and I'm not trying to be unfair, but they think of the US reaction or the US reaction to COVID
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and how they treated it, they think of like the very early days when New York was getting hammered
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and everyone was saying, Trump, Trump's at fault, Trump's at fault. And they sort of smugly say,
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okay, we're doing better than the US. And then they don't really look at the nuances and the
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differences that now, two years later, it's like totally different story. You mentioned little kids
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in masks, and this is a pet peeve of mine and something that I get so frustrated about, even for my
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two-year-old that's often made to wear a mask, which is just the most ridiculous thing. You've
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reported something a little different when it comes to little kids and vaccines. And I know that we've
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talked about it before on the program, but I still think that it's incredibly important to address
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because when you watch the CBC, when you read some of the newspapers, they almost feel like
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infomercials for the vaccine. Like the sort of report from all around is, parents are eagerly
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awaiting this vaccine. They can't wait. Kids can finally get the jab and go back to Ramona. I know
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that's true. I talked to a neighbor of mine yesterday who, her little kids are already vaccinated. As
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soon as it was available, she was sort of first in line. I know that some parents do have that attitude,
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but that's not like the unanimous decision of parents with little kids. I know you've got some
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kids in that age range. So can you sort of walk us through what the experts say,
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what the stats are, what the data is when it comes to vaccinating this age group 5 to 11?
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Yeah, well, one thing that's very interesting, again, some of the nuanced and contextualized
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information that really hasn't been doing the rounds is the risk-benefit analysis, for instance,
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for the kids. Pfizer, in their own submission data to the FDA, they looked at myocarditis rates versus
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COVID prevented hospitalizations among kids to say, what would we actually be getting here if we did
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a mass campaign? And they looked back at five different periods in time for the past 20 months
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to say, if we did a max vaccination campaign of kids in this time, how much COVID hospitalizations
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would there be prevented versus myocarditis? And they did find in one scenario, I believe it was
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June 2021, and they said, if we vaccinated all kids, it would prevent this number of COVID
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hospitalizations, but would actually create slightly more myocarditis hospitalizations. So that's
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very interesting that Pfizer themselves actually say, well, in not all circumstances do the benefits
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outweigh the risks. And the FDA committee that was actually looking into whether or not they'd
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approve it for kids, they went back to the FDA and they said several times, hey, could we maybe just
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first approve this for high-risk kids that we believe definitely should be getting this vaccine
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before we approve it for the general public because of this sort of risk assessment uncertainty? And the
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FDA said, no, it's all or nothing. And they said, well, okay, if it's all or nothing, we better just approve
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it. So we can make it available to those who want it and those we feel need it. But that is not
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really the stuff that comes out in the reporting. You think the reporting is the FDA saying every
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kid must get it immediately. So let's come up here to Canada. What happened with NACI, which is our
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immunization advisory committee, when they approved the vaccine for kids, they made a number of
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statements about how, by the way, this clinical trial will only detect side effects like myocarditis
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in one in 1,000. But if it's any worse than that, we just don't know. And there's limited data. They
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make a point of saying in their documents, their approval documents, that parents should be respected,
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whatever choice they make, someone should not be stigmatized for not going along with the vaccine.
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And one interesting document that they sent to medical providers, they didn't make it public,
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but I have since had it confirmed by Health Canada, is they make it clear that they approve vaccines
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under two categories, a may be offered and a should be offered. Should be offered means we
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really think everyone needs to take this because there's a big problem right now. May be offered is,
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well, look, you know, let's make this available, but we don't have to pressure everybody to taking
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this. And they clarify the kids vaccine is the may be offered, just because the compelling reasons
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to push it on everyone isn't there right now, because the risks to children of COVID are so small,
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and there's a lot of uncertainty still around side effects for the vaccine. And Candace,
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that is straight out of a Health Canada document. And yet, I think very few people,
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even very few doctors, I believe, who are appearing on television talking about this issue,
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very few of them are probably aware of these nuances out there. And this is not me telling
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anybody what personal decision to make. I'm just saying this is what is in these official documents
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by the people closest to the story. Well, I do like the fact that they say that parents should
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be respected either way, because I absolutely agree with that. I agree with that, Anthony, for everyone.
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If you have personal reasons why you don't want to get vaccinated, all the power to you. I don't
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think that we should live in a society where we force people to do things. I don't think that we
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should live in a society where parents who choose to wait to get their kids vaccinated or demonized are
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called labeled anti-vaxxers. And one of the other interesting things that I read in the report that
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you did on the NACI report was that the justification to vaccinate kids for any reason other than just
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to protect the kids is wrong. So when you watch the CBC report, it was like, you know, the purpose
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of the vaccine for kids is to keep them safe and to protect vulnerable people in their life and to
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protect general society from COVID. But it's like, no, you can't vaccinate little kids to protect
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other people. You can vaccinate little kids to protect kids. And I think that that's something
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that is missing from a lot of the way that people are thinking about it. I want to talk
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about the idea of the sort of what Doug Ford once called the split society. He said he didn't think
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it was right to implement this vaccine passport idea at the get-go. Of course, he changed his mind.
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I remember you writing about a hypothetical vaccine passport over a year ago and other journalists
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saying that you were spreading fear and that we wouldn't we wouldn't get a vaccine passport in
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Canada. And here we are where we saw Justin Trudeau spend half of the election demonizing those who
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opposed it and sort of scapegoating them. I've talked to a lot of people who are unvaccinated,
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a lot of people who oppose it for health reasons or moral reasons or religious reasons.
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And Anthony, from the people I talked to, these people feel afraid, they feel persecuted,
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they feel demonized, scapegoated, all these things that Canada doesn't do. We don't we don't do that
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to groups. We don't blame one group for all society's ills. We don't we don't implement snitch lines
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on one group. Except for for some reason, this this group of unvaccinated people. And I know you
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report on this a lot as well. And I wonder if you comment on the sort of creation
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of a split society where we have the sort of untouchables, which which are the the unvaccinated
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in today's society. Let me just say this, I have read about how in past times where there have been
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major societal upheavals turmoil, the Cultural Revolution in China, in past pandemics actually,
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where there were odd choices made by society and shaming and odd things people did to their fellow
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neighbors, or even those some of those videos we've seen. I remember a video coming out of Quebec,
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back during the absolute height of the lockdowns where a family had extended family members over
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it might have just been parents in their 60s or so had their had their son who was in his 30s and his
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wife over for dinner. That's all it was neighbors called police, and the police came, and the people
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were very angry that they'd come into the house, and a physical altercation happened. I don't encourage
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anyone to get into a fight with the police, but it happened. They were saying, leave me alone,
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get out of our house. They were trying to find them or drag them out for having their son over for
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dinner. And I believe that in the years ahead, we will deny that those things happen. People will feel
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silent, deep shame over those things that happened. And I believe that many of the medical experts who
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appeared on television, encouraging the climate for these things to happen, that they will try and pull a
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revisionist history, and they will deny that they have the positions they had. And they say,
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well, no, I was actually one of the people who called for a more balanced response.
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No, I thought that was a bit too extreme. I believe that's going to happen. I think it's already
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starting to happen a little bit. And I think we should and we will feel deep shame about how we
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treated our neighbors and our fellow Canadians over a lot of all of this.
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Well, I hope you're right, Anthony, because I can see another path, which is even darker,
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where we maintain these positions and we bring them into our post-pandemic life, if a post-pandemic
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life even is out there where there's greater and deeper persecution. But I hope that you're right,
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that we move on past from all this and people who acted that way are ashamed. Well, it's sort of a
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year-end interview, Anthony. And so I just wanted to say that we really appreciate the reports that you
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do for True North. You're one of our best reporters. Your videos are really popular. And I know our
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audience really appreciates you. What do you have in store for 2022? Do you have any big reports coming
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out? Any big things that you're going to be covering? What does the year look like for you?
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Oh, wow. Well, look, I think it's all about, again, getting the verified data from government
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to help tell people what's actually going on, whether it comes to COVID statistics, COVID data,
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or basic things like we hear renewed interest in legislation for the climate crisis. But then when
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we actually look at the federal government's own data, we see that Canadians per capita emissions
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are dropping 20%. Emissions are actually going down in Canada. The situation's looking okay. And this
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is actually because of innovation through industry, building a better mousetrap. Lots of great Canadian
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talent putting the R&D into building solutions. I don't know what's going on at these climate Glasgow,
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Paris events, and so forth. It seems like a lot of people having some cocktails and hanging out and
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everything. I think that has nothing to do with the situation. And I really put my faith in industry
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just doing awesome things and great innovation. And I think you've got to get that data out there
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as well about what's going on with the climate stuff. Because a long time ago, in April 2020,
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the Green Party of Canada actually put out a release saying, yeah, this whole shutting down
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thing, this lockdown thing is actually good for the climate as well. So let's have that in mind
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moving forward. And let's keep in mind that they said that, because that's scary.
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Well, it's true. And you hear so often, Justin Trudeau, throughout the whole pandemic,
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he wouldn't just talk about the COVID crisis. He would always make a point of saying that the dueling
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crises of COVID and climate, it was like he couldn't, he wanted to compare the two. He wanted to keep it in
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your mind. It's like, okay, we've gone through this whole COVID crisis thing. Let's just replicate
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that with the climate and get everyone scared and make everyone take huge sacrifices and throw out
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the debt, run up the debt. You know, it's coming. So I'm really grateful and fortunate. We're fortunate
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at True North that we have your talents and we really appreciate all the work you do. Anthony
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Fury, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you have a great Christmas and a great holiday with
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your family. Thanks for joining us. Well, thanks very much. And same to all the viewers.
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All right. Thank you so much. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.