In this episode, we discuss a recent ruling from an arbitrator regarding a dispute between the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the William Osler Health Care System regarding the termination of 40 employees who refused to comply with the controversial COVID-19 vaccination policy.
00:00:00.000So if you're looking to redress those kinds of injustices, I don't think it should be when people are harmed and hurt. Like in this case, you have people that lost their jobs and weren't paid. Here, you're not looking to fix the wrongs.
00:00:19.580And that even goes back to what we were talking about just earlier, the arbitrator's level. These are not judges, again. They're looking at the issue of compensation, whether it's an arbitration on employment issues, not about the social context of government regulation and how far is too far. But they do have to touch on that sometimes.
00:00:49.580Hello and welcome back to a special edition joint Critical Compass episode.
00:01:06.960So today we have again with us the lovely Eva Chipiak, who's agreed to spend a little bit of her time with us, us inquisitive minds and let us pick her brain a little bit about a recent ruling that's come down in the Canadian courts.
00:01:24.620I guess I'll just jump right into it. I have a tweet pulled up here from the Canadian Independent, and I'll do a quick reading of it here for us.
00:01:36.780An arbitrator rules 40 health care workers who are terminated over COVID-19 vaccine refusal must be compensated.
00:01:44.520In a recent ruling, arbitrator John Stout partially upheld grievances filed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees against the William Osler Health System concerning the termination and suspension of health care employees who refuse to comply with the hospital's COVID-19 vaccination policy.
00:02:00.320I don't think I'll read the full thing, but essentially the ruling, this is kind of my my feeling on it, and I'll get some opinions on it before we go into too much of my personal grievances here.
00:02:15.220But the feeling that I get from this is that this was the right decision, but it was made for the wrong reasons.
00:02:21.280And I'll leave it at that for now. And let's bring in let's bring in James.
00:02:25.480What are what are your thoughts on just kind of what you know about this so far?
00:02:28.580Yeah, this is another case where it seems like it hinges on a technicality and there's a reluctance to admit any actual wrongdoing other than and the wording is really interesting.
00:02:42.860They say like, well, they were misinformed or there's no admission of guilt.
00:02:47.080So even if these employees do get some money out of it, it's really not the win that a lot of people are hoping for when we're looking for a certain sense of kind of justice moving forward with with with with what happened with some of these mandates.
00:03:08.000Eva, do you before again, we kind of get into more specifics here, do you sort of have just an initial feeling on on from what you've from what you've read of this?
00:03:17.080Yeah, well, it's funny how this started is because there was a comment online and then we kind of exchanged some commentary.
00:03:25.720But a couple cautionary points I would make on this one is number one, the decision is about six paragraphs.
00:03:36.960So we don't have a lot of content to go with, to begin with, there are quite a few arbitration decisions that are way more comprehensive that I would suggest will provide a lot more details as to why the arbitrator made the decisions that they did in this case, there's just not a lot there to go on.
00:03:59.240And one thing on that note is, I don't know what the background of all arbitrators are.
00:04:07.560So that's one point that you might want to consider as well when looking at these, this isn't court level, it's meant to be someplace that you can access quicker.
00:04:18.120Generally, generally, they have some kind of alternative dispute resolution credentials, which is what I did as a master's degree in law.
00:04:28.500So it's meant to be an alternative, you see it a lot in employment with arbitration, you see it in other areas of law.
00:04:37.080But, you know, I didn't look into the history of this particular arbitrator, and maybe that had something to do with the short decision, but it isn't a high level.
00:04:49.320So that's one thing too, like sometimes when people are, you know, and I get it, there's a lot of, we want to see justice for things.
00:04:57.840But perhaps this arbiter stout isn't the person that we should be, you know, putting all our eggs in the basket of solving all of the COVID woes that we have.
00:05:10.320So those are just a couple cautionary type notes.
00:05:14.220And like I said, there are some really interesting arbitrated decisions that have come out 30 pages long, some, and it really provides a lot of context as to why the arbitrator made the decisions that they did.
00:05:27.480And they actually came out with a same or similar decision where they said, you know, possibly it was justified.
00:05:36.640Maybe they didn't even go that far, but certainly said that compensation needs to be made for those that were fired.
00:05:43.320So is a, is an arbitrator, like, does an arbitrator have to be a judge or can it be some other?
00:05:51.080Okay, so it can just be like a regular, like a litigator or somebody with law credentials though, correct?
00:05:56.580Yeah, so that's where, like, I don't know how it comes up in Ontario.
00:06:01.020This is, you know, probably arbitrated through their agreements with the Labour Relations Union, all that stuff.
00:06:07.920So maybe there's some kind of clause in there that it has to be a certain qualification or maybe three, two of the parties have to pick three people, something like that.
00:06:18.040So those are the things, but they are not a judge generally at all.
00:06:22.800So that's the one, you know, caveat in all of this is perhaps they just didn't have that technical knowledge.
00:06:29.200And again, with a decision of basically six paragraphs or so, maybe this person was hesitant to really come out strong one way or another,
00:06:37.200because maybe this isn't the background that they have.
00:06:56.000Like, could QP come back and say that we disagree with this arbitration and we're going to take it to a higher level court?
00:07:01.160So a great question, and it's, from my understanding, with something like this, it's not binding really at all.
00:07:09.520That's what, that, because it's so fact-based and not heavy on law generally, these things at an arbitration level.
00:07:16.540That's why you have these specialized boards that deal with it based on fact-based scenarios.
00:07:24.400Of course, anybody will take guidance in a similar situation, like another arbitrator, but certainly it's not binding on a court level if you're going up.
00:07:41.780And the chances of something like this setting a precedent for future, like, it's not even that in-depth to really set the stage for anything else.
00:07:52.500Yeah, again, especially with a, like, six-paragraph decision, like, you know, if you're a lawyer and you want to bring this as a case forward, there's not a lot of meat to provide another arbitrator or another judge being like, oh, look at what happened in this decision, because there's not a lot there to justify.
00:08:13.580That's why the context is so important in decisions, like, what was the reasoning behind it?
00:08:20.520Like, I actually, if you don't mind, maybe put the decision on the screen so people can see how incredibly short it was.
00:08:28.560I sent a couple to you, I don't know, maybe in the background, if one of you can look at how comprehensive some of the other decisions are.
00:08:36.780Like, this is the, and this is on behalf of 46 or so workers, nurses.
00:09:33.740People on the screen can see the highlighted parts.
00:09:36.560So, arbitrator, whatever his name is, says,
00:09:40.940Not surprisingly, arbitrators have found that a requirement to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in a healthcare setting is reasonable.
00:09:48.200However, no arbitral consensus has emerged with respect to the consequences for employees who chose not to be vaccinated or disclose their vaccination status.
00:09:57.280As I pointed out at the hearing, each case is different and must be assessed on its specific facts, namely, after the policy is reviewed, the specific circumstances of the workplace are assessed, as is the manner in which the discipline was imposed.
00:10:09.340Based on the very unique circumstances at William Osler Health System, I find that the grievers in this matter were terminated for just cause.
00:10:17.120The employees chose not to be vaccinated and, as a result, they were not reasonably available to attend at work, which, at a minimum, severely and negatively impacted the employment relationship.
00:10:25.800That being said, the individual grievers were misguided and their conduct was not with any malicious intent.
00:10:31.380So, I read this, and I just, oh, it made me so mad, because I was like, okay, so, this is a person who, he just, like, he just fundamentally doesn't understand, in my opinion, the point that he is arbitrating against.
00:10:48.040Because this, I don't believe that any of the individual grievers would themselves describe, would describe themselves as misguided in their conduct.
00:10:57.560I agree that, I agree that, I said in my little bit here, that that's the only part that he gets right, is because they were not acting with any malicious intent, but this notion that they were misguided, or, you know, the, kind of the implication that they were just misinformed, or they were propagandized, or whatever the case may be, I just don't think that that's right.
00:11:24.760And I don't think that that is the point of why they behaved in the way that they did.
00:11:30.060Well, great, Mike, so you don't have to argue it, because there's decisions that already say what you're saying.
00:11:34.940And I just pulled up the Teamsters and Purolator one that we were just talking about, to give you context, that one, at least online, or how, when it turns it into a PDF, like it has a table of content, telling you how big it is, how long it is, 569 pages, possibly.
00:11:56.560I don't know what these numbers are behind here, so, James, I put a second link under that.
00:12:36.480That's another thing, you know, there's always opportunity, and that's why I'm so excited about talking about these things, and hopefully with my book, is I think that the more we challenge these things, the more we get there.
00:12:49.900So, we shouldn't expect everything solved in one case at one time, but we have to keep challenging things to get, you know, there's a lot of gray in these things, and we have to keep figuring out, finding that balance where it's right.
00:13:04.480But, like, this is a decision we could talk about.
00:13:16.780Eva, I did have a brief question on, so, like, often people hope for a certain admission of wrongdoing in the way that, like, they feel that in their hearts, they're like, well, this is what happened,
00:13:33.420and they're hoping that the decision will lay it out in the way that they feel it.
00:13:41.060But is the way that the structure of our legal system and the back and forth between both sides,
00:13:50.920does that often influence maybe why something would settle before it would reach to a point where, like, you have a full admission of guilt or sometimes a win is not always what these people are hoping for.
00:14:03.700Maybe it's a monetary compensation, but it's not really always setting the framework that people are hoping to in the future.
00:14:28.340And where I think Canadians and Canadian law could really use some more strategic, more coordinated effort.
00:14:37.620If we talk for a second about the Roe v. Wade decision in the United States, like, there's so much misunderstanding about the decision from a legal and practical perspective, it's crazy.
00:14:49.620But it was a decision that was made years ago, and then because of the decision, an organization like a Civil Liberties or some type of organization decided to proactively challenge it.
00:15:09.600My understanding is that took about 10 years.
00:15:12.840So if you're looking to redress those kind of injustices, I don't think it should be when people are harmed and hurt.
00:15:25.280Like, in this case, you have people that lost their jobs and weren't paid.
00:15:29.840Here, you're not looking to fix the wrongs.
00:15:32.800And that even goes back to what we were talking about just earlier, the arbitrator's level.
00:15:42.180These are, they're looking at the issue of compensation, whether it's, it's an arbitration on employment issues, not about the social context of government regulation and how far is too far.
00:15:57.120But they do have to touch on that sometimes.
00:16:00.280So I think, again, it goes to the, back to even my last answer is I think we have to keep challenging these things.
00:16:07.420One thing in Canada I find is, like, we're such a young country.
00:16:14.040We don't have a developed legal, like, case law.
00:16:18.640Like, again, this one, two, three, 500 pages.
00:16:21.300You can gleam a lot of it, then you get a six-paragraph decision.
00:16:27.400But the more you challenge it and you learn from it and you find the balance of how far is too far, even though it might seem, you know, black and white to you and it might make perfect sense, there's so many just little details to everything.
00:16:43.340And that's really what a judge looks at.
00:16:45.800That's really what lawyers do is one says, okay, focus more on this.
00:16:50.700And the other side says, no, no, this is the important factor in this case.
00:16:54.660And then somebody has to come up in the middle and say, okay, what we're going to decide is this thing.
00:16:59.960So you're just reviewing things and then making constantly, like, adjusting and making decisions.
00:17:09.700And I think that's healthy for society.
00:17:13.380I brought that up partially because of just, yeah, part of why I brought that up is because we kind of see in these conversations how I think people put a lot of, they frame their expectations in what a lot of these little, they expect these little things, these little arbitrations to move mountains.
00:17:37.100Yeah, and then immediately say everything is corrupt when something doesn't go their way.
00:17:48.360And I'm like, I mean, there was a reason that it didn't go that way.
00:17:52.660And so it's just very reactive, I find.
00:17:55.240And that's where it's like, let's take a moment.
00:17:58.080Let's figure out the reasons behind it.
00:18:05.360That's why you can go higher because it's not always right.
00:18:08.340And anything to do with COVID, oh my gosh, it's been so controversial and it's been so tense and it's been so also reactive that you're throwing that into the mix.
00:18:20.300And you expect people to be rational, come out with unbiased decisions.
00:18:25.280Like, that was out the window for four years, basically.
00:18:31.000When I read kind of some of the, at least the implication that I'm reading between the lines in this arbitration ruling, what I wonder is that, and maybe you can answer this.
00:18:43.980If, let's say that both parties agreed to this arbitration ruling, CUPE said, yeah, that's fine.
00:18:51.000And the, and the healthcare worker said, yeah, that's fine.
00:18:54.260Does the way that it's worded with the, with the, the underline, like the, the subtext being that they were misguided in not getting vaccinated and maybe they should have, but you know, it was, it was, uh, you know, they were confused at the time.
00:19:10.920If they accept this ruling, does that then create somewhat of a precedence for future, any future grievances?
00:19:18.000If there's any question about a, you know, a particular, maybe not even a medical procedure, but maybe something else that the union wants to impose on the employees.
00:19:26.660And then they can point to that and say, well, Hey, you know, these guys agreed that they were just misguided when they opposed us that one time.
00:19:32.740And so then they'll use that in their favor in the future.
00:19:49.760And I was trying to find in the background, some of the wording in the other one, because then it gives you an idea again, like if you were going to appeal this, or even if this is happening again with the same people, you have a six paragraph decision.
00:20:05.980And the union or the griever or the arbitrator, they're going to be like, I don't know how this arbitrator stout made his decision.
00:20:18.860And so I was trying to find here because there's just so much good stuff in the other one where you could really like come to understand where they, how and why.
00:20:31.100And he, he focused actually, that's another thing that's nice.
00:20:34.420And that other case, he looked at other arbitration agreements and decisions.
00:20:38.640So he says, next, I refer to the firefighters case and the civil employees case, and he goes through it.
00:21:36.760Like they, you know, a good lawyer is going to provide everything that benefits their case and all the other arbitration decisions that benefit their case.
00:21:45.200And then the other lawyer is going to argue the other stuff.
00:21:50.980So I guess maybe what I'm wondering then is like, based on, based on what you're saying, like, what is the, what is the value then in this, in this arbitration ruling?
00:22:03.200It doesn't seem like there's much there, there.
00:22:36.480Again, I think, and I think this has come out a lot during COVID is people are really looking for like justice to be served.
00:22:44.780And it's not per se for the lawyers and the legal system to fix all the injustices.
00:22:51.660I don't think it is actually at all, because that's not what the legal system does.
00:22:55.940In order to get that, we need to hold elected officials to account.
00:23:02.020We have to engage in our civic responsibility and duty.
00:23:05.920If there was something that went wrong, or we feel that there's wrongs that were committed in other ways, then, you know, these people, they had a grievance that they were fired for cause and weren't paid.
00:23:19.500They took it to this arbitrator and the arbitrator ruled in their favor, where they got the money for the termination.
00:23:29.100That is, you know, a wonderful decision for them.
00:23:33.060And I suspect that they are pretty content with that decision.
00:23:41.040Possibly some of them are like, we want, you know, to see an apology and we want a retraction and this has to change our record.
00:24:47.760One thought on this is that we have to keep on challenging, but we also have to properly understand the things we are pointing to when we're trying to further this conversation.
00:25:00.660Because I could see an arbitration like this, for some, they say, this is a win, this proves we were right, and they unduly use this.
00:25:09.380And then the other side is just going to say, well, this, again, doesn't prove what you want it to prove.
00:25:14.820And further, the fact that they didn't admit anything proves that the mandates were still justified.
00:25:20.960So, a piece like this is almost a, it's morphing in the way of, like, it can mean as much as somebody dives into it, because people read into it.
00:25:32.740And if we're not honest about some of these cases, or if we don't fully understand them, it's not really furthering the conversation at all.
00:25:42.960Because it could just be used, like, the other side can just be, use this to say whatever they want to say anyway.
00:25:52.620So, we're not getting any farther in these conversations.
00:26:03.660And, you know, again, I was trying to look at the decision a bit, the long one, at paragraph 320.
00:26:08.960So, he listed this seven or so decisions that the employee used to justify relying on public health.
00:26:22.400So, again, a lot, you could actually see how they are reviewing things.
00:26:28.860But then he says, before leaving the summary, oh, no, 321.
00:26:32.760Personal autonomy and bodily integrity are rights which are recognized in Canadian arbitral jurisprudence.
00:26:42.120They are a branch of rights broadly characterized as privacy rights.
00:26:46.440Irwing is a direct authority on this point.
00:26:49.400The notion that upon taking a stand for those rights, workers must disclose to their employer their particular personal reasons for doing so.
00:26:57.200And those reasons must be judged adequate is, these are fancy words, anatoma to the very rights themselves.
00:27:08.240So, there you, like, you see just even the, like, okay, he's contemplated, this arbitrator is really contemplating this decision,
00:27:17.560talking about personal autonomy, bodily integrity, what, and then it goes on to workplace safety in the next paragraph.
00:27:46.960And then talks about the public health agencies.
00:27:49.140And that's actually what I was trying to find there.
00:27:51.480So, the one thing I've seen in this one and other ones is where they say that, and it makes sense to me when arbitrators made the decisions in the way I'm about to explain.
00:28:05.280So, they said, okay, we understand there was a pandemic, we understand that public health authorities were saying, okay, we need to take measures, do what you can to accommodate people, tell them to work from home if they can.
00:28:18.540And most employers gladly did what they could.
00:28:26.540And then public health guidelines started to diminish, especially after a few years, which you would expect.
00:28:35.280Where arbitrators, like in that one, I know when I just couldn't find it, came down on employers, and this is why I think it's great.
00:28:43.620And these are good decisions, is they said, if you were following public health mandates and guidelines at the start of the pandemic to accommodate your employees at home, and then we started to decrease the guidelines, and you didn't invite them back in.
00:29:03.200Now, there seems to be a problem, because, and this is something that's important for, and throughout the COVID pandemic, it was really hard to explain to people sometimes that who's the responsible one.
00:29:15.860So, somebody gets fired, they're blaming Justin Trudeau, if they're not a federal employee, it has nothing to do with him getting fired, it was the employer making decisions.
00:29:25.500But what happened is, it started from the federal government, Justin Trudeau saying, what we're going to do is we're going to enforce our federal workers to get vaccinated, we're going to implement these mandates, also you can't travel, blah, blah, blah.
00:29:39.800And so, employers took the cue, okay, the federal government, the top dog in the country is saying they're going to be implementing these policies, public health authorities are telling us that we need to be careful, we're going to follow suit, because this is, you know, what a responsible employer is going to do, and we're going to implement these measures.
00:30:03.500What some arbitrators said, and I know in this decision, he said it, is, you have to do that on the back end, too.
00:30:12.560COVID was a moving thing, and public health guidelines were changing all the time, so when restrictions were being lifted, and you didn't invite people in, and you didn't bring back accommodations, then there seems to be a disconnect here.
00:30:27.980Especially, especially with the federal, like, if you look at how many public sector employees there are, that makes up a huge chunk of Canadian jobs.
00:30:40.260So, the power that they have when setting some of these, setting the tone, and setting kind of what we deem acceptable in these kind of situations, like, that's a lot of influence in that way.
00:30:58.260Well, I was just going to add that they knew they had that influence.
00:31:01.600Like, that's where there is some responsibility on, you're not just another employee, Government of Canada.
00:31:12.700You also have public health agencies, which we're all paying for, guiding you in these principles.
00:31:18.980So, what's a regular employer at, you know, the health?
00:31:23.340Well, health is a whole other thing, because you would think that they have medical people that can address some of this.
00:31:28.340But, like, Purolator, what is the Purolator boss, CEO, supposed to say when public health and the Government of Canada is saying,
00:31:37.520okay, we need to take these measures to keep people safe and your workers safe?
00:31:42.040So, he's not going to be like, hmm, I don't know about that.
00:31:45.940You know, and then he's going to get sued if somebody gets sick.
00:31:49.360So, they knew they had that influence.
00:31:51.760And that's one place where it was a little tricky.
00:31:54.780Well, and the executive team of some of these companies, they are not equipped with, like, they're not going to dive into, like, the underlying principles and make a stand.
00:32:06.500And they're not going to put their necks on the line to say, like, oh, we understand the precautionary principle, or we understand bodily autonomy and all that.
00:32:16.680Like, they haven't been diving into all of these.
00:32:21.600They're concerned about their day-to-day business.
00:32:24.540So, they're not going to lead and go out on a limb and do something that's contrary to what either other countries are doing or what the government's setting as a framework.
00:32:37.780So, it makes sense that they would behave that way or they would fall in line.
00:32:44.620Do you have an opinion, or maybe not an opinion, maybe a prediction?
00:32:49.200You know, they say if you want to be taken seriously, you have to make a prediction.
00:32:51.840So, let's say it's 2025, 2026, and COVID-26 breaks out, and the government of Canada, well, it probably wouldn't happen in 26 because Paulie F. will be the prime minister.
00:33:07.400But in this hypothetical, let's just say everyone else is still in place.
00:33:11.100And they try and go, the public health authorities try and make similar proclamations and mandates that they did before.
00:33:19.220Do you suspect that fewer agencies would comply this time around, knowing what has happened in the years following the last round of mandates and public health directives?
00:33:34.660When you say agencies, do you mean government agencies?
00:33:37.940I mean, like, well, this is based on the presumption that the individual provincial health authorities were broadly acting on advice from Health Canada.
00:33:50.460Like, do you think maybe Alberta would choose to go a different way than, you know, than they did previously?
00:33:57.700You're asking if provinces would get on board?
00:34:01.600Yeah, if there would be fewer of them getting on board than they did this time around.
00:34:06.900Well, I think this goes to, I think, a broader question and problem of censorship.
00:34:16.760It just, anyone that spoke up, whether that was provincial, like, the fact that you took away voices of doctors and scientists that were raising concerns, that that's basically their job.
00:34:31.020So, I think if that's going to happen again, sure, people would get in line because you're actively suppressing voices.
00:34:43.440I think if people were allowed to continue to express things, I think it would be harder to implement these things and these measures the way they were, I think.
00:34:54.880But I don't, I couldn't speak on behalf of a province and I don't really understand.
00:35:01.560Come on, speak on behalf of a province.
00:35:03.740Well, the one thing I would say, and again, this goes to my book, which I keep talking about, is I think that provinces, all of them, should be acting a little bit more advocating for their own citizens, more like Quebec.
00:35:21.820Like, there's no reason that Alberta shouldn't be advocating and demanding, and we are seeing that through Danielle Smith a bit more, although we don't always see it.
00:35:33.620And so, I think, just like I was saying, it's healthy for people to challenge things.
00:35:39.100I think it's healthy for the province to challenge the federal government when they're saying things like this.
00:35:46.340Like, I would hope that they've learned something from this and take a stand.
00:35:51.240There was something I heard Danielle Smith say when she was campaigning, and I just thought, wonderful, and I've never, I don't think I've heard her talk about it since,
00:36:01.220is when the federal government enacted the Emergencies Act, and it froze bank accounts.
00:36:08.260It demanded that banks across Canada froze bank accounts, and all the banks complied.
00:36:15.260What Danielle Smith said then was any banks that are Alberta-based credit unions, she would say, don't abide by that.
00:36:24.520And one thing to understand about provincial versus federal jurisdiction is property rights are provincial, and then both provincial and federal government can have bank, they're regulated, that's the one, under provincial laws, and then there's national laws.
00:36:43.560And so, any banks that would have been under provincial laws, she said that she would just be like, that's not enforceable here in Alberta.
00:36:52.860So, there's ways of saying it and doing things.
00:36:57.140On this particular issue, I don't know exactly the background, but the health part is very interesting.
00:37:04.620And I think that actually goes to your point earlier when you mentioned Roe v. Wade, because I feel like that was a demonstration in the U.S. of how, regardless of what your feelings on the actual abortion issue are,
00:37:18.180I think most legal people, there's a good way of saying, most lawyers and judges and legal scholars would agree that that was just a ruling of, that was just good legal interpretation because it brought abortion legislation back fully into the purview of the states, if I understand it correctly.
00:37:44.980Yes, and it's the same here in Canada.
00:37:49.140And then actually, I just remembered too, Lacrete, which is a small community in Alberta, they said, we're not enforcing anything COVID-related.
00:37:59.200And so, there you had, you know, a municipality that didn't abide by any provincial mandates or federal mandates.
00:38:08.980They said, no. And so, there is, there's always an ability to fight or to question or to be civil disobedient.
00:38:19.140You saw, you see that with Saskatchewan challenging the federal government on the energy stuff.
00:38:39.580And I mean, it just, it, there's a, I feel like there's a, there's a feeling among certain people, not, not of our, you know, particular political views,
00:38:51.660but maybe the, maybe the prevailing view of most people who aren't, you know, fully, potentially, like, psychotically invested into this stuff like I am.
00:39:10.700Very, like, oh, you know, they're probably doing the right thing for the right reasons.
00:39:14.100But if you have that attitude, then you just, you know, as we saw, you leave yourself open to potentially being taken advantage of by people who don't have everyone's best interests in mind.
00:39:23.980Like, there's also an aspect to that where, um, I think when people see a government party or a part of the government who shares their views, they're more willing to imagine that government having more control.
00:39:40.060And then it's not until you realize like, oh, well, if we, well, what happens when somebody is in power who doesn't share your views, then all that extra control is very, very scary to them.
00:39:53.520So it's this, it's the difference, it's the jurisdiction differences between federal, provincial and municipal that gives a certain level of protection to individuals and communities, depending on like, your needs are different here than, well, obviously in Quebec, they have, like, you want a, a town to run its own affairs because we, like, there's no possible way that a federal government would have the information and organization
00:40:23.500ability to plan everything to plan everything for every single little small town.
00:40:27.180So, um, that's why we have a separation of, of power, um, and it's these checks and balances between these levels that it, it has to be a battle because that's how we find out, that's how we navigate and we get closer to truth.
00:40:44.400We, we, we need this kind of constant opposition.
00:40:48.960And as soon as that opposition, this push-pull stops, we're in a bad place because at no point will you ever naturally have a hundred percent agreement that will only happen if it's manufactured and top-down state control.
00:41:07.320There's no possible, there's no possible way for it to ever be able to, like, properly either plan an economy or handle social affairs or be able to navigate all these issues that are constantly in flux and need a whole bunch of people to, to be constantly solving these problems.
00:41:27.520Um, so I, I, I feel like there's more power to the people if we reinforce each of these levels, if we contribute, if we participate, uh, rather than just throwing our, our ball into the court into kind of the, into just the federal, just talking about federal issues or just dealing with it from the federal parties and saying like, oh, this is our last hope.
00:41:53.240If we, if we, if we just get this one party elected, like, well, what about, what about the provincial?
00:41:58.420What about our, what about our cities?
00:42:53.260So then it turned into a lot more than I thought, but it, it talks basically about everything we've talked about today.
00:43:00.560Different levels of court, um, a bit of history so that people understand how the system came about separation of powers and three different examples where the federal and the provincial governments clashed.
00:43:20.040In one case where the provincial government and the municipal government clashed and then what happened.
00:43:26.100And then a part that I really like about the book, um, especially now when you saw how, how many times I kept going back to the decision is I've quoted Supreme court cases, because that's one thing I found a lot, um, happening over COVID and with charter discussions.
00:43:46.460I understand that, but there's been a lot of discussion about some of these issues like freedom of expression, bodily autonomy,
00:43:54.180and the Supreme court has talked about these issues.
00:43:57.680So I think the more we learn from that and then use it in our discussions, it really elevates the conversation when we're talking to others, because when we're talking to others, we could say, Hey, you know, when there was a decision, which was the Morgenthaler case on abortions, there was a massive discussion on bodily autonomy.
00:44:22.500And let's talk about how that is similar to what happened during COVID or how that's different, but at least we could talk about it like adults.
00:44:32.260And this is something we were talking about earlier is I'm really just very tired of people acting like children in this country.
00:44:40.900We have stopped talking to each other like adults, allowing, it's just insults and, um, disparaging comments.
00:44:50.660And it, again, I'm going back to the leadership in this country.
00:44:55.200So when the prime minister of this country sets an example of disparaging and shaming and canceling people, what are other Canadians going to do?
00:45:06.400What kind of standard are we setting for them?
00:45:08.840So there was somebody, there was a big controversy a week or two about a lady in BC that was arrested for hateful comments.
00:45:16.480And I said, welcome to Canada, woman arrested for mean tweets, because the story didn't say a lot, number one, number two, it's not my responsibility.
00:45:28.120I think to investigate what the mean tweets were when CTV and global and all these multi million dollar conglomerates aren't posting it.
00:45:38.600But what kind of standard are we setting for some lady in BC?
00:45:47.520But if the prime minister of our country is going around disparaging and dismissing his own citizens, really, what are you expecting from regular Canadian citizens?
00:47:03.900Is this the level of discussion we're going to accept in this country?
00:47:07.720If somebody is really, like, ignorant about why people went to Ottawa, for example, then just say, okay, it had nothing to do with provincial mandates or whatever.
00:47:18.240But it's just, it's just been a bit too much.
00:47:21.300It's just constant, like, I don't know, I feel we could do better in this country.
00:47:26.700And I think we could grow up and act like adults.
00:48:20.240Well, and I think that there should be, I mean, I don't know, I don't know at what level this would get enforced.
00:48:25.520But I think if you're going to be a government official on X and have the little the gray checkmark of a government official, I don't think you should be able to turn your comments off because it's almost universally one type of politician that has their comments turned off.
00:48:40.820And it's the ones who are making those snarky, you know, baiting kind of posts.
00:48:45.820And they don't have any responses in the comments other than the people who already agree and love them.
00:48:50.580So that's I just that doesn't seem right to me.
00:48:54.900And this goes back to my book is we're talking about what what is the role of elected officials?
00:49:00.280What how did that come up, come to be?
00:49:03.200And I've personally launched a lawsuit against an elected official that blocked me for asking one question on a policy.
00:49:12.600And it's not that I want to sue people, but I feel at this point we need to, like I was saying earlier, actually, we need to challenge these things.
00:49:24.820Let's have a court decide whether or not that was appropriate behavior by a paid elected official to block somebody based on one question comment.
00:49:58.720You know, there it's only a very, you know, relatively speaking, it's just a blink of an eye that you're even you even like a normal citizen has the ability to confront an elected official so easily and so quickly.
00:50:12.040Now, you know, with with, you know, with Twitter being kind of more of an open platform now, you know, since since Elon took over, you know, that we don't have I'm sure we don't have the literature.
00:50:23.920We don't have the the legal precedent of what is and isn't OK for elected officials to do.
00:50:33.820I encourage suing that is and that is different than different than individuals blocking somebody for like repeat of harassed behavior.
00:50:43.200Because there's like and if it's in the domain of like, OK, you're asking something about policy or you're pointing out where they're wrong or trying to take them to account, hold them accountable for something.
00:50:55.720That's different than calling somebody stupid and doing it repeatedly and like targeting that way and think often people will say like, well, you can't sue somebody for blocking you because you blocked for these other people like, well, the circumstances are different.
00:51:11.440We've got to like make that distinction and really reinforce on like, well, these elected officials are they are responsible to the people who elect them to the citizens.
00:51:26.260And this is a way of them connecting to them.
00:51:28.780And what happens when they block off that feedback mechanism?
00:51:33.840Is that like is that something we want in a democracy?
00:51:37.760Is that helping us get closer to a good, honest way of governance?
00:52:29.160And yeah, like James said, I mean, there's there's a vast difference.
00:52:32.700Like, I don't think anyone like no one would ever try to make that like this particular politician could never make that argument against you in court and say, oh, I blocked Eva because she was she was harassing me.
00:52:51.340Unless your tweets are protected, which other politicians do protect their tweets, too, which, you know, again, is that same type of politician.
00:52:57.740So, yeah, that's a context is king there for sure.
00:53:03.840OK, well, we've been at it for just about an hour here.
00:53:06.900Does anyone have anything anything else to say or should we go to maybe we'll we'll leave that that one question that we talked about earlier for for Eva's paid subscribers?