Western Standard - December 11, 2021


Suspended Calgary cop breaks silence

Mentioned
Melanie Rizdin Constable Brian Dennison
Video shows drunk BC driver lucky to be alive Fired WestJet staff make Christmas video of their own

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

149.06

Word count

2,240

Sentence count

55


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Constable Brian Denison, a 24-year veteran of the Calgary Police Service, has been placed on administrative leave due to his opposition to mandatory childhood vaccines. He recorded a video of the vaccine mandate and has been charged with discreditable conduct. This is the first time Constable Denison has agreed to speak to media and we are thankful he is joining us to share his story.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Thank you.
00:00:30.000 Thank you.
00:01:00.000 Hi, my name is Brian Dennison.
00:01:21.580 I'm a Calgary police officer for the last 24 years.
00:01:24.720 and I am finding myself in a position now where I have to choose
00:01:32.420 between getting this miracle jab that the government is toting
00:01:38.960 or possibly lose my job.
00:01:44.340 Good afternoon. I'm Melanie Risden with the Western Standard.
00:01:47.860 That's Constable Brian Dennison from the Calgary Police Service,
00:01:51.560 a 24-year veteran who's now been put on leave because of his feelings around the policies
00:01:58.360 for the vaccine mandates that are coming down through CPS. Because he recorded that video,
00:02:03.240 he's also been charged with discreditable conduct. And this is the first time Constable Denison has
00:02:09.640 agreed to speak with media. And we're thankful he is joining us this afternoon to fill us in
00:02:14.680 on how things have been going and give us an idea of really his story.
00:02:19.480 thanks for joining us today constable denison and uh just fill us in how things have been going for
00:02:26.840 you for the last uh week or two uh things have been going good i've uh been overwhelmed with the
00:02:34.440 support that people have shown me from across calgary canada and actually the world so um
00:02:40.760 it's really good um i'm not uh here to um get people's support i'm here more to support people
00:02:48.120 and i want to be able to support people to be able to come out and to really be able to stand
00:02:53.880 up for their their freedoms and their rights in this world yeah interestingly uh it is
00:03:00.680 international human rights day so a good day to to have this conversation i would say um
00:03:08.600 what you've been dealing with over the last couple of weeks uh with your work with um being a a
00:03:15.480 police officer and you know opposing the mandated vaccines it's got to be quite difficult when
00:03:25.160 you're sort of you know a person of the law and working hard to to uphold the law but yet
00:03:32.920 feeling like this mandate is somehow you know against rights and against freedoms for Canadians
00:03:39.560 yeah it has been difficult for sure um you're kind of stuck in this um different world where
00:03:47.560 you're having to uphold the laws that um that the government has put into place well they're not
00:03:53.640 laws they're mandates and um even though you don't um feel that it's the the right thing to do
00:04:01.000 you're bound by uh being a police officer and the oath that you took however uh that oath that you
00:04:07.080 took is to uphold the law and if they're giving out unlawful orders those aren't things that
00:04:12.920 police officers should be upholding so i find myself in that position where i had to choose
00:04:19.320 between what i thought was right and i think that my stance is what is right in this world
00:04:25.880 were there many amongst you uh that you knew of on the force that felt the same and perhaps
00:04:31.880 you know gave gave in because they needed to keep their job or what was your what was the sense
00:04:38.580 around around those you worked with? There are many people that do not want to get the jab if
00:04:47.360 you want to call it that they don't want to have to have that to be part of their employment to
00:04:54.080 keep their job and I know of a lot of them within CPS that did not want to partake in that and
00:05:01.780 unfortunately, there's been so much push to get people to do it. And with that stuff held above
00:05:09.700 their heads about keeping a job, a lot of people did go out and get it and did comply with that.
00:05:16.840 And that's unfortunate that people did that. And it was not what their free will was telling them
00:05:22.320 to do. They did not want to do that. But they did it simply to keep their job.
00:05:26.360 Now you've been a police officer for 24 years.
00:05:30.800 I believe you were what, one year from, from retirement, right?
00:05:35.040 It's almost exactly one year.
00:05:37.400 It will be next year that I could retire with 25 years of service.
00:05:40.880 And tell me about your service.
00:05:43.240 What kinds of departments did you work in?
00:05:45.800 I know that you were in the hate crimes unit for, for some time.
00:05:49.640 Yes.
00:05:50.480 So I started out in a district three.
00:05:53.200 I worked there for approximately seven and a half years.
00:05:56.360 And then I went to District 4, and I worked there for a number of years as well.
00:06:01.840 Then I took on the hate crimes role, which I worked in for three years before returning back to the street again.
00:06:09.220 So my years of service on the street alone, just answering calls, is 21 years.
00:06:15.660 And then I worked for three years within hate crimes.
00:06:18.820 And so those 24 years, sum them up.
00:06:21.380 I'm assuming that this was a very rewarding job for you.
00:06:24.800 I wanted to be a police officer ever since I was in grade three and it took me until I was 34 years old to realize that dream.
00:06:32.580 So this is something that I have always wanted to do. And I've been passionate about doing this job.
00:06:39.120 I started when I was 34. I'm 58 now. So I've done most of my life being a police officer.
00:06:46.600 So it becomes part of who you are. And being a police officer has always been something that I took great pride in.
00:06:54.800 And it's always been something that I'm the person who wants to help somebody.
00:07:00.420 And when I can be of help, that's where I found a lot of my worth is being a police officer and being able to be there in those situations where people didn't know how to handle them or they needed someone to come and rescue them.
00:07:14.900 And that was very rewarding for me. I'm not a limelight kind of guy.
00:07:19.220 i would just i would go in and i would do my job and then i would change out of my job basically
00:07:25.700 hang up my job in my locker and then i'd go back to being just brian again
00:07:31.460 now i understand uh the latest i've heard is that internally you have been um charged with
00:07:38.740 discreditable conduct um how are things with that um yeah it's been insubordination and
00:07:47.060 discreditable conduct under the police act um and that is still ongoing um so there's not a whole
00:07:55.700 lot i can say about that i don't know what uh cps is actually um planning to do i'm just waiting to
00:08:02.340 hear what their next steps are and then i'll just move forward with that as it comes up explain to
00:08:09.940 me why you're making this stand why is it so important to you brian it's important because
00:08:18.660 uh it's the right thing to do seeing people and their rights and their freedoms taken away from
00:08:24.260 them over um a virus that has been proven to be well the evidence out there is great on on both
00:08:34.180 sides however if you take a look at it like a police officer does and you're looking at both
00:08:39.620 sides and you you take both sides of that information and you put it together and you
00:08:45.060 come up with that decision of exactly what's happening um there is a lot of talk out there
00:08:52.660 that um this is so survivable and to be able to take away people's freedoms over this and their
00:09:00.500 rights and then it is um a travesty to justice really it really is not what we should be doing
00:09:08.420 as a people uh we should be supporting each other we should not be dividing
00:09:14.580 what do you what do you foresee coming do you see it getting worse do you see it getting better
00:09:18.740 what what are your thoughts ah well i i see when i made that video it was back in september
00:09:27.460 and i saw it getting worse and um and and that's why i said come come christmas the world will be
00:09:33.780 ugly is kind of what i said i think and i i'm just seeing things that are happening in other
00:09:39.380 provinces around the world and it is getting worse um i know there's hope out there and i
00:09:45.300 know the more people that get together stand up and and actually um take back their freedoms
00:09:51.860 because they have been taken away from us they have been lessened those freedoms that we have
00:09:58.420 as canadians as citizens of the world other countries have all been taken back from us
00:10:04.420 we need to take those back from those that have done that right now this is the first time you
00:10:12.420 have spoken with media i'm i'm curious if you're willing to share what kind of a toll this has been
00:10:18.500 on you um you know uh again i'll i i'm not a limelight guy i i don't do many stand up in front
00:10:30.740 of people talking that's not who i really am um it has taken a toll on um my family um just by
00:10:39.140 having my name out there and uh that video that went viral which it was never intended to be but
00:10:45.140 but I'm glad it has because what it has done is it has provided support to other people
00:10:49.940 and helped people to come out and start speaking up for themselves.
00:10:55.680 Believe it or not, I've had more people reach out to me in support
00:11:01.120 than anybody reach out to me that I'm doing something that they don't believe is right.
00:11:06.840 So it has taken a toll just by it's kind of thrust me into the bit of the limelight
00:11:12.320 and I'm having to figure out where I land
00:11:15.780 and the lay of the land and exactly how I move forward.
00:11:20.100 But that's not going to deter me from continuing on with this.
00:11:25.360 Now, you know that we, as coverage,
00:11:29.060 we told your story and we shared your video
00:11:31.720 and I did indicate to you that we ended up getting banned
00:11:37.400 from YouTube for airing the video.
00:11:39.980 however they have reversed that decision and uh our video of your um your you talking from your
00:11:48.220 your cruiser uh is back up on our website and we have our full channel back again but that was
00:11:55.740 kind of an interesting turn of events uh you you know even just trying to cover um the story the
00:12:01.580 censorship is uh is incredible these days it is um i think that's part of the problem is that
00:12:09.340 things are so censored and the media is so filtered in what they're putting out to the
00:12:15.580 general public that they don't get the full picture and and that is the problem is that
00:12:22.620 regular people are only seeing one side of the equation they're not able to to see both sides
00:12:28.540 and if you were it would be as clear as day if the news media would actually report on everything
00:12:34.780 like yourselves uh then it's out there people can make up a properly informed decision yeah i've
00:12:42.140 i've actually followed some of the coverage from some of the mainstream media of your story and
00:12:48.380 it's unfortunate it's unfortunate that it feels as though you didn't get a fair shake to tell
00:12:54.540 your story so that's why we wanted to speak with you and uh you know hear from you and hear hear
00:13:00.380 your reasonings uh everybody's everybody has a why and we think that's an important that's
00:13:06.300 an important thing behind our decisions so um thank you for for sharing your story with us and
00:13:13.500 for um talking about this a bit further um what's next for you brian um well i'll wait and see what
00:13:21.180 cps has to um say about me um on sunday uh i'm gonna be speaking not a big speech just a little
00:13:29.820 speech at a place called uh okotoks it's called foothills freedom protest and i'll be one of the
00:13:37.420 speakers i guess and it'll be my not only with with you but it'll be my first appearance um of
00:13:43.580 helping others to um stand up for their freedoms right and you said that's this sunday in okotoks
00:13:50.140 at uh was it 1 pm okay now i just have a question too if if the cps comes back and and you know
00:14:00.860 allows you to continue to work do you do you have an interest in doing that or um i i do i i am a
00:14:08.460 police officer and i would do that job again um on the other hand uh i'm also i have a new role
00:14:18.380 it's almost like i've been put into a new role and i would also uh welcome that as well as a
00:14:23.580 challenge in my life and i would i would take that on as well and um so yeah maybe but we'll see um
00:14:31.900 which role has the biggest capture on my life and and how i want to proceed i think it's for
00:14:38.060 people's freedoms as far as i'm concerned well brian we hope you will stay in touch with us and
00:14:43.740 keep us abreast of what comes from the CPS and the decisions that are being made at this stage
00:14:49.660 for you. And again, thank you so much for taking the time and trusting that we would allow for
00:14:57.740 you to tell your story with us. Thank you, Melanie. I appreciate it.