Western Standard - December 23, 2021


Alberta Boot Project draws attention at Calgary’s Peace Bridge


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

150.36949

Word Count

468

Sentence Count

1


Summary

In this episode of The Boot Project in Calgary, I talk about how many people have been affected by Alberta Health Services' COVID-19 policy, and how many have been put on leave of absence because of it.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 this is the boot project in Calgary Alberta this is our second day on the road we were in Edmonton
00:00:11.100 two days ago we are currently at the south side of the Peace Bridge in Calgary the updated count
00:00:19.140 I believe is 781 pairs of shoes which have been donated to be used in displays around Alberta to
00:00:27.720 try and bring a little bit of awareness to just how many people are affected by Alberta Health
00:00:33.780 Services COVID-19 policy which they released not long ago and which ended up in every single one of
00:00:41.520 these people being put onto leave of absence as of December 3rd or 13th which was one week ago this
00:00:49.800 years of service is actually a little bit outdated current years of service represented are 12,038
00:00:54.840 not counting the four pairs of shoes that came in today that I haven't calculated yet it's an
00:01:00.600 astronomical number there's more over here you know what it's a bit of a traumatizing thing to
00:01:11.200 walk through as you read the stories and the descriptions and the years of service of all
00:01:15.960 the people have been affected this may be represents one-tenth of the health care workers in Alberta who
00:01:25.380 have been put on leave of absence because of the mandates this is just the amount of shoes that we
00:01:29.580 were able to collect in three days so there's a lot more coming in every day I'm getting about 50 text
00:01:37.260 messages on my phone asking if people can add more boots to the project where we're going from there
00:01:42.720 we're currently doing tours of Alberta so after this we plan to be in Red Deer tomorrow we're
00:01:47.760 going to take a break for Christmas and then we'll be back on the road again in the new year
00:01:54.960 it's sobering it's really really sobering but at the same time I find some courage in the fact that
00:02:01.280 every single one of these people was faced with the most difficult decision of their entire career
00:02:06.320 and every single one chose not to take the easy way out they chose conscience over coercion and they
00:02:16.040 chose to stand up for what they believe to be right some of them stood up because they're medically unable
00:02:21.020 to take the vaccine some of them stood up because they're religiously unable to take the vaccine but
00:02:28.160 every single one of them is paying the consequences of Alberta Health Services refusal to accept any
00:02:34.820 other means of disease prevention than mandatory vaccination we're here hoping that we can get
00:02:43.220 Alberta Health Services attention and work with them to find other viable alternatives to make sure that
00:02:49.700 our patients and our communities stay safe because you know what firing this many people is not safe
00:02:55.280 where did you work thank you for your service