The Candice Malcolm Show - The Ontario Government doesn’t seem very “conservative” (Ft. Roman Baber)

00:00:00.000 Ontario doesn't feel like it's being run by conservatives. It feels like just another

00:00:04.240 liberal province being run by a government who thinks that they can make decisions about your

00:00:08.280 life better than you can. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:16.740 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Now, I am excited to be joined on the

00:00:21.420 podcast today by an independent MPP in Ontario, Roman Babber. So Roman was elected to represent

00:00:28.520 the people of York Centre, which is in the GTA. Back in 2018, he was elected as a member of the

00:00:34.220 Progressive Conservative Party with the government of Doug Ford. And then in 2021, about a year ago,

00:00:41.380 he was kicked out of the PC caucus for voicing opposition against the government lockdowns.

00:00:47.580 Roman spent his childhood in the Soviet Union and Israel before moving to Canada when he was 15

00:00:52.620 years old. Before entering politics, Roman worked as a lawyer in the GTA. And like I said,

00:00:58.440 he got kicked out of caucus by Premier Doug Ford for voicing opposition. He wrote a great letter

00:01:04.400 explaining, outlining all the reasons why he opposed the lockdowns, and he thought that the lockdowns

00:01:10.580 were worse than the disease. And the evidence that he put forward was very, very compelling. Obviously,

00:01:16.460 the Premier didn't like it, and out he went. And since then, he has sat as an independent,

00:01:20.360 and he's been a very outspoken advocate, articulating all of the reasons why we need freedom,

00:01:26.060 and we don't need more heavy-handed measures to deal with COVID. So, Roman, it's such a pleasure

00:01:31.220 to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:34.160 It's great to be with you, Candice. Thank you.

00:01:36.300 Okay. So before we get into the sort of drama of what happened a year ago,

00:01:39.700 why don't you tell us a little bit about you and what made you decide to run as a progressive

00:01:45.480 conservative in the party with Premier Doug Ford?

00:01:49.280 Candice, I've always had an interest in public service, and I think that one of the best things

00:01:55.940 one can do is to help other people. But also, I consider myself, and I often say that I'm exhibit

00:02:02.580 A for Canadian Opportunity. We came to Canada when I was 15 to the very writing that I'm now blessed

00:02:09.080 to represent, and we didn't have to send to our name. But I've always had a job, and I've always

00:02:14.640 had this incredible joy because I had opportunity. And so, I've always felt compelled to preserve

00:02:21.660 Canadian opportunity, because all you need to do to succeed in Canada is work hard and be nice to

00:02:26.420 people. And I'm concerned that that is regretfully slipping away, and it's particularly slipping away

00:02:32.120 in the last couple of years.

00:02:33.900 Well, I completely agree with that. Some of the nastiness that we see online, it feels like Canada

00:02:40.020 is slipping down a very tribalistic path. And I know that social media kind of accentuates

00:02:45.000 the ugliness, but even, you know, just as an example, you know, we saw the big trucker convoy

00:02:50.140 going across the country last week. And, you know, a lot of the comments back and forth both ways were

00:02:55.620 just really, really nasty and really un-Canadian, to your point. You know, Canadians defined as being

00:03:01.440 nice and being polite and being nice to each other. And here we have the country sort of being torn

00:03:06.260 apart over COVID, over the way that the politicians and public health experts have handled

00:03:12.760 this pandemic and crisis. So, let's talk a little bit about your opposition and your critique. What

00:03:19.900 led you to write that letter? I know you published part of it in the Toronto Sun, and you put the whole

00:03:26.100 thing out on your Twitter page. But what led you to speak out and go against your own government?

00:03:31.300 Candice, just very quickly to your point, I'm very, very perplexed by the way that Canadians

00:03:36.740 behave towards one another. And it's not just on social media. I see that in the store. I see that

00:03:42.460 in everyday life. This fear that has been fostered by government and public health has now turned into

00:03:49.680 hate. And it's unthinkable to me that Canadians are capable of such an emotion. And it's very,

00:03:57.060 very important. And that's why I've urged over the last couple of months, especially before Christmas,

00:04:01.300 to try and get back to what makes us Canadian. And that goes for all sides of the ideological aisle.

00:04:08.420 We have to show kindness to one another. We have to accept one another. And folks that agree with my

00:04:14.500 persuasion should also reach out to folks on the other side of this debate and say, we all accept

00:04:21.780 you and love you. And we hope for the same thing. Hopefully, kindness will help us get us out of this.

00:04:26.900 But in response to your question about the lockdowns. So this was just over a year ago.

00:04:32.820 I'm a friendly guy. I speak to a lot of people. And I speak to a lot of constituents. And the level

00:04:39.180 of carnage that I started hearing out there has just gotten to be too much. I would hear of overdoses

00:04:45.960 at least once or twice a week. I would hear of attempted suicides at least once a week. I had

00:04:50.680 constituents reaching out to me telling me that their surgeries are canceled. I've heard from so many

00:04:55.160 parents. And I made children the centerpiece of my letter. I've heard from so many parents that

00:05:01.180 express sentiments like, I don't recognize my child, or I'm estranged from my child, or my child's not

00:05:06.100 eating or overeating. And this cannot go on anymore. So I felt that I made an argument for health and

00:05:15.860 mental health. I felt that the mental health toll and the health toll of the pandemic is not factored

00:05:22.900 into the pandemic response is not factored into our decision making, but it should be factored into

00:05:29.780 our policymaking. Well, absolutely. And you know, what we see so much is politicians sort of deferring

00:05:36.260 to health experts. But it's like, which health experts? Why are they only looking at virologists and

00:05:41.920 looking at one narrow element, which is the COVID virus disease? Why aren't they looking at the

00:05:48.220 broader picture of public health, which as you point out, I'm going to just read a couple of points

00:05:53.660 from your letter, which was so succinct. And now obviously, this is a year old now. So the numbers

00:05:59.140 might not be completely accurate, but they still paint a pretty overwhelming picture. You know, here you

00:06:04.400 say cancer screenings at Princess Margaret are back to 60% with doctors fearing a tsunami of

00:06:11.660 cancer. Ontario's overdose rate is trending 50% above normal. According to the Canadian Mental Health

00:06:16.960 Association, 10% of adults reported feelings of suicide four times more than normal. Among young

00:06:25.700 Canadians aged 19 to 35, the rate is 20%. SickKids is calling the increase of eating disorder in young

00:06:31.880 people an unprecedented crisis. Tens of thousands of businesses shut down. The unemployment rate is nearly

00:06:38.040 double. 320,000 people have not regained work. Government is criminalizing normal behavior and

00:06:43.780 putting law-abiding Ontarians in legal jeopardy. And then sort of on the flip side, you know, you talk

00:06:51.180 about how the fatality rate for COVID is just really not nearly as bad as what we hear in the media and

00:06:57.500 what we hear from politicians and sort of talk about how the picture is that the problem of COVID

00:07:04.800 is really focused, should be focused more on places where they're very vulnerable people, especially

00:07:09.740 long-term care facilities. And I've seen statistics that upwards of 85 or 90% of all deaths in the

00:07:16.260 pandemic have been from people in this age group and people who live in long-term care facilities.

00:07:20.180 So, so, so why are we taking it out on school children and business owners and entrepreneurs?

00:07:27.780 Roman, I just wonder, you know, uh, we have a progressive conservative government, um,

00:07:32.680 you know, Doug Ford slogan is that Ontario is open for business and, you know, uh, people, a lot of

00:07:37.540 people voted for him because they thought he was a businessman and an entrepreneur and someone who

00:07:42.260 understood the private sector and that was going to stand up to the unions. And, and, and, and, and

00:07:46.600 frankly, we haven't seen much of that at all. Um, uh, like I said, off the top, it feels more like we

00:07:50.860 have a liberal government just because it's always government knows best and always heavy-handed

00:07:54.380 measures. Uh, were you surprised, um, by the way that Doug Ford reacted to the pandemic?

00:08:03.320 I would, I would characterize Doug's response as political. Uh, Doug is getting advice that he should

00:08:09.120 not have any daylight between him and the doctors. To be clear, Doug is in charge of what's transpiring

00:08:15.260 and he has veto power over anything that's recommended by the health table or, uh, by public

00:08:20.640 health Ontario. Just that, uh, they made a decision early on that the doctors are going

00:08:24.980 to be more popular. There's a lot of, um, uh, fear of the virus and now they have to respond

00:08:31.320 to it accordingly and they can't deviate from their direction because that would render their

00:08:36.340 previous action and response to the virus wrong. And so they're stuck in this proposition

00:08:42.040 where they cannot acknowledge, uh, their relative risk and where the risk is. But Candace, with

00:08:48.460 your permission, I'd like to go back to the elements of my letter and compare them a year

00:08:52.880 later. I, I'm not, I'm not looking for, for vindication. I'm not looking to be told that

00:08:58.840 I was right. I'm, I'm asking for, for Doug Ford and Canadian governments to end these lockdowns

00:09:05.820 because the evidence has proven to be correct. And I also ask that history judge lockdowns

00:09:12.040 fairly. It's very, very important for victims of COVID victims of, of lockdowns and, and the

00:09:18.420 general historical perspective when we deal with future crises or future pandemics that

00:09:24.040 we don't succumb to cancel culture, that we don't succumb to group think. And instead we

00:09:28.540 entertain opinion and, and we especially entertain dissenting opinion by honest, well-meaning professionals,

00:09:34.240 instead of censoring them or firing them or kicking them out of caucus. So I cited with

00:09:40.460 your permission very quickly, uh, a crisis in, in deaths from overdoses. And, um, the figure

00:09:47.000 I used at the time is that it was trending over 50%. I was accused of misinformation because

00:09:52.360 at the time it was 38%. The figures actually came in from public health Ontario and it's at

00:09:57.880 about 78% over year increase, almost double Candace. We have almost three times

00:10:04.140 number of people under age 50 that passed away from overdose. The increase in deaths from

00:10:09.820 overdose alone is almost three times greater than deaths from COVID under age 50. And that's

00:10:15.560 just overdose. It's a catastrophe on the cancer side. And that data is all available out there

00:10:20.280 and is even cited by the mainstream media. I'll refer you on that one. I've referred to the

00:10:24.240 Toronto star on May 12th. In terms of, uh, cancer screenings, we have missed a million cancer

00:10:31.080 screenings in Ontario from March to December, 2020. That's according to QP briefing. And that

00:10:36.000 figure has been verified. And now we're seeing delayed diagnoses. The game with cancer is the

00:10:40.860 earlier you detect it, the better you get at it. And we have doctors like Dr. Malik from Mississauga,

00:10:46.260 like Dr. Singh from McMaster's children hospital, who said that if we just diagnosed many children six

00:10:52.200 months earlier, their lives could have been saved. That tsunami of cancer, unfortunately is here in

00:10:58.080 terms of mental health and today's bio mental health. We see remarkable numbers. According to

00:11:04.140 Leger about a month ago, we see that 17% of youth age 18 to 24 are seriously weighing suicide youth age

00:11:12.980 18 to 45. That statistically thankfully is not at risk of the virus is anxious and depressed. We saw

00:11:20.280 hospitalizations at McMaster for attempted suicide and youth triple. We have a mental health pandemic

00:11:26.160 that was created as a result of our response to COVID. And it's, it's a very regrettable mistake to

00:11:34.440 be clear. COVID is a very serious respiratory infection, and it can be very dangerous to some

00:11:39.480 folks. But we know where the risk is, as you cited, according to Statistics Canada, mid October,

00:11:45.060 more than 80% of Canadians that passed away from COVID regretfully passed away in long-term care

00:11:51.360 home. And two years later, more than half of Ontario's long-term care homes are still in

00:11:56.080 outbreak. We need to fortify protection of long-term care homes with infection control and staff.

00:12:02.400 And we need to focus on the frail elderly instead of locking down 15 million people and making them

00:12:08.020 sick. Well, I couldn't agree more with that. So well put, Roman. Now, I just want to pick up on

00:12:13.800 something you said, because you said that Premier Doug Ford, from your opinion and estimation,

00:12:18.000 he didn't want there to be any daylight between him and the doctor. So he just sort of goes out

00:12:22.100 and whatever they say, he says, and he doesn't want to be seen as being anti, anti-science or

00:12:26.560 whatever. But, but you, you cite all these other doctors who have all these other concerns about the

00:12:31.840 second and third order consequences of COVID, the suicides, the cancer, all of these diseases of

00:12:37.280 despair. What, what about those doctors? Why don't those doctors have the Premier's ear? And why

00:12:42.160 doesn't he take into consideration what they're saying? Because if, if, if he, if he did, he would

00:12:47.340 have a broader picture and perhaps he wouldn't be so quick to, to lock down the province again and

00:12:51.740 again, anytime there's the slightest uptick in, in, in hospital, in ICU cases.

00:12:57.300 Well, Candace, because up until recently, those doctors have been shut out.

00:13:01.360 I have not, I have not questioned the government politically. My letter was respectful and it was

00:13:07.040 well cited and I was removed from caucus two hours after its publication by a text message about a bad

00:13:14.540 breakup. Unfortunately, dissenting voices in this pandemic have been in this pandemic response have

00:13:22.520 been completely dismissed. And the, the cancel culture, the professional threats rendered against

00:13:29.900 doctors, doctors, scientists, academia, and, and, um, accountants for lawyers who, who voice, uh, questions

00:13:39.180 about numbers, about data have been, uh, not just shut out. They've been threatened into submission.

00:13:46.460 And that, that is very unfortunate because that does not, that is not good for public health. That is not

00:13:53.020 good for public policy. And it's always good to have a good baseline of opinion to make an informed decision.

00:14:00.940 Unfortunately, by the time that all these voices, uh, were able to penetrate and we now fully understand

00:14:07.740 the toll of the pandemic, the narrative has become that you have to stop the spread. You have to address

00:14:16.140 cases. In reality, our hospital capacity is now challenged, but it's not challenged because of Omicron.

00:14:22.460 It's challenged because we traditionally have a hospital, um, shortage and, and dysfunction,

00:14:29.740 mismanagement in Ontario. And what I've always urged from, from beginning from my letter is we

00:14:35.660 really need to do two things other than ending the lockdown. So we need to protect long-term care

00:14:40.380 and we need to build hospital capacity for whatever comes next. And two years later, Doug, uh, has failed

00:14:47.500 to do that. We now have less capacity than we did, uh, in the, at the beginning of the pandemic,

00:14:52.700 we have definitely less staff than we did in the pandemic. And instead of getting all hands on deck,

00:14:58.060 like Doug says, getting all healthcare workers, um, onsite where we're firing, but we're, we fired,

00:15:05.100 uh, workers that made a different medical choice. We're keeping them home due to isolation protocols.

00:15:10.060 We're capping their pay at 1%. We're doing everything possible to suppress it. So we need to change

00:15:15.260 strategy here. We need to return to normal and build healthcare capacity and protect long-term care.

00:15:21.500 Well, I, I would, I would, uh, take a different approach and say that we need more

00:15:26.300 options in terms of healthcare. We need more

00:15:28.700 people who will deliver it, more private options, more, just more choice, because having a centrally

00:15:34.060 planned government run healthcare system hasn't seemed to work very well. And I knew so many

00:15:38.940 people. Um, I mean, myself, I, I was right at the beginning of the pandemic, I was pregnant and I had

00:15:45.180 to go and do my, uh, OB appointments. And it was completely ridiculous because it would take four

00:15:51.340 hours just to see a doctor, um, for a routine appointment. And there, you know, there was no other

00:15:55.820 choice. It wasn't, I didn't have an option to go to a different facility. It was like, uh, I felt really

00:16:01.420 stuck. And I think, I think so many people feel that way with the Canadian healthcare system.

00:16:05.740 They don't get the treatment that they need and they don't have an alternative choice. Um, unlike

00:16:10.780 me and most other countries where you would have a choice of a different, uh, system, but, but that's,

00:16:15.340 that's probably a conversation for another day, Roman. Uh, just as a final question for you here,

00:16:21.020 it seems to me that with the onset of Omicron, everything has changed. I mean, I know so many

00:16:27.580 people who are fully vaccinated and who have still gotten COVID. So the idea that we have this huge

00:16:32.780 push to get vaccinated, even though the, the, the, the rationale early on to get vaccinated was to

00:16:40.460 stop the spread, stop the transmission, the purpose behind the, uh, COVID passports or the vaccine

00:16:46.460 mandates, uh, was so that we wouldn't have unvaccinated people in restaurants and gyms and bars

00:16:51.740 spreading COVID. Uh, but it seems from the data I've looked at and from, you know, the, the world

00:16:57.660 around us over the last two, three months that Omicron spreads, regardless of vaccination status.

00:17:04.140 And so given this change in facts, given the change in science, I mean, we've seen the UK

00:17:09.100 take a step back and pretty much abandoned all of the measures that they had. They no longer require

00:17:14.140 masks. They no longer require vaccine passports. They no longer have any lockdowns. It seems like

00:17:20.380 that's the direction that some countries are going in sort of admitting that the situation

00:17:25.420 has changed and therefore the old strategy just doesn't really apply anymore. Frankly,

00:17:29.660 it didn't work in the first place, but I don't expect politicians to admit that part, but at least

00:17:35.100 many are admitting, okay, let's, let's move on to a different strategy, different path. We don't

00:17:38.860 really see much of that in Canada at all. Certainly not in Ontario, certainly not in Quebec,

00:17:43.020 certainly not federally. Uh, do you think that, that, that we can kind of see the light at the

00:17:47.260 end of the tunnel is in this pandemic is, is almost over given the, you know, the fact that

00:17:51.420 Omicron is spreading so much and it's much more mild. A lot of people will be able to recover it

00:17:56.940 from it and have their natural immunity. It won't matter as much if you've gotten boosted or if you're

00:18:01.420 vaccinated or not, if you've recovered from it and have the antibodies, do you, do you see an end in

00:18:05.420 sight here? Candace, the, the end in sight, if it comes along would be a political end, uh, where,

00:18:14.220 um, leadership has to acknowledge that it's impossible to arrest the spread of such a

00:18:21.500 transmissible virus and that you cannot vaccinate your way out of this pandemic. Public health has,

00:18:27.820 and, and for the record, I'm pro volunteer vaccination and, and it's regretful to me

00:18:34.300 that we're now seeing effectively, uh, an attempt or suggestion that we need to redesign our democracy

00:18:40.620 because we have a couple of hundred, uh, folks in, in ICU for a province of 15 million people.

00:18:45.980 That's shameful to go back to your previous point for a moment. Um, I'm of the view that, that we can

00:18:52.300 improve healthcare significantly. We can improve management of healthcare and delivery still within

00:18:57.260 the framework of the Canada health act. We just don't have the political will to call out government

00:19:03.740 and bureaucratic mismanagement of Ontario's healthcare. We have more bureaucrats working

00:19:08.780 at the ministry of health than physicians in Ontario. We take 12 years to build a hospital

00:19:14.780 and, and, and that is unsustainable, but to your point, the, the, the mood of the day,

00:19:23.260 the suggestion that we need to treat Canadians that made a different medical choice is not just, uh,

00:19:30.140 grotesque to me. It's also not based in any science because we understand that the vaccine

00:19:34.860 doesn't stop transmission. We even understood that before Omicron, but especially with Omicron,

00:19:40.380 with some public health experts suggesting that two shots are, are ineffective to stop the spread.

00:19:45.420 And the medical officer himself said that, um, the virus is now circulating amongst fully vaccinated

00:19:52.380 individuals. So any suggestion that anyone needs to get vaccinated in order to protect another person,

00:19:58.860 it respectfully is off the table and should not be maintained. And, and what, what I would say is

00:20:05.660 that then takes the argument for passports and mandates also off the table, not to mention their

00:20:11.660 discriminatory effect. The fact that we have segregation running in the province of Ontario,

00:20:16.860 it's completely unjustifiable. It weighs on us as, as a, as a community, and it needs to end

00:20:24.140 immediately.

00:20:24.620 Well, I completely agree. And I remember at one point, Premier Doug Ford agreed with that as well,

00:20:30.300 because he said that he didn't want to live in a two tier society and that weren't going to do it,

00:20:33.740 uh, before, before he changed his mind, of course. Uh, well, Roman, I, I really appreciate you coming

00:20:38.060 on the show. I appreciate your insights. We'll have to have you back on the show. We can have a,

00:20:41.580 a full debate on the, uh, on the future of Canadian healthcare. Cause I think, I think you and I don't,

00:20:46.220 don't necessarily see eye to eye there, but I think you did raise some, some great points. Uh, we appreciate

00:20:51.180 having you on the show. I appreciate all you're doing out there in York center and in Ontario,

00:20:55.340 fighting back against the lunacy and fighting for freedom in Canada. Thank you so much.

00:20:59.820 Thank you so much, Candace.

00:21:01.340 All right. Thanks for tuning in. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace Malcolm show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - February 02, 2022

The Ontario Government doesn’t seem very “conservative” (Ft. Roman Baber)

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