00:03:17.720There's been deaths, obviously, as well.
00:03:19.660And then if you keep going down, you know, maybe 3,500 people originally, and this was based on a Globe and Mail investigation over five months last year that it published, was that there was about 3,500 people, and this is on government websites actually as well, that 3,500 people that actually had applied and they sort of got it down to 3,000 and only 252.
00:03:41.660252. So think about that. Out of thousands and thousands and thousands injured that have actually been documented by public health, only 252 people have actually received any type of compensation.
00:03:54.380Why do you think this issue is taboo and even to this day? I mean, I understand that there were questions on misinformation and disinformation.
00:04:01.340This was a common point of discussion on vaccines, on other public health policies.
00:04:07.000Obviously, the pandemic had waned down over time in terms of the seriousness of the response today.
00:04:13.300Pretty sure we're living without most of the restrictions that were applied during the pandemic.
00:04:19.740And is there still really a taboo today?
00:04:21.760Because you are taking this inquiry further.
00:04:23.640And I don't think you've had all too much backlash from colleagues or of the opposite side of the floor who may have given you backlash years ago.
00:04:30.940Yeah, no, I think there's a couple of things. I think it's an overall government agenda around censorship. You see the kind of bills that have come out just in the last five years, just since COVID, really. There's been at least a half a dozen bills, whether it's online, arms, whether it's, you know, information sharing. You know, you can't share the news on Facebook. Well, think about that. How do people get their news?
00:04:55.480Based on the policies of the government.
00:04:58.480For compensation, obviously, which Google has bought into.
00:05:01.640Other businesses can have different models as well.
00:05:04.540But it is Meadows' call at the end of the day.
00:05:06.620It is, but once again, it's when you create the circumstances, right?
00:05:10.300So government does create the circumstances, I believe, for free speech in society.
00:05:15.160So when there's a chilling effect, and we can argue all that stuff,
00:05:18.860the reality is that legislation has been more and more censorship related so that's the backdrop as
00:05:25.000far as that goes i think the other thing too is that you know people were uh discouraged in the
00:05:29.200day and you just for the reasons you said you know you're not telling the truth you're it's in
00:05:33.280your head you're a conspiracy whatever you want to say well people didn't feel comfortable doing
00:05:37.920so it just made it uncomfortable and i think that now the time has gone on people have had a chance
00:05:43.060to reflect and people have had a chance to and now they're saying like i i really would kind of like
00:05:47.680to tell my story. It's not like people stopped calling my office. And so that's why I think
00:05:53.940there's a buy-in. I mean, there can't be one member of parliament. There can't be one that
00:05:58.660has not had someone call their office and say, I've been injured. As a matter of fact, I would
00:06:03.440venture to say there's probably not one member of parliament that could say, I actually don't
00:06:07.480know somebody. It doesn't have to be someone close. It could be a friend. It could be a family
00:06:11.880member, et cetera. So I think when you start, when you put it in that context, now we've got some
00:06:16.820historical context. And remember, at the time, we didn't know what we were dealing with. There's a
00:06:21.560pandemic. This vaccine came out pretty quick, and they're doing the best they could. Everyone's
00:06:26.540trying to figure this stuff out. So they were really concerned about trust in public health,
00:06:31.040right? Well, I'm more concerned about trust in institutions, right? If you can't
00:06:36.340speak freely, then that's a bigger challenge I think we have in this country going forward.
00:06:41.440So taking us back to the earlier phase of the pandemic, obviously, when COVID came to Canada's shores, it quickly spread and spread across our aging population, targeting many people who, you know, were already ill or who were very much vulnerable to COVID.
00:06:58.140and who unfortunately thousands, tens of thousands of Canadians died and it was very quick actually.
00:07:03.660So looking back, do you think the vaccine, be it the two shot, one shot, all the different vaccines
00:07:11.180that were approved by Health Canada essentially in the first couple years of the pandemic,
00:07:15.580did those save lives in your view? I think that everyone responded differently, right?
00:07:20.780There's no question that that definitely helps some people. What I'm focused on really is just
00:07:25.260hearing people's stories of those that were injured like at the end of the day uh you know
00:07:29.980you talk about comorbidities right people that are already sick and vulnerable right at the end of the
00:07:34.620day um we would need a different type of inquiry and that's not this kind of inquiry this one is
00:07:39.580really just one to hear people's stories uh you know what happened and two understand whether
00:07:45.100people have had access and if you think of you know the hundreds of people that are going to
00:07:49.260apply to show up there's probably a good chance that there's many of them that have not been
00:07:53.340improved for this injury program. As I mentioned at the press conference, over, you know, I think
00:07:58.700it was around $55 million or $54 million committed. Over two-thirds of that, $34 million was spent on
00:08:04.760overhead through a third party. The government's still trying to figure out what they're going to
00:08:08.700roll out. But, you know, my job as a member of parliament, one, is to listen, and two, help
00:08:13.000my constituents access programs. And that's what I'll continue. And quite frankly, that's what
00:08:18.800every MP's job is to do up here in Ottawa.
00:08:22.640But my question is more on the side of, you have this inquiry,
00:08:26.320you're going to hear voices that are going to be critical of the vaccine overall,
00:08:30.100point blank, based on their experience, of course.
00:08:32.420I can understand that, given injuries that may have occurred to themselves
00:08:38.280or to people who are close to the individuals that submit their comments and stories to you.
00:08:43.620But as a project, the Allison Inquiry, is this going to be an opportunity to put everything all about the COVID vaccine to the question?
00:08:52.020Or is this simply just focusing on the injured population with a bit more of a targeted message and a targeted platform specifically for those that actually have been injured and want the responsible compensation or response from government?
00:09:07.860Oh, yeah, great question. We don't have the resources or the time, because quite frankly,
00:09:14.060you know, there's some 30 countries around the world that are doing government, either through
00:09:19.060their committees or through special committees around this whole thing, you know, where they're
00:09:23.780bringing scientific research and evidence. We don't have time for that, so we're very focused.
00:09:28.640Our focus is strictly on hearing people's stories and hearing, are they able to access and, you know,
00:09:34.620can they access etc etc you know it should that be a job for another day quite possibly but we
00:09:40.780certainly don't have the resources and it's not going to be our focus at this point in time but
00:09:45.580it probably should be looked at at some point in time 30 other countries a lot of the g7
00:09:49.420a lot of our other you know oecd countries a lot of the commonwealth are looking at these
00:09:54.300kinds of things so boy it would be a great job if somewhere down the road uh you know a government
00:09:59.340could look at that for sure going back and i'm not going to get into the reasoning since it is a
00:10:03.500personal matter and of course you've made that clear to my colleagues and other platforms in
00:10:08.140the media, but you're among the handful of MPs who did not get vaccinated back in COVID.
00:10:12.780Did you feel the pressure as an MP by your own party or by your colleagues across the aisle as
00:10:17.340well to get vaccinated during the pandemic? Well, I think there's always pressure everywhere you go,
00:10:22.620right? At the end of the day, there's some people that weren't allowed into, you know, parliament,
00:10:27.820But what I heard stories on, for the most part, was that I would have people calling me crying because they were in the fourth year of a nursing program, or they were in school, or they couldn't travel, they couldn't see a loved one.
00:10:41.240So I think that this story really affected a lot of people differently.
00:10:45.260When I started the press conference, I said, man, this affected so many people for different reasons.
00:10:52.060We could do a whole inquiry on mental health that came out of this.
00:10:56.040And so it said, because of so many different areas to look at, we figured we were on safe ground talking to people about the issues that matter to them, which is their injuries and their access to the programs.
00:11:10.300These are things that are unrefutable.
00:11:12.820If you look at it at the end of the day, the government can't say, well, this is not true.
00:11:17.620Well, it is true because they set up a program, right?
00:15:36.660I'm more curious about your timing, Dean, is, you know, we're a couple of years out of pretty much most and all of the major pandemic-related restrictions.
00:15:45.740Getting vaccinated today isn't exactly going to be, you know, pinnacle to people having access to most jobs like it was before.
00:15:52.700You know, some lawsuits and some other legal processes have concluded by now, and many of the, like Air Canada and many of the cases have compensated, compensating employees.
00:16:01.560I heard from airline pilots, too, from Air Canada.
00:16:03.860But like I said, I heard from so many people.
00:16:25.960And of course, a lot of the talks, I talked to Aaron O'Toole a lot recently.
00:16:30.420I talked to Christophe Mont, I talked to former Conservatives that are still conservative and who are not, obviously, as well, and made the decision to cross the floor.
00:16:39.100And looking at Pierre's leadership in the state of the party, I know you have the blessing of Pierre, but do you feel like there's a risk, politically speaking, engaging in this kind of thing right now, given the sensitivity of trying to win over more of the Canadian public on your side?
00:16:54.300Yeah. So I think it's the right thing to do, first of all. And there's a political risk in everything you do in politics, as you know, as you've been up here. But I've been thinking about this for a number of years. So this is not something I just sort of woke up one day and said, hey. So I think it's the right thing to do, first of all. I've had people continue to reach out to me, even though it's not bantied about in the media. And I think that, you know, at the end of the day, when is the right time? There's no real right time.
00:17:23.000You know, one of the things that I appreciate about Pierre is that
00:17:25.780if you've been to any of his events, he's a guy that actually listens to people.
00:17:31.800You know, anytime I go to an event, he's got to line up for an hour
00:17:34.220or an hour and a half, and he listens and he talks to people.
00:17:37.460And I think if you were to ask him, he would say the same thing.
00:17:39.520Like, he probably does not go, like, you know, one or two weeks
00:17:44.320where he doesn't hear from somebody indicating and telling their story.
00:17:48.020So, you know, I wish we could have done this before.
00:17:51.060And the reality was that, you know, we haven't had a government that's interested in doing that.
00:17:57.140So what happens if we're not going to be in government and I can't lobby our team to do something as a government inquiry, then let's talk to people.
00:18:07.180And once again, we're talking and hearing people's stories and we're also looking and trying to help them get access to programs.
00:18:14.780These are things that MPs do every single day in their writings.
00:18:19.420All we're doing is giving people permission to tell their stories publicly.