Uncensored is a political panel that looks at issues from every possible angle, even when that angle is controversial. In this episode, the panelists discuss the new mayor of Calgary, Jodi Gonduk, and her comments on climate change.
00:02:00.000Good evening and welcome to Uncensored, a political panel with a punch where we look
00:02:13.640at issues from every possible angle, even when that angle is controversial.
00:02:18.340In fact, we do our best to cover things from the left, the center, and from the right.
00:02:22.880We will comb an issue from every side and be thoughtful and thorough.
00:02:27.120And tonight we've got lots to discuss.
00:02:28.540our panelists as usual uh rob anderson and danielle smith and we'll start with rob practicing
00:02:34.460uh litigator author of the free alberta strategy and former wild rose mla rob thanks for joining
00:02:39.900us tonight good to be with you also with us danielle smith who is the president of the
00:02:45.340executive director pardon me danielle alberta enterprise group a former leader of the wild
00:02:49.500rose party and a proud strong conservative voice for all of us here in alberta uh de always good
00:02:55.020to see you my pleasure we've got lots to talk about as i mentioned uh we we said uh during our
00:03:01.260last show that we're going to talk about vaccine passports and mandates and freedoms and uh whether
00:03:06.780the government has gone too far we're going to pose those questions to you before we do that
00:03:12.220though we have to talk about a couple of the big headlines that frankly everybody is talking about
00:03:16.460first being the municipal election which just passed us calgary has a new mayor it is joti
00:03:21.740Gonduk, one of Jody's, if not one of her first, her very first interview, she said one of her
00:03:27.520first challenges will be to deal with a climate emergency. Danielle, I don't recall hearing that
00:03:33.820anywhere out on the campaign trail. I'm sure if you combed through her documents, her campaign
00:03:38.940platform, you probably would have seen that somewhere, but she didn't lead with it from1.00
00:03:43.500anything I saw. I saw her give a few interviews, and I think it would have made a pretty big
00:03:47.760headline. I think what got her into trouble is the way she spoke made it sound like she expected
00:03:53.640Calgarians to move past oil and gas. And I want to give her the benefit of the doubt because back in
00:03:59.6602018, she did a one-minute endorsement of oil and gas for the Canada Action when they were going
00:04:07.340across the country trying to get politicians to speak in favor of our energy sector. And she did0.99
00:04:12.260a pretty good job. She talked about how important it was to support an industry that is innovative
00:04:16.400and forward-looking and we're the best in the world. And so I kind of like Jodi Gondek from
00:04:21.1602018. And if she could go back to those kinds of talking points, I think she'll end up getting
00:04:25.280herself in less trouble. But I must tell you my emails and phone calls ringing off the hook from
00:04:30.920energy industry leaders who did not appreciate getting sucker punched like that. And it seemed
00:04:37.000to come out of the blue. That's just it, Rob. If you're looking to revitalize downtown Calgary,
00:04:41.340you probably don't take a headshot to its main industry and the people that are actually occupying
00:04:47.640the spaces in the office towers in downtown Calgary. What did you make of what Jody Gondak
00:04:53.520had to say? And can we expect more of this in the next four years? Well, the disappointing thing is,
00:05:00.160you know, Mayor Gondak, presumably she does visit downtown Calgary from time to time, and she might
00:05:07.620I have noticed the lease signs and the empty buildings, half empty buildings, that represents tens of thousands and maybe hundreds of thousands of jobs in Alberta that have been lost due to politicians' policies that frankly sound a lot like the words of Mayor Gondacht on this issue.
00:05:32.500And so it was bizarre. Calgary is a world-class energy city, energy-based city, famous for its, obviously, for its role in the oil and gas industry.
00:05:47.840um there's amazing work being done here on the environmental side of that industry as well
00:05:54.280and for her to come out and essentially sound like another eastern canadian you know ngo greenpeace0.85
00:06:02.360wannabe it just it raised my eyebrows for sure and i just uh i hope this is not a sign of things to
00:06:11.420come rob did you hear what uh former saskatchewan premier brad wall had to say i don't want to put
00:06:16.540on the spot, but effectively he said, well, if you know what he said, effectively, maybe Calgary
00:06:21.840companies should be looking elsewhere for greener pastures that are more friendly to oil and gas. I
00:06:26.300mean, that didn't take very long for that reaction. No, and if I'm Brad Wall and my province
00:06:33.380is Saskatchewan, I would be saying the same thing. I mean, you know, politicians in this country and
00:06:40.840in this province to a lesser extent, but obviously clearly at City Hall, have to understand that when
00:06:46.260businesses are looking to invest their capital somewhere and employ people somewhere, it's going
00:06:52.800to be in a jurisdiction and in a city that makes it attractive for their industry to be profitable
00:06:59.620and to function and to not be interfered with unduly. And so when you hear these things from
00:07:04.720the Calgary mayor, if you're an oil and gas executive, that's going to give you a pause and
00:07:10.720say, maybe we should think about Regina. Maybe we should relocate to Texas or somewhere else.
00:07:18.520And again, it's a misstep. She shouldn't have done it. It's just something you would expect
00:07:24.840to hear from Justin Trudeau or Mr. Singh out in Ottawa. You wouldn't expect that from the
00:07:32.380Calgary mayor. Not even Nenshi would say something so ignorant. I don't want to beleaguer a point,
00:07:38.680but I guess I am because I'm sticking with it for a second.
00:07:41.240Danielle, I want to let you conclude on this subject.
00:07:44.120By all accounts, Jodi Gondek is a very bright woman.
00:07:47.040Agree with her or not, she ran a really good campaign
00:07:49.220and is well-versed in all of the issues,
00:07:51.780which makes you wonder if a statement like this
00:07:54.420was actually planned in one of her first interviews
00:07:58.560Now, I know you have no way of knowing the answer to that,
00:08:02.620but you had to have been shocked to hear it.
00:08:07.420It was shocking to hear it, which is why I think it must have been an error.
00:08:13.560I have no doubt that the plan to hold a climate emergency debate is very much on her mind.
00:08:19.620I don't think that's a misstep, but I think she could have framed it differently.
00:08:23.200I mean, there is so much good happening in the sector.
00:08:25.800This is the real problem, is that I feel like there is a massive disconnect between politicians
00:08:30.780and the way they talk about the energy industry as if it's still stuck in the 1990s.
00:08:35.740I have been on numerous calls, dozens and dozens of calls with dozens of CEOs. And the number one
00:08:42.060issue they have in their mind is how they can reduce their future cost of CO2 by capturing it,
00:08:47.600sequestering it, turning it into a feedstock, developing another line of business that will
00:08:52.440allow them to offset their emissions, planting trees, partnering with the energy, with the
00:08:56.380ranching sector so that they can sequester it in the soils. There is no one in the energy sector
00:09:01.180who is not looking at some way of reaching net zero, some way of bringing in new innovation
00:09:06.440and technology in order to be able to reach their targets. I just spoke with someone today,
00:09:10.880for instance, new member of Alberta Enterprise Group called Prospectum. It's a drone technology
00:09:15.780that can detect methane leaks from 150 meters away. I got the impression with her speaking the
00:09:21.640way she did that she's not even really aware of all of the innovation. And I think everybody needs
00:09:26.340to update their thinking of the energy sector because from what i have seen they have embraced
00:09:31.860the challenge of a circular economy embrace the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions
00:09:36.100and they want to be the first to uh to get to net zero so i think that that's the real problem is
00:09:40.900that when you have the mayor reinforcing old stereotypes about the industry it just continues
00:09:46.740to chase away capital it doesn't doesn't even need to be chased that far away either when when you
00:09:51.300you think about it, those businesses, they could headquarter in Rocky View County. It can be right
00:09:56.520outside in one of the rural municipalities, which Calgary is constantly competing with if they can't
00:10:00.960find a supportive mayor in Calgary. And that's a real danger. I think she's going to have to walk
00:10:07.020that one back. Yep. Just want to add one snippet to what you just said. You mentioned about carbon
00:10:13.120sequestration. You've got a company like Enhance Energy sequestering more than a million tons of
00:10:17.360carbon a year at Clive Alberta at their operation, and the new mayor would be wise, frankly, to get
00:10:23.820up to speed on some of these things, because as you say, we do have that technology operating in
00:10:28.260Alberta, and it is making a big difference. Danielle, I'll stay with you to pick up the
00:10:31.760next subject, and that is the equalization referendum. The vote, I don't think it's official
00:10:37.040yet, but it looks like, or correct me if I'm wrong, it looks like Albertans have supported it,
00:10:42.120although maybe not by the number we were hoping. What do you know at this point, and what do you
00:10:46.300make of what we do know so we're not going to get the final results until tuesday and i'll look to
00:10:50.860rob to see if he has seen any other more granular results but in calgary we saw 58 saying yes we
00:10:57.680should remove equalization from the constitution and 42 opposed it got higher as you went into
00:11:03.860some of the the smaller cities i think down in madison hat was the highest i've seen with 70
00:11:09.300percent in favor maybe no surprise because drew barnes is down there and he was on the
00:11:12.980the Alberta panel that went across the province asking for how we can get a fair deal. So he
00:11:18.320probably had something to do with that higher result down there. We'll have to see what happens
00:11:21.940in Edmonton. Although I'm inclined to believe that Edmonton is going to follow the rest of the
00:11:26.000province as well, because Joe Ceci and Rachel Notley weren't very happy with the way the fiscal
00:11:31.320stabilization program worked. And so I think they understand that there's some unfairness in the way
00:11:35.960some of these transfer programs work. So I didn't feel like they were overwhelmingly campaigning
00:11:41.560against it. And so I would expect it to be fairly close. But I think that there's a decisive
00:11:46.460mandate for the premier coming out of this. And the question will be, what does he do with that
00:11:51.220mandate? If he doesn't act on it, he delays on it, then I think we do lose a bit of momentum.
00:11:57.500Go ahead, Rob, on the same subject. Well, you know, it passed.
00:12:06.220That's why we got together in the first place, is we were worried it wasn't going to.
00:12:09.800yeah um that that was my worry just because um you know the the premier had been missing in action
00:12:17.000right uh because he was worried his unpopularity would affect the question and indeed i think it
00:12:22.440did uh um i think it's going to pass with about 60 maybe a little bit higher after the rural
00:12:28.760results are in but um you know uh this was kind of a i don't know how you picked the wrong answer
00:12:36.760here. Equalization has been a bane of Alberta for decades and decades and decades. And if you're
00:12:44.200on the right, you know, if you're conservative leaning and you're in your the way you want the
00:12:50.280economy governed, you know, you're obviously going to be not happy about transferring 20 billion
00:12:59.120dollars a year to Ottawa to buy votes in Quebec. But if you're on the left, and you believe in
00:13:05.000in more government spending on social programs health care education etc etc you should be in
00:13:12.280favor of ending the equalization program just as much so you can keep more resources in in alberta
00:13:19.160for for those programs so you know we can all fight here in alberta about how the money is
00:13:24.600going to be spent once it's not being sucked out uh but uh you know i'm glad it passed uh let's
00:13:32.760move on and and actually uh and actually do something about it now we'll talk about uh ironic
00:13:39.640timing uh rob you first uh premier quebec francois legault just announcing that his country's going
00:13:44.920to ban oil and gas extraction um but they're happy to take the royalty reviews coming from alberta
00:13:50.440have you heard of this most recent announcement and are you shocked at all by it uh no uh this is
00:13:58.600uh the the playbook from quebec uh you know it always has been there they're just an anti uh
00:14:07.320energy province they don't believe in in in the conventional oil and gas and and he plays that
00:14:13.560tune to his electorate like a fiddle and and it seems to work for him he's quite a popular
00:14:19.160premier there um but what it shows is there's a hostility there to even quebec natural gas and
00:14:27.320oil and so forth and if there's hostility to producing their own resources in that sector
00:14:33.320you can only imagine what the idea of uh having pipelines built across their province to uh
00:14:39.400to transport that that same energy from alberta is going to be it's not going to be popular at all
00:14:45.320and of course this is the problem with equalization if they did develop those resources
00:14:50.920the their revenues would rise and their net take from the equalization fund would decrease
00:14:56.840to the benefit mostly of Alberta, but why would they want to develop their resources when
00:15:04.120if they just sit back and kind of maintain the status quo, they can live off the labors of
00:15:12.120Alberta and virtue signal their way to whatever Nobel Prize they're seeking at the moment?
00:15:20.200Well, it drips with irony. In fact, it's almost hypocrisy, Danielle, that you would accept the
00:15:26.440amount of money that quebec accepts from alberta and um and frankly solely the very resource uh
00:15:32.760that they're getting that money from um you must have been taken aback by the announcement today
00:15:36.760or although like rog probably not surprised i loved it when you asked asked the question you
00:15:42.040said in francois lagos country he made the decision to ban oil and freudian slip the shoe fits you
00:15:49.720know what they kind of are acting like a separate country they they're not really uh there's no
00:15:55.320esprit de corps here is there it's kind of every province for itself and that's not what canada's
00:15:59.880supposed to be the whole reason of canada was to have a federal government that would make sure
00:16:04.360that we were able to to freely have our goods and go across borders and quebec is clearly
00:16:11.960violating that they began by banning uh or by canceling the project that would have been
00:16:18.040in port saginay taking western canadian gas liquefying it at the port and then exporting
00:16:23.080it to our friends in Europe who desperately need it. I mean, this is the bizarre part about all
00:16:27.960of this, is that why would we want our friends and allies in Europe to be increasingly reliant
00:16:33.000on Russia, which has a horrendous record when it comes to environments? They're still flaring gas.
00:16:39.640They're actually the number one nation in the world to be flaring gas rather than trying to0.92
00:16:43.640find some way to capture it and make something useful out of it. And they also have no qualms
00:16:49.000about using their power to squeeze other nations into submission on their political priorities.
00:16:57.480We saw that in Ukraine. So why would we want our friends in Germany to be more reliant on that? Why0.65
00:17:01.560wouldn't we want to make sure that our friends and allies in Europe have the ability of a safer,
00:17:07.720more secure, friendly, more green source of energy from Quebec? So that's a real problem.
00:17:14.680And to Rob's point as well, I think when we're looking now at equalization, our premier absolutely now has the mandate to go to the table and say, if we're not going to eliminate equalization, then we're making some adjustments.
00:17:28.860Quebec, you are more than happy to continue subsidizing electricity.
00:17:32.620We will just mark it up to market and we will reduce equalization by the amount you've decided to leave on the table because you're not collecting it.
00:17:39.560We know that you've got a hundred year supply of natural gas in the ground. So for the next hundred years, we will also discount the amount of your equalization by the amount of revenues you would have earned and the economic activity you would have earned by exploiting that resource.
00:17:53.260So we can't continue to have these sort of actions where they make decisions that impair their own ability to generate revenues and then they expect the rest of the country to pick it up.
00:18:04.840This is, I think that our Premier has a clear mandate to call that out, and I hope he does.
00:18:33.840And, you know, I was thinking about how to set this up.
00:18:36.920And frankly, I think to know where we're at, we need to know where we came from.
00:18:42.020Before we talk about vaccine passports and vaccine mandates, this all started with flatten the curve.
00:18:48.820I mean, Danielle, I'm going to task you with picking it up first.
00:18:52.680Can you even walk us through how we got from where we started to where we are today before we talk about how we should be dealing with things?
00:19:01.640There have been so many 180s, it's hard to remember what caused them. But the very first argument that we got was that we needed two weeks of total lockdown to flatten the curve. And I think there were a lot of people who thought, okay, well, it seems to make sense. You reduce the amount of contact you have with friends and family and loved ones and out in the public. And it should make a difference. It should allow you to reduce the spread of this virus. And it didn't.
00:19:30.620so then it was okay well now you've got to wear masks initially that wasn't the case i mean
00:19:35.420masks are used in in surgery uh to protect the doctor make sure that uh that the the place that
00:19:42.860he's working on stays clean there's there's no evidence that it can stop tiny particles like
00:19:48.620viruses and so but it became one of these memes that everybody will wear a mask and you'll be
00:19:53.500safe okay so now all of a sudden masks and distancing became de rigueur i'm not quite sure
00:19:59.020how it came to be the case that you could um that you could have different gathering limits and you
00:20:04.620would be perfectly safe if you had 10 people gather indoors for certain types of functions
00:20:08.940but all of a sudden it became more dangerous if you moved it to a person's private home
00:20:13.260or why you could have certain gatherings of some size indoors and not the same size outdoors there
00:20:18.780became a lot of mythology around this but the thing that i think bothers me the most is that
00:20:23.660anyone who suggested a year ago when Leger and all of the other pollsters were asking the question
00:20:29.500about mandatory vaccination and vaccine passports that there was a lot of concern raised by
00:20:35.580libertarian groups at the time that that was going to happen and they were called out and
00:20:39.260told they were conspiracy theorists and it would never occur and wham all of a sudden you're seen
00:20:46.220to be anti-social if you think that having the government go back to its original promise not
00:20:50.860to force vaccination and not to have passports you have to show your papers everywhere you go
00:20:56.540somehow you're considered antisocial if you think that and that used to be the dominant view a year
00:21:01.020ago so it feels to me like it's just been one whatever they say they aren't going to do that's
00:21:08.060almost a guarantee that is going to be the next thing they will do that has me very alarmed because
00:21:13.820we did see how draconian they got in new zealand and australia and i'm quite concerned as we go
00:21:19.900into this fall respiratory virus season. We know we're going to see a surge, but they're forcing
00:21:25.980healthcare workers to be vaccinated or go on leave. There may be as many as 20%, maybe 25%
00:21:31.580of healthcare workers that are not going to be working at the same time as we have increased
00:21:37.100pressure on our healthcare system. And as a result, we haven't seen an increase in the ICU capacity.
00:21:43.020We don't have any confidence that they're going to come up with any other method of managing this.
00:21:47.820So I'm quite worried about what happens a month from now when we start seeing some of the surges come back again.
00:21:52.780Well, you touched on about four things, Danielle, that I would like to follow up on.
00:21:56.260But as I as I kick it over to Rob, Rob, I do want to play the devil's advocate.
00:22:00.780And if your government here, what you're saying is this is a moving target.
00:22:04.440And therefore, we've had to make decisions based on the evidence of the day.
00:22:08.440You've heard the premier say that several times and the evidence of the day is always changing.
00:22:12.700and they would tell you that they have a genuine mandate to defend the people and protect the
00:22:20.720people. But many people are starting to say it's gone too far and there's no end in sight. What
00:22:27.580do you make on what they've done to this point and where we're at now? Well, there's so much to
00:22:33.300cover there, but I'll just say that I find the most concerning thing is how governments,
00:22:38.900the left and I would say including Jason Kenney and his government how they've weaponized the
00:22:45.980issue of vaccinations and mandatory vaccinations which is essentially what's happening here
00:22:51.540to cover up their gross incompetence of managing this pandemic you know I think everyone understood
00:22:59.500at the very beginning when we didn't quite know what we were dealing with we had numbers coming
00:23:05.500out of china that the death rate was 3.4 do you remember that that was nuts like that would have
00:23:11.500been tens and tens and tens of millions of people hundreds of millions of people uh dead if that
00:23:17.100were true now thankfully it turned out that wasn't the case and it's closer to 0.1 percent uh or even
00:23:23.180less than that but the the point is is that governments when they lock down the first time
00:23:30.140trying to figure out what okay what are we dealing with here um what they naturally should have done
00:23:35.100what our government should have done is staffed up uh made sure that they had adequate resources for
00:23:41.980surge capacity on the various waves that were coming um you know viruses mutating is it's not
00:23:48.780a new thing uh it happens like all the time it's the rule so they should have known that this was
00:23:56.460happening and instead what this government did and what i'm not going to speak to other governments
00:24:01.020but they decided to pick a fight with doctors and nurses and and tick them off and and they're
00:24:07.020worried about salaries instead of saying you know what guys all hands on deck here let's make sure
00:24:12.620we have surge capacity of five six hundred icu beds we know we're going to be in this for a
00:24:17.500couple years let's get this done and because they so incompetently managed the system instead of
00:24:23.740putting the resources and and not picking fights with nurses and doctors during this time and
00:24:27.820staffing up uh what they've decided to do instead is cover their mistakes by weaponizing this
00:24:33.420vaccine issue and saying well this is this is we can't let the unvaccinated um overwhelm our0.99
00:24:40.380healthcare system and therefore we are going to mandate that everybody regardless of whether you
00:24:47.340really are at risk of covet or not need to have this or you're going to lose your job or you're
00:24:51.420going to if you're a kid you're not going to be able to play sports or if you're in post-secondary
00:24:57.820you're not going to be able to get your education they've done this to try to change the villain
00:25:03.260from their stupidity because that's what it is just complete incompetence and stupidity0.82
00:25:08.380and and focus it on individuals that do have an issue with vaccinating their children or
00:25:15.020do have an issue with the vaccination itself i'm fully vaccinated i believe in the science of it
00:25:20.780but i don't believe it's a one-size-fits-all approach for absolutely everybody and we believe
00:25:26.860in this country i thought that people were in control of their own bodies and their own
00:25:31.740liberties and what gets put into their own bodies and um i guess for the last few months anyway i've
00:25:38.780been proven wrong that that's uh that's not the case at all well we're at the heart of it so we
00:25:44.540might as well stay here uh danielle pick up on what rob's saying and this has really become
00:25:48.940unfortunately i hate seeing it in the headlines i can't stand it when i see a leader standing up
00:25:54.060there and saying this is the pandemic of the unvaxxed i'm not sure that it is i'm not a
00:25:58.940health expert admit that but we are pitting the unvaxxed versus the vaxxed in all of this
00:26:04.060well and that's the real danger here as well is that it's given those who are vaccinated um and
00:26:11.500an oh i think in a heightened sense maybe an over-reliance that it's a sterilizing immunity
00:26:17.500and quite frankly it's not this is the we never it never was intended to be a vaccine like polio
00:26:24.780or smallpox those are vaccines where you get the jab and sure there may be the occasional
00:26:29.900breakthrough case but generally speaking you're good for life i think people are under the
00:26:34.700impression that that's what these vaccinations are too i have heard countless stories of people
00:26:39.660who get covid after they've been vaccinated and they're astonished they say well i shouldn't be
00:26:45.180able to get covid because i've been vaccinated and that's a real problem because if you think
00:26:50.220that you're superman or superwoman and you can't possibly have covid because you've been vaxxed
00:26:54.700then if you do get a cold or sneezing or coughing you might not be as careful around other people
00:26:59.660and so you become the spreader and then we don't end up solving the problem we've seen in other
00:27:04.700jurisdictions that we're just a little bit behind on israel israel was ahead of us on vaccination
00:27:11.260And it clearly wears off. I mean, I don't think that it's controversial to say that now. They're
00:27:17.020already doing triple shots in Israel. We're doing triple shots on our most vulnerable here. They're
00:27:23.820talking about four shots in Israel, four shots in the space of a year. I mean, that should tell you0.99
00:27:28.940something about the nature of this vaccine, that it works well, but it's short lived. And if that's
00:27:34.780the case, then we have to have a different strategy. The strategy has to be making sure
00:27:38.940that those who are the most at risk are prioritized for additional boosters at the time that it's
00:27:47.220needed, which is coming up on respiratory virus season. We also really failed. This is the biggest
00:27:53.360failure I think of all in being over-reliant on vaccines. In a normal world, you wouldn't get
00:27:58.800vaccines developed for approval for human populations for three years or more. And what
00:28:05.160would normally have happened is that as soon as this vaccine, pardon me, as soon as this virus
00:28:10.200started making the rounds, what would have happened is everybody would have jumped into action and
00:28:14.400said, okay, we already have a bunch of drugs that are already approved for other uses. Let's do some
00:28:18.480studies to find out if any of them can be repurposed to assist us in addressing this
00:28:23.320particular virus. And that never happened. In fact, that kind of research was actively ignored
00:28:28.160and actively suppressed. And so now we're in a situation where we've got these vaccines wearing
00:28:33.600off. And we still haven't done the work on trying to find effective therapeutics for when people who
00:28:38.600are vaccinated get sick. And I think that that's going to be the biggest failure of the government
00:28:44.340is when people realize that they thought that they were safe by doing everything the government
00:28:48.820told them to do. They went out and they were a good citizen. They still got sick. And when they
00:28:53.600get sick, the government says, sorry, just, you know, if you stop breathing or your lips turn
00:28:57.940blue, go to the hospital, but we haven't developed any other mechanism to treat you. And that's a
00:29:03.260real problem. Well, what about, stay there. What about, what about other treatment, uh,
00:29:07.660focused protection, these kinds of things? Um, it seems like anytime, uh, a suggestion comes up,
00:29:13.440it's downplayed pretty quickly. In fact, um, I, I hesitate to mention, uh, the, the one treatment,
00:29:19.380I'm sure you will, that, that, that many refer to, um, it gets downplayed and, uh, you immediately,
00:29:24.920uh, feel guilty for even bringing it up, that it's unsafe, but you would think some in the
00:29:29.880medical field would prescribe some other alternatives? Are looking at other suggestions?
00:29:36.160Are we there yet? And are we doing what we should be as a society?
00:29:40.200I understand the Canadian COVID Care Alliance is looking at developing a telehealth service
00:29:46.200that's by membership only so that if you do get diagnosed with COVID, they will send you a package
00:29:53.420and a treatment protocol that has been affirmed by a doctor. They also have developed treatment
00:29:58.760protocols for how you can avoid vaccine injury. They've developed treatment protocols for long
00:30:03.800COVID because some people still have symptoms after they've recovered from COVID. And all of
00:30:10.600this they want to make available by telehealth. But isn't that remarkable that that's what it's
00:30:14.220come down to, is that colleges have so terrorized doctors into threatening them with the loss of
00:30:19.780their license that doctors are now going to have to anonymously go through a private
00:30:24.060a service that's behind a paywall in order to give people the treatment that they need.
00:30:29.040It shouldn't be that way. And so I've been I've been working with a group of doctors to try to
00:30:34.000either get this mandate from the college overturned. There was a similar type of mandate
00:30:40.620that was in Nebraska and the attorney general of Nebraska wrote a mandate saying this is not
00:30:48.280an appropriate use of the of the Professions Act in that state. So hopefully we'd be able to do
00:30:52.740that and if not get some clinical trials going if it if the key is that they're rejecting any of
00:30:58.900these potential treatments because they haven't been done in a modern western industrialized
00:31:04.020country with our medical standards well let's get a bunch of these different drugs under those kind0.80
00:31:08.420of treatment uh trials and and allow for people to to get some kind of of medications when they
00:31:14.580do get diagnosed the this cannot continue on for another respiratory virus season especially with
00:31:19.780with all the pressures coming on our hospital,
00:32:40.640um see the the problem we know this this is i think we all know that covid uh is is very um
00:32:49.320deadly and very serious as you go up in age and as you uh have more and more pre-existing conditions
00:32:57.760in your in person's health okay so we know this we also know that uh young people are are not very0.80
00:33:06.600susceptible to having a serious covid outcome so those teenagers young children people in their
00:33:13.00020s even into their 30s have a quite a they can get covid of course just like anybody can but
00:33:19.780having a serious reaction to it is quite low so this this whole idea that the reason why we have
00:33:27.660the mandated vaccines and i i still say they're mandated if if you're going to lose your job or
00:33:33.060post-secondary education because you're not taking a vaccine that's that's a mandatory vaccine for
00:33:38.740those people anyway but the the problem is is we're not looking at vaccines the way that they
00:33:44.820should be used which is to be used by the high risk populations as danielle said focused on them
00:33:52.420make sure they get it early if they need boosters make sure they get a boosters to to uh to greatly
00:33:59.060decrease the prevalence of a serious covid outcome in those in those demographic groups but but what
00:34:06.900politicians have done here and i would say the metal community is they have created a
00:34:13.780obligation on the part of people and children and teenagers and young men and women that they also
00:34:23.060have to get a vaccine that they frankly don't need they can they can if they want but they don't
00:34:29.860their life is not going to end almost assuredly if they don't get it with few rare exceptions if
00:34:35.300they have those pre-existing conditions in which case you should get it but you're forcing these
00:34:40.100people to get vaccines that that they don't need and you're doing it in order to apparently protect
00:34:48.820those in their middle ages and and upper and and seniors from from contracting it and getting it
00:34:55.620well that's all fine and dandy and if you want to preach that that's that's your prerogative
00:35:01.140to preach that as a doctor and as a as a citizen but to force that age group and people to to
00:35:09.780have a vaccine uh injected into them that although tested thoroughly in a short term period has
00:35:17.140obviously not be tested for long-term side effects and to ask young people to do this not ask them
00:35:23.460sorry to force them essentially to do this is a violation of their charter rights yep and it's
00:35:28.980unethical rob and there are a lot of parents having these discussions i can tell you right now
00:35:34.100because it's very clear uh that the drug company's next move is to um whether in good faith or whether
00:35:41.860profit driven depending on how you look at this is to come up with a vaccine uh that is safe for
00:35:47.460youth and danielle i think there are a lot of parents saying i'm not sure my children need to
00:35:52.260take the vaccine uh based on the risk of covid to them uh but there's something else at play here
00:35:58.580and this seems to be the next step well and i i think you're right and i i also agree with rob
00:36:04.500that the numbers are so clear if you're over the age of 70 you you pretty well because of your age
00:36:11.220and health profile it's almost a slam dunk that yes you should be taking it if you're between 35
00:36:17.940and 70 it depends based on what your background level of health is and obesity is a very highly
00:36:23.220correlated we do have an obese population so it may be that there's a large number of people who
00:36:27.860have to be vaccinated in that group too but under age 35 it's it becomes pretty difficult especially
00:36:33.540when you look at the results on vaccine injury that is is your risk of a vaccine injury higher
00:36:39.940than your risk of having a bad outcome from COVID. And once again, everybody should be free to be
00:36:45.140able to make their own personal choice on that. And the fact that that's been taken away is not
00:36:50.900only a charter violation, but also a bad precedent, because I don't know what this means for future.
00:36:56.420Essentially, the way we're adjudicating this, or the way we're pushing this out is, and somebody
00:37:02.180put it to this, to me this way, they contacted their MLA. And the MLA's response was that
00:37:06.980Justin Trudeau has made COVID a workplace hazard. And as a result, since it's a workplace hazard,
00:37:14.340there is legal liability on the part of the company to mitigate that potential hazard.
00:37:19.540And when you think that through, what that means is that this will never end. There will always be
00:37:24.340a variant. And more so right now in the UK, there's a very bad cold going around. It's not COVID,
00:37:30.820but is now having a cold workplace hazard? And what about influenza? We know that influenza
00:37:36.900actually kills more young people under the age of 20 than covid does so is now influenza a workplace
00:37:43.220hazard and what else will be declared a workplace hazard i just think that there's a lack of reality
00:37:48.740here that we have never been able to stop viruses we we are the best we can do is mitigate against
00:37:56.020the harms of them but to expect that government regulations can stop viruses or that corporations
00:38:02.260somehow can stop viruses and what happens then if you once we get to 100 uh fully vaccinated
00:38:08.340what happens when a new variant comes along and manages to bypass all those vaccines well i can
00:38:12.260tell you what happened in israel they turned off your vaccine passport so you used to be able to
00:38:16.340go to restaurants and public events and then nope sorry if you don't have your third vaccine you're
00:38:22.020considered unvaccinated is that the world that we want to live in where our access to society
00:38:26.980is turned on and off based on the most recent variant and our most recent booster shot
00:38:31.460i would prefer to go the pathway that uk did in denmark and norway and sweden they got to a
00:38:35.940certain point they said it's it it's over this is at an end and i haven't seen anything that leads
00:38:41.620me to believe that we're going in that direction because you don't make permanent decisions to get
00:38:47.300rid of staff members on a temporary policy that's why i'm increasingly alarmed that we're going to
00:38:52.420go the direction of that israel is already charting out and our freedoms are going to be at risk for1.00
00:38:58.420the foreseeable future and i don't know what will end it if we go down that track
00:39:02.100oh you know you're putting me in a bad mood d with uh some of those questions because he's
00:39:08.180the lawyer right and i don't know how a company can can if you're right if this is truly the way
00:39:13.380the jurisprudence is going i that's the sense that i'm getting is that this that's the reason why
00:39:17.620they're making these decisions i want to ask rob a legal question but this is where this is how i
00:39:21.780want to frame it uh brian peckford the last living premier involved in the construction and the
00:39:26.820the adoption of the Charter Rights and Freedoms. The former Newfoundland Labrador Premier is now
00:39:32.200speaking out. In fact, he says the Charter and parliamentary democracy are being violated and
00:39:36.960abused by governments whose pandemic policies have taken aim at freedom of expression, freedom of
00:39:43.100assembly, and other charter guaranteed rights as well. And he recently did an interview on the
00:39:49.080Canada Strong and Free Network, and he spoke to these things. Rob, I don't know if you saw that
00:39:53.140interview. But even if you didn't, I'm sure you can comment on that. Are we going to start hearing
00:39:57.600more from this from people like you think one would want to listen to Mr. Peckford?
00:40:02.780Oh, absolutely. And he's right. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was specifically
00:40:09.760drafted for, frankly, situations like this, where you have the majority feels one way,
00:40:17.960and you have groups in the minorities that feel another way
00:40:22.840and they don't want to do something that's maybe in the mainstream
00:40:26.240and whether, you know, you think about religion,
00:40:29.960you think about some of these other things,
00:40:32.180you think about, there's all sorts of examples,
00:40:35.060but the Charter is supposed to protect those groups
00:40:38.660from the majority, from the tyranny of the majority.
00:40:43.120That's the whole point of the Charter.
00:40:44.660So that is not happening at all. The opposite is true. And I would say that, again, I'm fully vaccinated. My kids are vaccinated.
00:40:55.860But if there is a if there are parents out there that do not want their children to be vaccinated because they're worried about their risks, for example, to having a bad reaction from the vaccine or they have religious reasons for it or they don't feel they're at risk because they're in great shape, have a great immune system.
00:41:17.040they're 35 40 years old and and and feel like they're willing to live with that risk how are
00:41:23.020we allowing their jobs their post-secondary education um you know in the kids the kids
00:41:30.620child development physical and social development of being able to play organized sports uh in
00:41:35.760arenas and so forth how where have we gone here where we're forcing this to happen and and forcing
00:41:43.600them to do these things that against their will because that's what we're doing and that is a
00:41:47.200charter violation not only of a belief but quite frankly their security of person their ability
00:41:53.840so would these things hold up legally would they hold up legally then rob it's hard to say because
00:42:00.360this is there's a lot of things i don't think i ever thought in a million years would would hold
00:42:06.460up legally and they have so far this hasn't been determined by the supreme court it will get there
00:42:11.680I wonder if it'll still be a big issue by the time the Supreme Court hears it.
00:42:18.340But I do, I have seen a little bit lately where governments and private businesses are stepping back a little bit from the mandatory nature, like either get this or be fired, because they're worried about constructive dismissal claims, wrongful dismissal claims and so forth.
00:42:38.720but you know the government hasn't helped on this and where is Jason Kenney why is he not
00:42:44.260why is he a part of this why is he not protecting those people that need to be protected right now
00:42:50.480well let me ask a different question to you Danielle and Rob says where is Jason Kenney
00:42:54.360I would ask this as an outside observer not not picking any sides where have all the conservative
00:43:00.720leaders gone because if you would have asked these people in their election campaigns and
00:43:05.980platforms, this probably wouldn't have been a strategy that you would see a conservative leader
00:43:11.060employ or say they were going to employ. Is that fair or am I missing something? Is there a
00:43:17.940conservative leader out there that's doing this the way that you would suggest we should?
00:43:22.640I think that we need to assert that Twitter is not the real world. I know that's controversial
00:43:28.680to say, but it seems to me that's how we're governing, is that if something causes the
00:43:33.100Twitterati to get outraged, and they make something trend and go viral, and then it gets picked up by
00:43:38.800the mainstream media, then all of a sudden, politicians feel a need to poll on it. And then
00:43:43.820the poll results, often asking 1000 people across the entire country, ends up being skewed in favor
00:43:49.220of one direction. That's how they're making their decisions. I mean, it's so funny that for the last
00:43:53.600five years, maybe 10 years, everybody has been talking about how terrible populism is, that is
00:43:59.220this is the ultimate populism. This is not principle-based leadership. And so when I look
00:44:03.560at principle-based leadership, I look at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who, quite frankly, he took
00:44:08.560a tough decision, same thing as everybody else did back in March, April, when this first came about,
00:44:12.520he didn't know what was going on either. But when it came time during the next wave to do the same
00:44:17.920thing, he did something quite remarkably different. He held a press conference with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
00:44:23.360and Sinatra Gupta and Martin Koldorf and Scott Atlas.
00:44:28.720And he got them to educate the press corps about how they saw it differently
00:44:33.320and how you could do focused protection and why that was a better solution.
00:45:01.120I thought Dr. Dina Hinshaw understood how important it was for us to make that transition because they talked about that in August.
00:45:08.580And instead, they ended up not only going 180 degrees, but going down exactly the same authoritarian path that you're seeing in every other jurisdiction.
00:45:17.520So leadership like that, it's really in short supply.
00:45:21.560and sadly it's non-existent in Canada. Rob, go ahead. I know you'd probably point to Texas as
00:45:26.860well. Absolutely. And what's amazing too is there's just been so many studies that have
00:45:33.820looked at, you know, lockdown states that have locked down versus states that haven't and
00:45:38.580everything in between. And there's no real correlation with regards to serious COVID
00:45:45.500out to comes and uh and deaths and whether there were lockdowns or not there's a little bit of a
00:45:51.740change in the curve um the states that don't lock down tend to get a few more a few more cases
00:45:58.860quickly and then they peter off and then the ones that lock down not as fast but then they spike up
00:46:04.300at the end and and that's that's been been shown it's been shown in the con in other countries
00:46:10.460sweden denmark you go down the list so we don't need to resort to these um these ridiculous
00:46:18.700policies these lockdown policies these mandatory vaccines in order to save lives from this pandemic
00:46:26.220we need surgical smart uh preventative measures measures that focus on the vulnerable and doing
00:46:33.260it in a way that does not violate people's charters charter rights can i also add one more
00:46:38.300thing to that bruce because i i think the the the problem that we got ourselves into
00:46:43.420is that somebody planted the seed that zero covet and zero deaths was possible and i think that
00:46:49.340seed was planted by just in the uh ardern in new zealand and so people thought that that was showing
00:46:56.220great leadership that she'd set out such a strong and visionary type of of objective and then she
00:47:02.460was prepared to follow it up with strong action she got lauded in praise but but we have to ask
00:47:07.660the question, is it achievable? So I think that the danger that our politicians have gotten into
00:47:12.760here is they think that zero COVID and zero deaths are possible through vaccines. It's the
00:47:18.980same thing. It's the same premise, faulty premise that they're operating on, that they have put so
00:47:26.180much faith in vaccination. I think that there really is this belief, if we could just get to
00:47:30.860100%, that'll make sure that we stamp out all variants, and then we will never have another
00:47:36.280variant and we'll never have another covid death and i think this is the really difficult thing
00:47:41.080that we've got to come to terms with is life is inherently risky we die of all kinds of things we
00:47:46.040are very fragile creatures and every death from every type of cause is going to be a hardship and
00:47:51.560a sadness for the families that have to endure it but we also can't set unrealistic expectations
00:47:56.920that we can have zero death society and that it's the politicians job to bubble wrap us all
00:48:00.920and protect us from all harms and hazards on the increasingly small risk that someone might die of
00:48:07.620something. This is the real problem is we've got no real sense of how to manage or mitigate risk
00:48:13.340in a practical way. And if, you know what, if this was a vaccine like smallpox, okay, I can
00:48:19.680understand the strategy that you want to make sure that everybody in the world gets a jab so that you
00:48:23.360can completely eradicate it. But now that we know that it's not, now that we know that it mutates,
00:48:29.840it's a lot more like influenza then we have to develop an approach that's more like influenza
00:48:34.720i came to that conclusion a long time ago i don't know what it will take for our politicians to come
00:48:38.480to the same conclusion well maybe more discussions like this one and i think that's a great way a
00:48:43.920great place to leave it guys both of you uh had some pretty good concluding comments there so why
00:48:48.480don't we leave it here tonight and uh thank you both for taking some time again who knows where
00:48:53.200this is all going but hopefully we've given some people some things to think about tonight and
00:48:56.880And we'll continue to try to give them a voice on the issues that matter.