Western Standard - WATCH： Calgary lawyer, medical students discuss COVID vaccine loophole many are trapped in

00:00:00.000 Good evening. I'm Melanie Rizdin with the Western Standard. Tonight we have a host of guests that

00:00:12.220 we're going to be speaking with on this strange story. It's kind of a strange situation that has

00:00:17.520 unfolded for a lot of medical students, not only in Alberta, but across the country.

00:00:23.080 We've got a bit of a loophole situation that has happened with a lot of these students. So

00:00:28.680 talking about post-secondary education, a lot of the post-secondary institutions have announced

00:00:35.460 that they are lifting the vaccine mandates, the requirement for proof of vaccination.

00:00:41.120 So with those lifting, a lot of students that chose to remain unvaccinated are now being able

00:00:46.760 to return to their learning, whether it was online or in person, they can return to their studies.

00:00:53.700 However, when we're talking about medical students who need to do placements or they need to do a practicum or some sort of a residency, they're running into these strange kind of loophole roadblocks where they cannot access the facilities that are where they would be doing their placements.

00:01:14.540 Some of the facilities are under AHS, some are private facilities or clinics, and are choosing to keep a proof of vaccination policy in place.

00:01:23.900 And we know with AHS, they have lifted the proof of vaccination policy for current employees.

00:01:30.960 But anyone that begins to work with AHS after November 30th is considered a new hire, and they would need to show proof of vaccination for COVID-19.

00:01:40.840 that includes placement students from post-secondary institutions so you know really putting a lot of

00:01:49.080 students in a rough place because they have committed to years of study already spent thousands

00:01:55.160 of dollars spent thousands of hours towards their education to basically be hitting a wall now when

00:02:02.520 it comes to some of the completion of their training with placements and residencies so we

00:02:09.320 have joining us today a host of students as well as james kitchen which is a calgary lawyer who

00:02:16.920 deals with these situations through liberty coalition canada he is their chief litigator

00:02:23.160 first of all we've got a student from u of a who has asked to remain anonymous

00:02:28.360 so we're going to uh we're going to just refer to her as u of a student we also have will

00:02:33.960 tight grabber he is a dentistry student out of university of alberta jeff la franchise is a

00:02:40.120 dietitian student out of u of a and we've got monica martin who is a sonography sonography

00:02:48.040 sorry a student from sate uh so welcome everybody thanks for uh speaking with us today we just uh

00:02:54.840 want to get a good idea of uh of what you're facing so let's start with our u of a student

00:03:00.920 she is the one that first reached out to me and uh and filled me in on what she was facing and

00:03:08.440 other students in her school are facing that are following some medical training so why don't you

00:03:14.920 give me an idea of first of all what you're facing and the steps that you've taken to you know try

00:03:21.960 to get answers for the situation you're in thank you melanie for uh having me here today and giving

00:03:27.720 me the opportunity to have a platform to speak from because I think for months I haven't had that

00:03:35.640 opportunity because of discrimination towards students that are remaining

00:03:41.800 unvaccinated for their personal reasons and so early on in this there were again my own personal

00:03:52.040 choice to remain unvaccinated, I was quickly told that I may not be able to complete my program

00:04:00.440 based off of the placement hours that I would require for my program. And so this was

00:04:08.200 disheartening because I had worked so hard to get into the program and I come from a background

00:04:17.800 that is marginalized and so it it was a huge commitment you know i left my home i left uh my

00:04:28.360 job i left um and it was expensive it was it was uh you know i had to put up financing to to get

00:04:35.880 here so i was i felt very privileged i felt very um excited and you know going into something that

00:04:42.600 you've been working so hard to achieve for so long it was just kind of defeating being a couple months

00:04:48.360 in and being told we don't know if you'll be able to graduate and we you know and and i understood

00:04:54.520 like i was i was trying to see it from their side like this is new you know i'm respectful

00:05:01.240 to the things that are going on and um to be clear i'm not um anti-vax i just um at this time

00:05:09.720 and not vaccinated. So I think I tried to just look for answers to begin with, like, okay,

00:05:18.920 well, whatever solutions are there? What does this mean? Because at this time, too, you know,

00:05:23.400 you've already made that commitment, you've paid your tuition for the semester. So it was a lot of

00:05:30.040 emailing, as you had mentioned, where I'm reaching out and trying to find answers. But I was really

00:05:37.480 hitting like you've said a roadblock where you know no one was replying the answer was usually

00:05:43.400 a blanket statement saying get vaccinated there was no real dialogue or communication

00:05:50.840 regarding students that may be in a situation that required placement hours but remained

00:05:56.600 unvaccinated and so as mentioned this has been ongoing since the announcement in October now

00:06:05.480 with that the placements with ahs they kept kind of moving the goal post if you will to saying you

00:06:12.680 know um and i don't know the exact dates but to november and then to december and then um anyway

00:06:18.440 there was just like so many changes but it still held us back because they were not taking students

00:06:24.760 you know we've always been this kind of gray area as you've mentioned so um since then um

00:06:31.640 I have been able to, you know, get this far like in my program, but it really is still a lot of

00:06:43.020 hurdles and barriers and really just barriers to my own education. I like to talk to like refer to

00:06:51.780 it as my COVID class because I feel like I'm taking another class in my program because of

00:06:56.860 the emailing and researching and to find solutions and just to be heard and to come to some sort of

00:07:07.660 compromise. So as I had mentioned to you when I reached out, the AHS had in their policy, you know,

00:07:14.700 remote workers could be tested, like there were other solutions and there were other exemptions.

00:07:21.260 And shortly after that, they had some workers returning also with the testing. From my

00:07:26.940 understanding, the testing has been completely dropped. And then what you'll allude to later,

00:07:32.860 with Will's case, in January, you know, our students had heard that a student had received

00:07:40.300 an exemption. And I mean, that really instilled a lot of hope in us, and wanted to know like,

00:07:46.220 okay well i'm really not that much different from that student you know i'm in the program i'm

00:07:51.260 needing these hours at this location so now um what are the differences between you know between

00:07:58.300 that like why is there um differences let's say between schools or between faculties or

00:08:04.780 you know why hasn't there been kind of a consistent answer so i know they have now

00:08:11.660 release their statement and they're saying okay you know we we will accept them right but it's

00:08:18.380 been a long haul it's been a long haul to get to this point um with them saying that they will take

00:08:23.740 students who were enrolled you know previous to that november date but i guess what about all the

00:08:30.940 students who were doing an undergrad with hopes to get into this program you know like what about

00:08:36.620 the students who come after me so yeah and there are a lot of students as well who are in the midst

00:08:44.700 of their of their education their training but they haven't moved into their their placements

00:08:50.060 yet and so the statement from ahs was if they have not started their placement yet

00:08:55.980 they would they would need to be uh they would need to show proof of vaccination if they haven't

00:09:00.860 started their placement as of november 30th so i mean when you're talking about and and i don't

00:09:05.740 know how the how the years work for say a medical doctor uh student but i would assume there's a

00:09:12.940 there's a couple years of of uh schooling before you would even hit into a residency so so you

00:09:20.380 know there's there's students who have like you said invested time and a lot of money and you

00:09:27.580 know this is a dream of theirs i mean i would assume that this is something you're really

00:09:31.980 looking forward to doing along with all of these other students that we're going to speak with and

00:09:37.500 to hit this roadblock that says this is the only way this is going to work and it's something that

00:09:43.420 you don't agree with or you for whatever reasons have chosen not to to be vaccinated um you know

00:09:49.100 i i could see that being very frustrating and as you said uh even when i started asking questions

00:09:57.100 on behalf of students i must have sent hundreds of emails i was sending them to the to the

00:10:04.460 regulatory bodies whether you know college of physicians and surgeons collins of college of

00:10:09.580 nurses things like that the regulatory bodies sent it to uh the ministry i i sent it to ministry

00:10:15.660 of education sent it to the health ministry i uh contacted even some of the placement clinics and

00:10:21.980 facilities to find out what their policies were. And I can understand the frustration that you

00:10:28.060 students must be feeling because I never got a real solid answer as to who is in charge.

00:10:35.100 AHS says they are receiving direction from the ministry. The colleges, the regulatory bodies,

00:10:42.940 say they are receiving instruction and direction from AHS. The clinics, even private clinics,

00:10:49.180 are saying they are waiting for direction and instruction from the regulatory bodies so it's

00:10:55.020 like this this passing of responsibility and nobody's actually focused on the fact that we have

00:11:04.300 thousands tens of thousands across this country of medical students who are stuck in this purgatory

00:11:12.300 now and are not able to finish their education because of these placement issues so that's a

00:11:19.900 problem solutions need to be made and you know this is why we're talking about this today what

00:11:26.300 might be interesting is to uh let's let's chat with chat with will for a moment will uh tight

00:11:31.980 grabber he is in dentistry you have a student and will you actually face this as well you uh i'll

00:11:39.420 I'll let you explain a little bit.

00:11:40.720 But you actually are the student that went and got legal representation from James Kitchen through the Liberty Coalition Canada.

00:11:50.820 And tell me how that went.

00:11:53.580 James, you're welcome to contribute to this explanation as well.

00:11:57.620 So, Will, what were you facing?

00:11:59.860 Well, it was a long, drawn-out process, but I'll try to make it succinct.

00:12:03.120 Basically, at the beginning of the school year, AHS dropped a policy, which was about August 31st, I think, that said, okay, we're going to be bringing in a vaccine mandate.

00:12:14.700 And at that time, I didn't think I would be subject to it.

00:12:17.180 You know, I thought, okay, well, you know, I'm under the university policy.

00:12:20.300 I'm not an AHS employee because dentistry, we just lease out of AHS building, but it's all on dentistry's dime.

00:12:28.500 We're not AHS employees.

00:12:30.180 We just lease.

00:12:30.900 so anyhow um flip forward and you know the school of dentistry is taking orders from the u of a and

00:12:37.660 also from ahs and turns out that you know i am subject to this policy so i'm going wow

00:12:42.980 this is bad so let me go reach out to who's a lawyer who's a lawyer that i could have and i

00:12:48.880 you know i'm just kind of searching who's hot right now who's hot i'm kind of looking online

00:12:53.160 and stuff and you know i had heard about um james kitchen through uh the case about pastor coats

00:12:58.500 So, and I knew he, I knew that turned out well. So, cause I have some friends that go to Grace Life Church and stuff. So it's kind of how I got put on to James and just so happened that, you know, I got to him quickly enough that he was able to take on my case before he was overloaded with cases. Cause I know that he's, he's in high demand and I'm very privileged to have him. He's an awesome lawyer.

00:13:20.280 so anyhow um we did go through a series of um kind of back and forth to u of a and ahs and there

00:13:28.020 was really no movement uh going on it's kind of just you know u of a deferring to ahs ahs deferring

00:13:35.260 to u of a just like you uh had said melanie i i confirmed like nobody wanted to take kind of

00:13:41.320 control of the situation or be liable for a decision ultimately so they were all just trying

00:13:46.860 to kind of exonerate themselves from the situation just you know not have anything to do with it

00:13:51.520 and that's what leaves people in limbo um yeah so for the long for the longest time um like i was

00:13:57.540 just i was just jonesing for an answer i was like where we're like what am i going to do what's my

00:14:02.560 what's the status going to be time's ticking time's ticking for me um it was very critical

00:14:07.420 because uh you know this is a time sensitive matter um had things been pushed out any longer

00:14:12.600 i might not have been able to finish this year um thank god that you know he made it work um

00:14:18.440 ultimately what happened was it was christmas time and uh you know i was reviewing the ahs policy

00:14:23.720 that got like whatever um went through i think three revisions in december 2021 which was wild

00:14:31.240 that's when they really enforced the policy um i wasn't able to come on campus effective

00:14:37.800 december 1st so i was kicked out of the program uh went on hiatus um you know they redropped

00:14:45.000 their policy i think december 13th and then again just before christmas time when i looked at that

00:14:50.360 revision it was my uh well my fiance's dad he actually had me review the policy and i read it

00:14:56.440 and i go hmm this policy says that workers include students including post-secondary institute like

00:15:02.600 post-secondary students instructors going like hmm that should include me so i reached out to james

00:15:09.000 um put it in his wheel and in his wheelhouse and uh he reviewed it and he goes yeah legally you

00:15:15.400 are entitled to return so you know let me um let me reach out to ahs um you know see what they do

00:15:22.520 they responded um ultimately they weren't going to give a direct answer about it either they

00:15:27.000 weren't going to say hey well yeah you're cool to go back what they gave in return was okay this is

00:15:32.360 our policy yes you have rightfully interpreted the policy you are now responsible to go to your

00:15:38.360 post-secondary institution and confirm whether you're eligible according to our policy you know

00:15:44.120 you are eligible but that's not our decision to defer to the post-secondary institutions this is

00:15:48.600 not something that we're gonna we're gonna act on so again just continuation of not wanting to be

00:15:53.720 liable liable so so then what happened was I took it to the U of A you know they had a vaccine

00:16:01.080 directive at that time it was in fall and winter um you know i had a human rights based exemption

00:16:07.960 based on my christian faith i had drafted a nine-page document that's in fall time

00:16:15.320 and it granted me an exemption based on that and it was extended into winter term so in theory i

00:16:22.120 was eligible to return to my placement according to u of a's directive and the u of a school of

00:16:28.920 dentistry interpreted it and initially they wanted ahs to give you know the final final direction on

00:16:35.960 on the trajectory of my case would be but that's just not how it works jane just told me to go

00:16:40.200 back to the u of a and said hey this is what they they said you ahs has delegated this task to you

00:16:46.040 you have to ultimately make the decision so the onus for post-secondary institution instructors

00:16:51.800 or students is ultimately the post-secondary institution should be ruling on this it's not

00:16:57.480 ahs any longer the policy is in effect that does permit anybody with a human rights-based exemption

00:17:03.560 according to the post-secondary institutions policy to return what's perplexing to me is that

00:17:09.880 now they've dropped all these policies and there's still people barred from their programs that makes

00:17:13.640 no sense to me um you know i actually had to kind of hurdle through when when these things were in

00:17:19.160 effect now there are no there are no barriers and so who's still stalling my my colleagues my um

00:17:26.040 you know my perspective nursing and uh medicine and i'm i know a medicine resident who hasn't

00:17:32.680 been able to return to his residency and i'm just i just don't get it you know i'm i'm very

00:17:37.560 privileged to be in the shoes i'm in but i don't see why these other people can't also join along

00:17:42.280 with me um when i heard about uh our ufa friends case i was just astonished that this is still

00:17:49.000 being dragged out as it is um to make it really short and simple james and i basically just looked

00:17:56.200 at the ahs policy and acted on it and um you know the the problem in the matter is the people who

00:18:02.920 are supposedly behind these decisions to bar students they make right you know they make a

00:18:09.480 flip into or dogmatic statement and then they don't back it up and they don't respond to people's

00:18:14.760 inquiries just like you said so that's the full circle well let's james do you want to speak to

00:18:20.040 that a little bit because i think that's part of this strange purgatory is who's taking

00:18:29.160 responsibility who's not like what can you say to that well that's the bureaucracy for you right i

00:18:35.800 mean the the larger government gets the more bureaucracy there will be the less um human

00:18:41.240 compassion there will be the less morality involved in decisions the more robotic and

00:18:46.760 oppressive everything will become and the more somebody who you know doesn't have the doesn't

00:18:53.480 have the capacity to to hire a lawyer to advocate for them or you know can't advocate um in that

00:19:00.680 extreme stance for themselves is going to get lost in the bureaucratic mess right i mean it's hard

00:19:06.200 enough for people in their 40s to deal with this but i mean to be a student um you know

00:19:11.800 you get all this pressure um you're figuring out what it means to be an adult and you know you've

00:19:18.040 been told at least a good chunk of your life that people actually do you know care somewhat about

00:19:23.560 what happens to you or what happens to other human beings and so it's a bit of a it's a bit of a

00:19:27.160 mental shock to run into all this um you know complete and utter hypocrisy and lack of compassion

00:19:33.960 These people just don't give a damn what happens to you, you know, especially since you're, you know, you're one of the undesirables, you're one of the unvaccinated. 1.00

00:19:40.100 Well, I mean, you're just, you know, as far as they're concerned, of course, I'll never admit it, but they would just wish it would go away anyways.

00:19:45.500 So, yeah, it's a real mess.

00:19:47.900 And this is the human cost of embracing big government.

00:19:53.220 This is the human cost of the modern administrative state where the government controls everything through a bureaucracy and through people that have lost any sense of morality or human decency.

00:20:02.260 um you know and and i'm used to that i'm i'm rather cynical i mean every day i deal with with

00:20:08.580 with government treating people like dirt um that's just what i do as as a litigator so i

00:20:13.500 sometimes forget how shocking it is as a regular person and thought the world was a decent place

00:20:17.800 um to encounter that and to be stuck in it as as the victim um so you know with will's case i you

00:20:23.700 know i got involved and i did what i normally do in any in any case and you know i beat down doors

00:20:27.860 and I send emails and I send letters and I get very candid and sometimes rather nasty in the

00:20:35.440 things I have to say. And a lot of times that does eventually produce results, just sort of like

00:20:41.020 the old woman that kept going to the unrighteous judge. And there's an Old Testament story about

00:20:46.500 this. And eventually she got justice, right? Because she wouldn't leave him alone. And he

00:20:53.600 He was unrighteous as a judge, but he wanted to be left alone, so he gave her justice.

00:20:58.360 A lot of lawyering is actually like that, which is awful, really, but that is how our

00:21:03.900 world works.

00:21:05.840 So that's part of what happened in Will's case.

00:21:07.460 The other part, though, I want to make sure people know, Will and I benefited from a conglomeration

00:21:16.360 of efforts in the late fall to push AHS and eventually the minister to stop all this nonsense.

00:21:24.680 The constant lawsuits and threats of lawsuits and demand letters from various lawyers in Alberta

00:21:32.680 I think did have an effect. Mine was only one small effort amongst that. There was Jeff Rath

00:21:38.520 and the Justice Center and Leighton Gray and all the rest of them. Because Will wasn't the only

00:21:42.680 person that had went and hired a lawyer to do this. Probably one of the only students, of course,

00:21:46.500 because poor students, they don't have the means. And that's where I try to come in with somewhat

00:21:52.440 lower rates for people like that. I have had a lot of student clients, and that was actually

00:21:56.380 something I set out to do in the fall, was to help students because I knew pretty much nobody

00:22:00.520 else would or would want to. So, you know, when AHS, just to go back a little bit of recent history,

00:22:08.100 AHS moved their policy three times, the enforcement of it, sorry, back, right?

00:22:13.680 And I always tried to say, when I had an opportunity to say it in the media, like, look, this is politically how it works, right?

00:22:19.720 Are these deadlines being moved because of science?

00:22:21.800 Obviously not.

00:22:23.000 They're being moved because of political pushback, right?

00:22:25.900 So keep pushing.

00:22:27.480 You may have no impact, and sometimes we haven't, but sometimes we have, and that was an example of it.

00:22:32.560 the political pushback and the legal pushback through all the lawsuits worked together to

00:22:37.840 push NHS to move it back. And then eventually the political pressure was intense enough that

00:22:42.520 the minister said, okay, we can't keep doing this. Most of the people that are impacted by this and

00:22:47.200 are upset about this and are suing us are actually the people that might vote for us in the next

00:22:50.440 election. So we got to remove it, right? Completely political analysis, obviously not an analysis

00:22:55.300 about safety or science or anything like that. So the policy ultimately was lifted. And I think

00:23:02.120 very late December. And so, you know, Will was a benefit of that and of my advocacy. And so he was

00:23:09.260 able to get all set up. And, you know, obviously he had a human rights accommodation from the

00:23:16.140 University of Alberta, which he got all by himself. And the U of A has granted very few of

00:23:20.100 those. So I was very happy to see that. So that was already in place even when he came to me.

00:23:24.580 So, you know, things turned out better for Will than for most people, partly by chance,

00:23:31.020 partly by his advocacy. And, you know, that's how he got into a better position than a lot of these

00:23:37.020 other students. Now, I understand it now that one of the problems, maybe the only problem,

00:23:43.840 is that for, you know, AHS has chosen this arbitrary date of November 30th. And they've

00:23:48.960 said, look, if you were in a placement prior to that, fine, you can come back on, I think it was

00:23:56.080 March 10th was the date. But if not, you can't. And I just want to highlight that. As first,

00:24:01.820 you know, I think that might be one of the problems. But the fact that that is the problem

00:24:05.220 is really despicable, right? Because it's absolutely arbitrary. That's completely a

00:24:10.980 political position, right? It's an ideological position. It's got nothing to do with science

00:24:15.440 or safety, again, like everything else, right? Like almost everything with COVID. It's got

00:24:18.780 everything to do with ideology and politics and nothing to do with science and safety.

00:24:21.480 and so you know and again of course you got the lack of lack of human compassion and human decency

00:24:26.300 right well you know if you weren't in before November 30th to hell with you you know you're 0.81

00:24:30.540 not you're not we're not going to take you back again why right if it's not lawful um and we

00:24:35.760 should be able to easily say it's not but of course we can't you know seem to convince decision

00:24:39.540 makers that that all this nonsense is unlawful um so I'd like to think that if I don't have any

00:24:44.900 students right now that I'm dealing with this I'd like to think if I did I could I could help them

00:24:48.120 get past that i don't actually know because i haven't dealt with it certainly you know i would

00:24:51.880 say the same thing i've said here this is arbitrary it's unlawful it's ridiculous it's got nothing to

00:24:55.560 do with with your ostensible reasons for it let's all get on with our lives and stop treating people

00:25:01.080 like they're subhuman like they're like they're less than you because you know they didn't they 1.00

00:25:06.440 didn't run out like a coward and take the shot they stood there well can we get on with that

00:25:11.480 yeah and and i want to point out too because that makes a lot of logical sense we're talking about

00:25:16.200 you know say a facility where um you know uh perhaps dozens of people have returned and are

00:25:24.360 unvaccinated because they were previous employees so so again when you're talking about this the

00:25:29.640 logic behind the science you have unvaccinated people back in facilities and in clinics and in

00:25:36.280 practice um so so to ban students with this november 30th deadline or even even new hires

00:25:43.960 for ahs again the the science but the other thing james that is that has has come up in this and

00:25:50.360 one of the issues that these students are facing is that many of these clinics and placement

00:25:55.320 facilities are private and they've been instructed that you know and even the government of alberta

00:26:01.640 when they lifted the proof of vaccination policy and the reprogram they said you know we're not

00:26:08.440 going to tell private industry how they are going to set their uh you know their policy they that's

00:26:15.560 up to them so we've got private clinics now who in the onset were encouraged potentially

00:26:22.600 incentivized to bring in these policies but now that we've done a shift and the science has proven

00:26:30.680 that the shift is necessary there is no equal in pressure or equal um you know influence from the

00:26:39.480 government to these private practices to now lift these discriminatory mandates so that's another

00:26:48.120 problem that these students and and then the irony behind all of that again this mess of not being

00:26:55.640 able to get to a true answer is some of the regulatory bodies are saying well

00:27:01.100 we're waiting for instruction from AHS then I hear from the clinics that

00:27:06.620 they're waiting for instruction from the regulatory body however the

00:27:09.740 regulatory bodies in a statement released to me have said straight up we

00:27:15.360 do not tell private practice what their policy should be that is determined by

00:27:20.640 them I've even and I will tell you this as well I even spoke with placement

00:27:26.220 clinics under the AHS umbrella that were unaware of the new AHS policy with the

00:27:34.380 November 30th date so I I had to inquire art so are you telling me that there has

00:27:39.360 been no communication from AHS to you to your clinic as to what things need to

00:27:46.020 look like moving forward no they have not had communication so i think that that's a massive

00:27:52.360 issue too with this like where's the accountability if there's no communication we have to remember

00:27:59.260 that ahs is only doing uh is only is only insofar as they have lifted mandates only doing so because

00:28:04.820 they're being told to do it by the minister right which they begrudge which they um they they can't

00:28:11.440 stand that okay so it's like it's like a child being told by a parent that you you know you have

00:28:15.540 to clean your room well if that child is not actually you know wanting to be obedient and be

00:28:21.540 and be decent then it's you know instead of actually cleaning the bedroom we'll just shove 0.96

00:28:25.320 stuff where it can't be seen it's the same thing here right hs is ideologically motivated that's

00:28:30.120 their primary motivator above above all above everything else okay so when when a political

00:28:35.180 actor comes in and tells them to do something for for political reasons and they politically

00:28:39.380 disagree with it they hate that and so you know they're going to respond in a begrudging way

00:28:44.040 and they're not going to respond in a good faith way, right? So they're going to do what they

00:28:47.440 absolutely have to, to comply and no more than that, right? And so the lack of communication

00:28:52.020 and the lack of trying to help people and all of that is just reflective of their general attitude,

00:28:56.680 right? The general attitude of AHS is, you know, we are ideologically married to this. We will do

00:29:01.800 it as much as we possibly can, unless somebody who actually has the authority to tell us to stop

00:29:06.060 does. I mean, ultimately, that person is only the health minister, right? You know, and for better

00:29:11.500 or for worse, you know, politics actually went in our favor that way, you know, where

00:29:15.960 political decision makers who were actually supposed to make decisions based on what they

00:29:20.120 think is best for the people, stepped in and did something.

00:29:23.500 So yeah, no, the behavior of AHS since, you know, since almost since the beginning, I

00:29:28.660 wouldn't say at the beginning, there was a little while where AHS was actually operating,

00:29:33.040 you know, in good faith, but it didn't take long before the power went to their heads

00:29:36.980 and they became drunk on it and just acted like tyrants, you know, since probably about

00:29:41.040 the summer of 2020. They can't bring themselves to be humble and to actually care about people

00:29:50.540 and to actually follow the real scientific evidence. It has become ideology, it has become

00:29:56.500 control, and we're still seeing that now. And so you're going to continue to see obdication

00:30:02.840 and frustration on their end with people that aren't doing what they ideologically want,

00:30:08.300 even though the minister has told them to back off and this this is where you see it right and

00:30:12.540 it's it's it's frustrating well i'm used to seeing it but it is it is frustrating to watch and shocking

00:30:16.620 if you're not used to seeing it right well and you're right when you're talking about some of

00:30:21.660 these students i mean most students who we're talking to today are are young uh jeff la

00:30:28.140 franchise he is a dietitian student at u of a jeff why don't you tell us a little bit about

00:30:34.300 your situation and what you've faced through this sure well thank you for having me um so yeah kind

00:30:42.460 of like everybody else's story um uh doing trying to complete my placements um and only available

00:30:49.340 through alberta health services or so i've been told um and it's just been you know difficult

00:30:55.820 facing all these pushbacks you know i've been relatively patient with it and optimistic

00:30:59.740 um you know back in october um i was in lethbridge and you know uh during the end of the month didn't

00:31:06.540 know if i should expect you know tell my landlord i need to stay a month or if they're going to push

00:31:09.580 it back um so just really stressful but you know got my november uh placement done i was supposed

00:31:15.660 to have another three weeks in december but unfortunately when the mandates um came into

00:31:20.460 effect at the beginning of december i was unable to complete that um but luckily i was able to

00:31:25.420 come home um and uh spend some time with my wife and newborn child so that was kind of a blessing

00:31:31.620 in disguise um so i'm yeah so that's been kind of good uh that way but uh just difficult um wanting

00:31:38.700 to complete you know like my degree just like everybody else um spend lots of time and uh and

00:31:44.900 money you know trying to get this thing done i have three three uh three months left and that

00:31:49.900 three weeks i didn't finish in december was left to complete my um placement uh and my placements

00:31:55.220 and it's just been you know uh just relatively difficult to deal with all the pushbacks that

00:32:00.260 they're giving us and for no based uh no they're not based in any scientific reasoning like it's

00:32:06.020 kind of been stated um it's really just you know kind of just doubling down on their policies they

00:32:10.180 just kind of say face a little bit of cognitive dissonance perhaps they just don't want to you

00:32:13.540 know accept the the reality that faces them um and yeah just uh it's been very difficult um

00:32:20.180 that's good insight jeff though it really is you know this this idea that that um doubling down

00:32:27.460 on on a policy that that i think logically has shown that whether you are vaccinated or not you

00:32:36.040 are catching you are carrying and you are spreading covid19 so at the end of the day i mean if people

00:32:42.280 want to keep testing policies in place okay you know but but when we're talking about you know

00:32:49.160 sort of this discriminatory policy that says you as an unvaccinated student are unsafe

00:32:56.280 scientifically unsafe compared to somebody who is vaccinated you know the the the i think the

00:33:02.440 social construct the social responsibility behind the original idea of this of this uh the the

00:33:10.120 policies has has got to be reviewed at this point so jeff are you have you where are you at with

00:33:17.320 your placements then have you are you able to press through with them or where where are things

00:33:21.880 at for you well i've made contact with my program director my internship lead and you know unfortunately

00:33:28.280 they advocate very uh they don't advocate very much for us um you know going back to i had a few

00:33:33.240 meetings back in october with them and i pressed a question on what has you know the school been

00:33:37.480 doing for us what is you what have you the program directors you know or others been doing for

00:33:41.480 students in this case and basically the answer was that you know alberta health services calls

00:33:46.040 of shots you know they're their own business they can make their own policies and we're in no

00:33:49.320 position to make any demands of them and i i was you know i'm obviously yeah businesses can make

00:33:53.880 their own policies but you as uh should be advocating for us as students in some form

00:33:59.080 because you know we do provide them with you know workers and things like that so it is a

00:34:03.080 you know a relationship that goes both ways and you know the university was just very much not

00:34:07.240 willing to or that they were told me when i questioned them upon it they you know said they

00:34:13.000 had no right to question alberta health services and their policies in regards to

00:34:17.080 you know helping us out as students kind of we just were at their whim um but right now um

00:34:22.920 as of last week when i emailed my director she said you know we're waiting for alberta health

00:34:27.320 services to tell us more um you know they don't know what to do with students now just hang tight

00:34:31.640 be patient and i'll get back to you um and it's kind of also been frustrating because i've

00:34:35.640 questioned her there's been some placements that are through the university and not through alberta

00:34:38.920 health services and they refuse to answer my questions on if i can complete them through

00:34:43.400 the university because you know their mandates are have been dropped you know so um it's been

00:34:49.240 rather difficult um now i did reach out to uh i did reach out to u of a as well i'll just i'll

00:34:55.080 uh if you if you haven't seen it yet this was the statement that i got from u of a

00:34:59.000 uh we are working with students impacted by changes in health and safety regulations to

00:35:03.480 ensure that they can take part in the experiential learning component of their respective programs

00:35:10.280 students are subject to the rules of the organizations holding their practicums clinical

00:35:15.640 placements and residencies if an organization requires students to be vaccinated they would

00:35:21.160 need to either follow that rule or work with their home faculty to see whether their placement can

00:35:26.920 be held in a different location uh and and really yeah my my my request to u of a was

00:35:34.280 how are you how are you helping the students what what is the u of a doing to um to advocate for

00:35:41.160 the students because u of a is responsible um on their side of things for building these placement

00:35:47.880 relationships and partnerships with with private industry clinics and whatnot but also ahs based

00:35:54.120 clinics so so again it's this you know it often feels like this well it's not up to us right and

00:36:02.440 then it's and then it's dismissed or deflected and you know somebody at some point needs to stand up

00:36:10.840 and needs to recognize that yes you students you know an education i mean that's that's a right

00:36:19.800 like you have paid your time your effort your money your dedication to these to these studies

00:36:27.000 and to hit this roadblock i mean you know even if there was some sort of a grandfather clause for

00:36:33.160 when you started your studies but but even regardless my question too is we're we're

00:36:38.360 dealing with not only an alberta-wide but a country-wide shortage of medical professionals

00:36:44.920 in many disciplines i want to speak yeah yeah um the thing one of the problems with all this is we

00:36:53.880 don't speak plain language language we don't speak plain english we don't we're so polite

00:36:59.160 that we don't call it like it is i made a point of watching a lot of american media lately

00:37:04.600 and i i feel like you know i must be the the ugly duckling because i feel like i must be american

00:37:10.520 in my blood and i and i somehow was you know stolen and taken to canada or something when i

00:37:14.360 i was young because what what a lot of americans do is they actually speak their mind okay that's

00:37:18.700 what i've done in the last half an hour okay i've called uh ahs ideological there's there's not not

00:37:25.120 nearly enough canadians that are brave enough to actually say that even though they know it

00:37:28.140 there's there's more should know it but there's there's a lot that know it and don't say it okay

00:37:32.660 americans will say yeah this the cdc is ideological and that's awful i'm not scared to say it by the

00:37:37.540 way. And so here's the problem. And we need to be honest about this. The University of Alberta

00:37:44.080 doesn't want to help these students. Okay. University of Alberta is woke. It's drowning

00:37:49.480 in wokeness. Okay. And for whatever reason, the woke thing is to force people to take these things

00:37:55.600 and to treat them subhuman if they don't. Okay. That's where AHS and the U of A is at. They don't

00:38:03.200 want to help these people. They want to pretend like they will. They want to pretend that they

00:38:06.880 are. They want to put on the public face that they are, but they won't really. And let me give

00:38:10.220 you a tangible example of that. Will is a pretty resourceful, ingenious guy. And I am a little bit

00:38:18.420 too. And we put our heads together in the late fall, whatever it was, November probably. And we

00:38:24.660 said, okay, well, let's get you a placement in a private dental clinic. Since there's a ton of

00:38:29.400 dental clinics that have absolutely no control or oversight by AHS. I think Will found no less

00:38:35.500 than four or five dentists or dental student dental clinics that were willing to accept him

00:38:40.860 as a student so that he can complete his placement there okay we went we went to the u of a and we

00:38:50.000 said look we know ahs is screwing things around and that's not your fault you can't do anything

00:38:55.440 about that so by the way when a when u of a says like we can't do anything about ahs or what clinics

00:38:58.960 want to do that's largely true okay um but that's the good courses that's a deflected tactic

00:39:05.680 The U of A can do something about it if they really want to.

00:39:10.140 Not by controlling people they can't control, but they can control what they do.

00:39:14.080 So Will and I went to the U of A and we said, look, we got four or five dentists that are willing to take Will.

00:39:20.860 All you have to do is say yes.

00:39:23.940 All you have to do is let him do it.

00:39:26.020 Let him go to this clinic.

00:39:27.060 These dentists are willing to go through all the paperwork and go through all the procedures and satisfy you that they can complete his practicum.

00:39:34.660 By the way, Will is an exemplary student. So he's not some regular student. He's got a stellar

00:39:39.640 record. He's shown himself to be able to go into something that's a bit more challenging and

00:39:43.360 different and succeed at it. And U of A knows that. They have a record of that. They've even

00:39:47.460 made that known. So we went to the U of A and we said, all you got to do is accommodate him

00:39:52.620 by letting him do this. He'll take care of it. He's coordinating it all. All you got to do is

00:39:57.740 say yes. They hired a lawyer and wrote me back like an eight-page letter explaining why they

00:40:04.640 refuse to do this, okay? All they had to do was say yes, but they were determined not to because

00:40:11.740 they don't really want to help Will because they agree politically, ideologically with all of this

00:40:18.480 nonsense. They agree with oppressing people like Will. They don't want to help them. They just want

00:40:23.020 to look like they're helping them it's the same virtue signal crap with with all this other stuff

00:40:28.140 with helping uh you know minorities right well we'll help the popular minorities but not the 0.99

00:40:33.460 unpopular minorities right we'll help we'll help the blacks and we'll help the natives and we'll 0.99

00:40:38.300 help the gays and we'll help the transgender but unvaccinated no no no no we won't help them that 1.00

00:40:43.460 that minority we can be oppressed all we want because it's the woke thing to do right now is

00:40:48.780 oppress that minority and we don't we don't talk clearly enough we don't talk with enough moral

00:40:54.860 clarity about what these people really think and what they're really doing and what their actions

00:40:58.780 really mean and that's what's going on with the u of a and that's why they said no to will they

00:41:03.820 dressed it up in eight pages of legalese okay but that's that's where it was really coming from

00:41:08.540 that's the outcome they wanted because of their ideology so they told their lawyer argue it for

00:41:13.020 us because we've already decided this is what we want to do so and and speaking most of our

00:41:19.260 students today are from u of a but we do have one from sate right now uh monica martin you're uh in

00:41:25.660 sonography and you have also run into issues uh monica why don't you tell us a little bit about

00:41:31.340 your experience uh through sate yes for sure so um i'm a little bit different in terms of um i'm

00:41:38.380 a mature student i'm 42 years old and i'm a single mom and so to invest all the time and effort and

00:41:46.140 money into this program is is a huge thing for me um i've had a lot of health concerns and at the

00:41:53.660 start of the program i did get a vaccine exemption from the regular vaccines um but once covet hit

00:41:59.900 that was sort of thrown aside and so say basically when i've applied for the covet vaccine exemption

00:42:07.420 they've deferred to the college of physicians so the college of physicians of alberta have said

00:42:12.540 basically that no exemptions can be made you basically have to try the vaccine first to see

00:42:18.460 what happens and my doctors in terms of my doctor's recommendation he said that he does

00:42:25.900 not recommend it because i'm at a such an increased risk of a life altering or ending

00:42:30.380 adverse event because of everything that's been going on and so i've kind of got the run around

00:42:35.260 with that where um they won't approve it and they say okay you need to go see specialists which is

00:42:40.940 you know 18 to 24 months down the road before you can even see one um i was able to get in with an

00:42:46.700 allergist which we butted heads pretty hard um and i finally called him out and i said listen i

00:42:52.300 i know what the position statement is of the college of physicians um and he basically kicked

00:42:56.700 me out of the office after i said that so he didn't want to admit that there was a directive

00:43:01.180 and that they're not allowed to give exemptions my doctor has when i did ask for one he said you

00:43:07.740 know i know that this will damage you but i cannot give an exemption because i'll get in trouble with

00:43:13.420 the college of physicians so i understand that i mean he wants to save his job he needs to make a

00:43:18.940 living as well and so i've kind of gone the run around a lot with that so i don't have an exemption

00:43:24.540 on file for the covid vaccine um so i was told sort of from september to december that um

00:43:32.460 everybody at state was told if you're not vaccinated you're going to be withdrawn from

00:43:35.500 your program so i really just tried to stay motivated but it definitely affected my grades

00:43:40.300 and everything else um you know me wondering day day after day you know is this a waste of my time

00:43:45.500 and money but you know trying to stay positive and see what happens so finally at finals i was told

00:43:50.940 that they found one clinic that would take me for one of the specialties I need to rotate through,

00:43:55.820 so that's general ultrasound, and that they would get me started, but I still wouldn't be able to

00:43:59.880 graduate because AHS won't allow me to work at their sites, and I am required for other

00:44:04.460 rotations as well. So there's two rotations that I'm being affected by. So there's another one

00:44:11.520 that has a dominant clinic. They're pretty much the only clinic that really deals in volume with

00:44:16.740 it and their personal policy as well is to not accept unvaccinated people um so I did I I got 1.00

00:44:25.040 the run around a lot so I would never get an answer I'd say you know can I take a leave of

00:44:28.960 absence and come back when things settle down and you know again run around um time and time again

00:44:34.700 every time I tried to get information and details um and so finally I did put my foot down kind of

00:44:39.700 like what James said I put my foot down and I said listen like you're saying that you want to

00:44:43.560 help me but really it's just lip service because it's not really I'm not getting anywhere I'm not

00:44:48.700 getting my placements and you're saying I still won't be able to graduate at which time I was

00:44:52.860 told that was borderline academic misconduct and I'm unprofessional so I think they've kind of

00:44:58.840 pushed me to the limit and so I've been in my general rotation but I still like I said I still

00:45:04.520 have two other specialties I need to rotate through they are trying I think they said that

00:45:10.760 been contacting different clinics to see if they've changed their policies and so i've got a

00:45:15.160 meeting on tuesday um but they do say i still need to rotate through hospitals for one specialty for

00:45:20.680 sure um so that's going to be a bit big roadblock and then also in terms of my studies without

00:45:27.800 rotating through the hospitals i'm just not getting the well-rounded experience that i need

00:45:32.600 because you see different things in the hospital versus the clinic clinic um so that sort of you

00:45:40.040 know is affecting me as well right i'm just like i said you just see completely different pathologies

00:45:45.720 and stuff right and you know monica you you make this statement that you understand you understand

00:45:52.200 the position your doctor is in for not being able to but i mean um the the fact that we have gotten

00:45:59.240 to a point where we need to understand that is is also a travesty because it is doctors have never

00:46:05.960 ever been put in a position to not be able to pass directives on or or um you know medical

00:46:15.880 assessments onto their their patients that they feel are important and necessary and and in the

00:46:21.720 best interest of their patient i mean everybody's bodies are different and if there is something

00:46:26.200 that and i mean i know uh many lawyers i'm not sure about james but i know many lawyers have

00:46:30.360 have dealt with clients as well

00:46:32.040 who were looking for medical exemptions.

00:46:33.720 I know of, I believe it's, she's a anesthetic, 0.72

00:46:40.440 I'm probably not even gonna be able to pronounce it properly,

00:46:42.920 but yeah, yeah, Dr. Moser, who would also,

00:46:48.760 same situation as you, Monica,

00:46:50.400 would also be in a situation

00:46:51.680 where she would likely have a life altering

00:46:54.940 or life ending reaction to the vaccine,

00:46:58.320 but was not granted a medical exemption based on this idea

00:47:02.780 that, well, you need to try one first

00:47:05.660 in order to see if it will kill you.

00:47:09.080 I mean, I just can't put the logic behind

00:47:14.280 why anyone would want to take that risk

00:47:16.980 when at the end of the day,

00:47:18.960 we're talking about something with a 99.97% survivability.

00:47:25.020 And again, the science has pointed very clearly

00:47:28.000 the fact that vaccinated or unvaccinated we are um we are susceptible to catching and spreading

00:47:34.720 so it's it i think it is a travesty that we have to get to this idea that we have to be understanding

00:47:40.560 that our doctors don't want to lose their license from the college of physicians and surgeons and

00:47:45.200 be put in that position when that's sort of what they were supposed to do that's part of what their

00:47:50.240 job is and to me it's completely unethical and immoral for the college of physicians to put that

00:47:56.960 that statement out they don't have a client physician relationship with me

00:48:00.620 they don't know my medical history you can't just black blanket statement that

00:48:04.820 everybody has to try it it doesn't it doesn't make sense right so we you know

00:48:10.880 basically the the idea behind talking with you all and and having everybody

00:48:15.380 comment on this is to to really just grow an awareness I mean there is a lot

00:48:20.960 of talk right now that you know what's the big deal the mandates have been

00:48:25.400 lifted. They have been lifted in certain areas. And, you know, James, you and I were speaking

00:48:31.940 about this the other day. Yes, they have been lifted in a certain number of areas, very

00:48:37.180 publicized areas, but it's a tip of the iceberg. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

00:48:45.360 They, you know, the people, for the most part, who are in positions of authority, who are the

00:48:52.720 elites who have official capacities in our society. It certainly seems like the vast majority of them

00:48:59.520 personally agree with this. And if there's a large contingent that don't, they're too cowardly to

00:49:04.120 speak out about it. They're too cowardly to do something about it. You know, there's not nearly

00:49:08.760 enough of the Randy Hilliers or the Dr. Nagasi, I think his name is, you know, people who are

00:49:15.100 actually politicians bureaucrats physicians um elites um they're too cowardly to speak up if if

00:49:23.980 if there actually is a contingent that that disagree with all this and have the have the moral

00:49:27.900 uh clarity to see it for what it is and so here we are right um and it's it's the same thing across

00:49:33.660 the board with with most professions too and of course this goes back to the regulatory bodies

00:49:37.340 right um every time i i i speak out um and and a few other lawyers that also speak out we we have

00:49:43.740 to wonder where where is that um that threatening letter from the law society going to come right

00:49:48.300 how much can we actually talk about what we know is going on um this this is this is the problem

00:49:55.980 is that either either either the professionals themselves are don't don't want to speak up or

00:50:01.020 actually think this is good uh or they're just too scared of the regulatory bodies because the

00:50:04.700 regulatory bodies have way too much control which is something that we just don't talk about in this

00:50:09.660 country i've learned over the last six months there seems to be pretty much nobody besides

00:50:13.420 me and maybe a couple others that are actually talking about the problem we have with tyrannical

00:50:18.620 regulatory bodies that have way too much control and power that we've slowly unconsciously given

00:50:26.220 them through these huge pieces of legislation over the last 10 or 20 years and now you know

00:50:32.140 this crisis the civil liberties crisis comes along and you know almost nobody realizes that we've

00:50:38.060 We've given almost God-like powers to regulatory bodies and regional health authorities like AHS.

00:50:45.400 That's not okay.

00:50:46.520 You know, we look at all this oppression of minorities and this tyranny and the destruction of civil liberties.

00:50:53.100 Why? I can tell you why.

00:50:55.800 When you give more control, and I know this is very philosophical, 40,000 feet, but it's true.

00:51:00.140 When you give this much control to government, broadly speaking, not just cabinet, this is what you get.

00:51:06.120 you get less individual choice less individual freedom more purity more oppression of minorities 1.00

00:51:13.680 that's inevitable that's that's as predictable as you know when when you you see the chinook cloud

00:51:20.300 it's going to be warm like it's it's it's just it's that easy and yet we've we've just somehow

00:51:24.900 like no no no no no no big government's good big government is evil and and you're seeing the human

00:51:30.480 cost of it today okay and and on all the and more more significantly i would say the the people

00:51:38.480 who are dead right now because not because they willingly took a shot because they they believed

00:51:44.420 falsely that that that you know this that they had to have this and it was gonna be really good

00:51:48.960 and it was really safe but there are people who are dead right now who took that thing against

00:51:53.580 their will to keep their job and if that's not evil i don't know what is well and back to our

00:52:00.460 u of a student um the the one we're keeping anonymous at this point uh you tides are changing

00:52:08.620 we are starting to see some movement as as per will's case uh being being um successful in in

00:52:16.300 being able to move into and through his his placement um you were mentioning that uh you

00:52:23.100 know of a nurse that was able to get placement hours yes thank you uh melanie so the student

00:52:30.380 i know that's in the faculty of nursing received an email uh yesterday regarding the change in the

00:52:35.260 mandate and was told that she will be acceptable accepted into pardon me um her uh placement hours

00:52:42.860 with ahs so this was a huge relief for her and something that she's been really striving for

00:52:48.860 the last few months and uh you know we've been in contact uh regularly just to really support each

00:52:54.620 other you know and really uh be there for one another um through this stressful time she had

00:52:59.820 actually connected with me through another student because she just felt so alone and discriminated

00:53:05.020 against in her program so we really have been uh you know going through this together um i think

00:53:11.180 it's made us um very understanding empathetic to people who are going through this and i and i do

00:53:18.140 want to mention uh this just quickly is there are students too that um received the shot so they

00:53:24.940 didn't have to uh you know face discrimination um and really do feel like they were coerced

00:53:33.020 in a decision and i know this is a totally different topic but um there are people in

00:53:37.900 our programs that have said you know i wouldn't have done this otherwise but i really want to

00:53:43.420 graduate so it's just too bad to hear that and um anyway for this student specifically she has said

00:53:51.420 you know this is one small victory but she hasn't you know it's not a win necessarily because she

00:53:56.940 doesn't know what will happen uh down the road for her employment so it's just like a story that's

00:54:02.620 kind of ongoing yeah for sure absolutely and and you know every every positive step is is good and

00:54:09.740 uh i think provides a lot of hope yeah i agree and and hope is is what we all need right now

00:54:17.500 i think you should say something about the fact that this this university of alberta student i

00:54:21.420 don't think um she's paranoid by the way and in wanting to hide her identity um well i i can

00:54:28.940 understand why why somebody would want to hide their identity right now i mean she she is working

00:54:33.980 through trying to to get help from her post-secondary and trying to you know

00:54:42.800 the placement coordinators and whatnot and so so I can understand I can

00:54:48.560 understand that would feel a bit dicey and not wanting to make anybody upset or

00:54:53.000 angry or draw any negative light to it but but at the same time I mean if you

00:54:58.380 don't stand and be heard and and discuss these things then people really just

00:55:02.780 just don't know they're happening.

00:55:05.020 That's right, that's right.

00:55:06.420 Yeah, and that's just it, right?

00:55:08.060 You know, corruption festers in the darkness, right?

00:55:10.540 Life is the best disinfectant, right?

00:55:12.420 The only way you maintain a society

00:55:14.420 that's worth living in is by constantly scrutinizing it.

00:55:18.660 Yeah, exactly.

00:55:19.980 Well, and there has to be an accountability,

00:55:21.880 and let's be honest, the media has dropped that ball

00:55:25.040 a number of times for quite some time now.

00:55:28.180 So, I mean, there is movement happening.

00:55:30.740 Things are changing,

00:55:31.860 and they really must change because again, you know,

00:55:34.200 as mentioned many times, the science has changed.

00:55:36.640 So it's, you know, it's just, we have to hold on.

00:55:40.280 We have to, again, this is about awareness.

00:55:42.660 This is about, you know, bringing it into the light,

00:55:47.160 you know, and asking for accountability,

00:55:50.040 asking for who's going to take responsibility for this,

00:55:53.360 who's going to do something about this and not relenting.

00:55:56.920 And, you know, I can see James, why you are extremely busy.

00:56:01.800 with you know supporting students but also many others um tell me just a little bit let's talk

00:56:06.360 for just a second about liberty coalition canada which is the um which is who you work through to

00:56:12.680 support will uh and then we'll wrap it up because i know we're we're uh it's been it's been a good

00:56:19.240 long talk for everybody so just very briefly liberty coalition canada is um the organization

00:56:26.760 that basically like it sounds is trying to bring liberty back to life in in canada um and and

00:56:33.000 that's why that that word is specifically chosen because that word captures i think better than any

00:56:37.240 other word in the english language the idea of individual freedom and um you know human flourishing

00:56:46.760 that comes through that because if if we're apparently all about making the world a better

00:56:50.920 place then that means we're about human flourishing and that happens more in a context

00:56:55.960 of individual freedom than anywhere else. And that's ultimately at a grand scale what we're

00:57:00.960 all about. And so we do that through legal work that I do. We do it through Michael Thiessen and

00:57:05.980 a few people like him that do a lot of, I guess, alternative media. They do podcasts and they talk

00:57:10.520 about the types of things that don't get talked about. That's why I get along with them so much

00:57:14.260 probably. So basically, just like any other advocacy organization that's trying to keep

00:57:21.060 or to revive this as a free nation and defend individuals' liberties, right? And we have a

00:57:25.560 of those in this country not nearly enough which is part of the problem and so that's one of the

00:57:29.400 reasons that liberty coalition canada is doing this and uh i really like them and i really like

00:57:33.320 what they're doing um they obviously do come from a christian bent i'm not going to hide that um

00:57:37.160 you know there's secular organizations like the justice center that liberty coalition canada is

00:57:40.360 very much about liberty as part of the judeo-christian perspective right i mean you look at

00:57:44.600 america britain canada they're all based on this idea of political liberty that's actually rooted

00:57:49.800 rooted in christian theology and they're very much uh about that you know i i'm a christian and and

00:57:54.840 I believe in liberty for philosophical and theological reasons and so it's a good fit and

00:58:00.200 we've helped a couple of students like Will. We have a couple of just employees at places where

00:58:06.200 they've been fired for not taking the shot. We're helping Dr. Wall, the chiropractor who's facing

00:58:11.800 discipline because he didn't wear a mask even though he has a medical exemption. We're picking

00:58:16.680 cases where we can try to hold the advance of tyranny against people who aren't getting

00:58:23.320 represented right now, like students and professionals. Those are people that are not

00:58:26.740 getting enough attention, I would say, in the country as far as people defending them on a

00:58:31.460 pro bono basis. So that's what we do, right? We raise donations. That pays me. I charge a discounted

00:58:37.520 rate. And so we're able to help people like Will, who doesn't have $10,000 in the bank to litigate

00:58:42.420 a case, right? And that's a really, really, really important thing. If you don't have a public

00:58:47.580 interest lawyer doing discounted or pro bono work, you can say goodbye to your civil liberties and

00:58:53.180 your country unfortunately and that's one of the reasons why they're not losing it as quickly or

00:58:57.800 as badly in the United States is they have more people like me that are you know standing in the

00:59:03.280 gap against the the forces of tyranny. Well agreed and agreed that this is a situation where I think

00:59:10.580 a lot of people have not reached out for support because they don't feel they can afford it. They

00:59:14.900 look at the human side of this and how it's impacting people that are trying to get their

00:59:20.320 educations and move into an industry where we so need you where we so need people bodies we need

00:59:27.280 you know where we have a a shortage a huge shortage across alberta and the country for uh

00:59:32.400 for medical workers and so uh here's hoping that this helps thanks so much very much for all of

00:59:38.640 you joining us today to discuss this thank you thank you very much for holding this thanks to

00:59:45.920 you Melanie for trying to shine a light.

Western Standard - March 23, 2022

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