When Misconceptions held by Politicians lead to poor Decision Making
Commenting on the debate around Bill C-278 (re: mandating the C-19 vax for travel and Federal Civil Servants)
In Canada, proposals for new laws (bills) can be initiated from either the House of Commons (the gathering of elected representatives) or the Senate (the gathering of appointed representatives). In both cases, a bill needs to pass through three readings and a committee review in each of the two houses of Parliament before being declared a law. Sometimes, in addition to the governing party putting forth new bills, private members (i.e. elected representatives) can put out bills on their own.
On June 2, 2022, Bill C-278 was first presented to the House of Commons by the leader of the Opposition Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre. It proposed amendments to five existing laws - those governing federal employees, air and rail travel etc.
To read how Pierre Poilievre introduced the bill for its first reading, see https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/house/sitting-80/hansard (Use the Table of Contents tool to navigate to Routine Business and the Prevention of Government-imposed Vaccination Mandates Act will be one of the choices.)
On December 13, 2022 it was decided that the bill should stand in the name of the member for Niagara West, Dean Allison. MLA Allison had been putting a different (yet related) Bill forward (C-285), but to avoid overlap, that was dropped and C-278 was moved forward.
Bill C-278 was up for Second Reading in the House of Commons on October 24, 2023. The vote as to whether or not it should proceed to the next stage (a closer examination by an all-party committee) was scheduled a day later. On October 25, the bill was defeated with 114 MPs voting to have it continue its passage through the various steps of the process and 206 MPs voting against such a move.
The transcript of the comments made in the House of Commons on October 24 provide readers with a window of opportunity to understand HOW MANY Covid-19 related MISCONCEPTIONS the majority of our political representatives are carrying around in their minds. It is tragic that so many highly educated and committed individuals are working with ideas that can NO LONGER be justified by a preponderance of emerging scientific evidence. And it is even more tragic that those to whom we entrust the running of our country seem to be more loyal to entrenched policy narratives than to everyday facts on the ground. (Actually, it might be no wonder that the views of so many MPs are entrenched within the status quo, given that when taking up their posts, they all needed to swear allegiance to our distant and out of touch monarch rather than to the people they are supposed to represent. See this explanation about the parliamentarians’ Oath of Allegiance.)
The comments from three different individuals also serve as a handy illustration of the change curve which is based on the work on coping with grief and change done by Dr. Elizabeth Kuebler-Ross.
You would think that in the SIXTEEN MONTHS between when the bill was first presented, and when this debate upon second reading took place, MPs would have had plenty of time to research the topic. Sadly though, given censorship in the mainstream and social media platforms most relied upon by people who are unaware of how crucial information is NOT being made public, simplistic attempts at “research” only end up reconfirming original beliefs and biases.
What follows is a listing of the main misconceptions held by those who spoke on October 24, 2023 in opposition to the bill. To read the speeches given in entirety, see https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/house/sitting-238/hansard (Use the Table of Contents tool on the right to click on “Private Members’ Business” to find the relevant section faster.) To see the results of the vote the following day, go to: https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/house/sitting-239/hansard.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, LIB):
Former store manager, air traffic control assistant, and member of the armed forces (according to Wikipedia), MP Lamoureux served for many years as a Liberal member of the Manitoba Legislature before being elected to the House of Commons in 2010. Now, in his role as Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, his voice was the first to contribute to the debate on Bill C-278.
He appears to believe that:
a) There is no distinction between Covid-19 “vaccines” and ordinary vaccines. Since vaccines have safely been used for decades, the Covid-19 vaccines need to be understood as safe. Since in the past, vaccines have worked, Covid-19 “vaccines” have also worked. It appears from his comments that to apply an argument to apples, means it would necessarily also apply to oranges. There is no reference in his talk to the fact that the mRNA platform employs a wildly different mechanism than traditional vaccines. Perhaps a post like this one explaining the differences between the two types of vaccine products will prove insightful for those who do not yet understand the distinction.
b) The pandemic did not spare any country and was a serious health hazard everywhere. Hon. Lamoureux does not appear aware that in those countries where anti-viral treatments (for example against malaria) were commonly used, the mortality rates of Covid-19 (a viral illness) were markedly lower. He is not aware that had certain policy decisions not been made, i.e. the prohibition by Canadian health authorities of non-vaccine treatment and prevention protocols, Canadians would have fared far better.
c) The Prime Minister showed strong leadership working with stakeholders around the country. Hon Lamoureux is unaware how Health Canada SHUT OUT the contributions of Canadian academics, researchers and medical professionals whose expertise pointed at OTHER WAYS of handling the pandemic than those chosen by Health Canada. He would also be totally unaware of how ALL off Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial emergency planning experts and their carefully developed and practiced plans were completely sidelined so that the entire country was managed by the Prime Minister’s Office along with dictates of ONE department (i.e. Health). People like MP Lamoureux would benefit from hearing the sworn testimonies of these public policy officials and emergency planners whose perspectives on these matters have not been disseminated by mainstream media platforms.
Lt. Colonel David Redman, Emergency Management expert
Dean Beaudry, Risk Management Specialist
Daniel Bulford, Canadian Prime Ministers Former Security Detail
Catherine Christensen, lawyer for military personnel + a Twitter excerpt + interview & update on recent lawsuit as of June 27, 2023
Lawyer James Kitchen on courts & regulatory bodies
Ryan Orydzuk, Occupational Health and Safety expert, on employers’ implementation of COVID-19 mandates + Interview
Dr. Bruce Pardy, Queens University Law Professor on aspects of the Charter of Rights + Interview
Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP):
Former lawyer, labour representative, and policy advisor Don Davies joined Parliament in 2008. Currently he serves as the NDP Critic for Health and Deputy Critic for Foreign Affairs and International Development.
His comments to Bill C-278 are summarized here:
d) The only way to protect Canadians from future potential deadly variants of COVID-19 is to legislate a government’s ability to mandate injection. What about the old mantra, if you build it, they will come? If manufacturers have a solid case for why their product is EXCELLENT and NECESSARY, then the laws of the market would apply and they would have many customers regardless of what government regulators do. There is no regulation mandating the ownership of cell phones, yet the majority of Canadians have decided that owing such products provides them with benefits. The same could be true of medical treatments that are so well developed and truly proven necessary, effective and safe. People would voluntarily line up for them if the need were demonstrated, even without mandates.
e) Having mandates lifted and suspended is the same as doing away with them entirely. Mr. Davies lists various mandates currently suspended. He appears not to realize that since mandates were implemented largely as a result of the frenzied calls for someone to “do something” arising within the population (despite the warnings of those in positions to know better) there is currently no mechanism, no sunset clause, to prevent them from once again being unscientifically renacted. One of the main reasons so many victims of vaccine injuries agreed to testify at the National Citizens Inquiry held this past summer was to do their part in preventing such grievous results from happening to others in the future.
MP Davies does make a strong argument, however, that a truly independent investigation into Canada’s Covid-19 responses is needed. He reminds listeners that “The British Medical Journal documented a number of deeply troubling pandemic failures in Canada, including that Canada's emergency response was impaired by long-standing weaknesses in the public health and health care systems.” He lists many areas of concern that need to be addressed moving forward, calling for “a searching root-to-branch comprehensive analysis of every issue that Canadians have raised during the pandemic response by the federal government.” The topics he lists include:
fragmented health leadership across federal, provincial and territorial governments, with the result that “pandemic performance varied widely across Canada's provinces and territories, hampered by inconsistency in decision-making, inadequate data, infrastructure and misalignment of priorities.”
issues around insufficient and outdated PPE
“little to no public guidance on infection-acquired immunity”
“no access to whole vaccines, only MRNA vaccines” (It is nice to see that MP Davies is aware of the difference between traditional live attenuated virus vaccines - which he calls “whole” vaccines - and mRNA vaccines.)
“confusing and contradictory information on the impact of vaccination on transmission”
“The impact and effectiveness of mandates remains a question”
“uncertainty about the efficacy of vaccines on mutating variants”
inconsistency around border controls
concerns around “ravages” in senior’s homes and “overwhelmed emergency rooms and ICUs”
Mr. Davies aptly stated:
An inquiry would help deliver on Canada's ambition to be a global leader, and most importantly, it would deliver answers to Canadians, whose confidence has been shaken. At the end of the day, a public inquiry is needed to restore the Canadian population's confidence, to ensure accountability for decisions that have been made and, most importantly, to find out what went well and what did not. Thus, we could better prepare for the next pandemic, as experts tell us that it is not a question of if, but when.
He seems to believe that
f) Inquiries launched under the Inquiries Act end up being truly independent. Mr. Davies pointed out that the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Health voted down an NDP amendment to launch an independent inquiry into Canada’s handling of the Covid crisis. Under the Inquiries Act, it is the Minister at the head of any department who appoints the commissioner(s). Having just seen the biased selection of the commissioner for the Inquiry into the application of the Emergencies Act, it seems obvious that any government-launched inquiry into Canada’s Covid-19 response seems destined to not be truly impartial, dispassionate, unbiased, etc.
Mr. Davies also believes that
g) The “so-called National Citizens Inquiry … appears to be fuelled by vaccine safety misinformation and ideological concerns with government public health measures.” MP Davies would do well to closely examine the piles of exhibits presented by the many expert witnesses who testified to the NCI which are currently located here: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/exhibits-2/. (The plan by the myriad tech-savvy volunteers of the NCI is to provide searchable links by witness, linking the video of their presentation directly with their supporting evidence. At that point, it will be easier for interested parties to find their way around the vast amount of data presented.) Witnesses were equally critical of decisions made by their municipal, provincial, territorial or federal governments, regardless of political stripe, so it would be incorrect to insinuate that the NCI was ideological in nature. Mr. Davies might not be aware of the many attempts by the organizers of the NCI to reach out to public health officials and have them tell the nation upon which particular scientific guidance they made their determination. Until any one of them choose to speak out, those following the science need to wonder which outdated scientific findings actually underpinned much of the guidance our trusted officials provided. I recommend that the NCI organizers and MP Davies make contact. A weakness of the NCI was its structural inability to legally compel witnesses to appear before the commission. MPs willing to effect change and committed Canadian citizens eager to see this change should be able to work together to meet this need moving forward.
Mrs. Caroline Desbiens (Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix, BQ):
Mme Desbiens comes with a fascinating CV, some of which is described here. Since being elected as a member from the Bloc Québécois in 2019, she served as critic for Canadian Heritage and Fisheries and Oceans.
She started her comment with a reminder about Bill C-285, the similar bill proposed by Dean Allison for First Reading on June 15, 2022.
Back in the day, Bill C‑285 required reasonable accommodation for people who refused to get vaccinated and wanted to use various means of transportation like trains, planes or ships. It also prohibited employers from retaliating against people's health decisions. The bill stated that a person who lost their job for refusing treatments such as a vaccine could not be denied employment insurance. This was understood to be the COVID‑19 vaccine.
Unfortunately there is (to me as a lay person looking in from the outside) no information available as to why that bill stalled out. Also, I am aware that those who chose not to comply with vaccine mandates sadly WERE denied and likely continue to be denied employment insurance.
Mme Desbiens went on to say:
We consider that the restrictions, such as the vaccine mandate for international travel, were justified. They were temporary and necessary in the context of COVID‑19. Although some measures seemed unreasonable, for example, the vaccine mandate for all federal public servants, even those who do not come in contact with the public, these measures were up for debate during the 2021 election campaign and were upheld by the courts.
It is clear that, just like MP Lamoureux, Mme Desbiens lumps mRNA-based injections in with ordinary vaccines when she makes statements like:
“The many statements this member [Dean Allison] has previously made on vaccines, as well as the nature of the petitions he has sponsored, make it difficult to see his initiative and this bill as anything other than the umpteenth attempt to discredit vaccines.”
Just like MP Davies, MP Desbiens insinuates that since vaccine mandates have now been lifted, a bill such as C-278 is not necessary, denying the possibility that future governments might at some point in time re-introduce such mandates, unless they were legally taken off the table for good.
h) Another misconception that MP Desbiens firmly holds is that any information shared by the Conservatives criticizing the use of mRNA Covid-19 vaccine products is “Misinformation”
…this bill seems to be aligned with several anti-vax petitions that contained many false statements based on dubious sources. Nevertheless, the member sponsored these petitions.
The Bloc Québécois will not be fooled. It knows that the bill's intention is to curry favour with the base of the member's party by spreading misinformation. COVID‑19 was not a conspiracy; it was a tragedy. …The Conservatives' sympathies lie with pandemic deniers.”
Predictably, given how little reporting has been done by mainstream media (zero) on the preponderance of evidence showing that the more often people receive the mRNA injections the greater the rate of adverse reactions, disability, turbo cancer, all cause mortality, etc. etc. whenever anyone speaks of these realities, the first reaction after shock is the type of denial expressed by MPs Desbiens and Lamoureux.
Given that MP Davies has been a long standing member of the Standing Committee on Health (HESA), someone who has likely since moved through the various phases of Kuebler-Ross’ Change Curve, his calls for an independent investigation might reflect his having a more nuanced understanding of the Covid crisis than his two colleagues in the House. Concrete actions (instead of angry words) demonstrate the later stages of this curve.
In her critique of the Conservatives (instead of on the actual content of the bill) MP Desbiens stated:
The Conservatives have chosen to forget all of that by voting against the principle of Bill S‑209, which calls for the designation of March 11 as pandemic observance day.
Anyone who looks closely at that bill will see how very narrow in scope it is - for the government to designate one day a year as Pandemic Observance Day WITHOUT any mention of the countless lives that could have been saved had there been NO ban on early anti-viral treatments, no unscientific lockdowns and no vaccine mandates, is to engender a massive groundswell of discontent among Canadians well aware that government decisions and policies are really at the root of the pandemic tragedies. Particularly the vaccine injured who now struggle to make ends meet will be significantly aggrieved by a bill that provides ZERO recognition to them. Had that bill been expanded to be truly reflective of the extent of all that needs recognition, many of the vaccine injury denialists in Parliament would likely have voted it down, as would anyone concerned about opening a Pandora’s box of legislation around apologies and reparations!
More misconceptions presented in this speech include:
i) The Conservatives see the pandemic as nothing other than a conspiracy, a hoax, a sham, an invention. Statements like these are actually denying the possibility that government decisions made the problems worse. When any politician (it doesn’t need to be a Conservative politician) looks at the irrefutable evidence of LOWER rates of All Cause mortality in the time AFTER Covid-19 arrived and BEFORE the vaccines were available and then compares that data with the rising rates of all cause mortality later on, especially among those demographics most likely to have been faced with the pressure to take injections in order to keep their jobs, anyone should start asking questions. For example, if Covid was so deadly and vaccines so effective why did not MORE people die in 2019-20 and FEWER die in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 when the vaccines (and boosters) were available and widely injected?
Source:
Then, upon seeing the data from autopsies done showing the presence of countless spike protein throughout the organs of the deceased, one must realize that it was the “safe and effective” mantra that deserves to be identified as “misinformation.”
All these purple dots in the pink tissue (in this case in the testes) have no business being present. Source: https://dailyclout.io/report-58-part-2-autopsies-reveal-medical-atrocities-of-genetic-therapies-being-used-against-a-respiratory-virus/
Any politician (not just a Conservative one) has the wherewithal to learn how in jurisdictions like the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Covid-19 cases reached nearly zero once all citizens were offered access to ivermectin, a long standing antiviral medication with a clear safety record. States that followed the WHO protocol involving mRNA vaccines, Remdesivir and ventilators experienced a much higher rated of Covid deaths. The call for renewed boosters and the repeat infections in the vaccinated are a testament to the failure of the Covid-19 vaccine as a means of both prevention and treatment, the early few weeks of apparently positive results notwithstanding!
j) The different waves of COVID‑19 in Quebec and Canada cost close to 18,000 lives back home in Quebec, over 50,000 in Canada and close to 6.5 million worldwide. Mme Desbiens associates these numbers with an alleged denialism on the part of Conservatives that the pandemic even exists. She believes “The Conservatives are once again, denying science.” There is nothing in her speech showing how the Bloc is doing its best to remain current in evolving science. She does not point to a recognition of how Covid-19 fatality counts were artificially elevated, how the prohibition of safe & effective antiviral treatments cost many of these lives and/or at the many times more mRNA induced disabilities and deaths ensued as a result of enforced mandates. Every death is tragic. But using these deaths to attack another political party is uncalled for. Mme Desbiens could look up the latest analyses on the part of Dr. Denis Rancourt to see that the vast scope of vax related deaths has far surpassed the death count from & with Covid.
As for her concern for her immunocompromised friend with a kidney transplant, the need to help avoid a Covid infection is dwarfed by the need to avoid Covid injections since both routes can lead to excess spike protein in the body (injections much more than infections). Spike protein has been linked to inflammation and possible organ rejection. So to help her friend “stay safe”, MP Desbiens would do well to learn about the peer reviewed research into therapeutics like nattokinase that help break the artificially generated spike protein into its base components and help remove its toxic effects from the body. See here and here.
k) Opposing this bill is the mature, responsible and sensible thing to do. Instead of explaining the sense in having the state use coercive powers on those individuals who do the everyday workings of the state (federal public servants) when the risk to those workers of having to file for disability insurance due to vaccine harms is greater than the risk among older and younger people, as explained in various interviews listed here, MP Desbiens stated:
the Bloc Québécois is elevating the debate and bringing some lucidity and maturity to the conversation. The Bloc Québécois is responsible and will vote against this bill because, from the beginning, the Bloc has always supported bills that make sense and opposed those that do not.
Sadly, Mme Desbiens chose to use about 1/2 of her allocated time (7 out of 14 paragraphs) to slander the party of those who initiated this bill. She even went so far as to say of the Conservatives “It is a party of lies” to which, thankfully, the Speaker responded:
I would ask that all members take care when they use the word “lies” or accuse someone of lying. That is very important, even when one is not addressing an hon. member present in the House. One must be very careful when using those words.
Given Mme Desbiens’ background as former research chair and her other appointments of note, I find this, unfortunately, to have been a wasted opportunity. MP Desbiens could actually have educated her fellow parliamentarians had she presented some actual research on how mandating a certain policy has the desired effect (or the opposite effect) downstream. Was she not actually aware that the bill she was proposing to stop in its tracks was designed to safeguard the health and wellbeing OF HER OWN STAFF MEMBERS (government civil servants) and of the travelling public including herself? Clearly, the notion that the body was not designed to perpetually fight off attacks by armies of spike protein, and that these attacks result via the imposition of such mandates, was not on her radar. Otherwise, she could not have opposed this bill with a clear conscience.
There we have it folks.
Instead of committing to serve OUR best interests, our elected officials swear an Oath of Allegiance to our monarch (despite the Constitution having been repatriated to Canada in the early 1980s).
The party discipline system does not allow for free votes on many topics, so even if there had been NO debate (to openly weigh the pros and cons of the bill) the voting results would have been the same. Presenting all the logical arguments in the world appears to make little difference in the current system.
Two of the three MPs selected to speak to the motion demonstrated the very first and second steps of the Change Curve - shock and denial. Only the MP who has been studying the phenonoma of natural immunity, of vaccines not keeping up with variants, etc. etc. approached the topic with anything other than shock and denial.
Mainstream and corporate social media have been keeping key information (like all the data hidden by the manufacturers, the US and Canadian regulatrors etc.) from the public, such that even among highly committed and educated Members of Parliament, so many misconceptions on the topic run rampant. Meanwhile, these very same politicians play political games with this life and death information, calling the party and MPs like the Dean Allison every negative name in the book.
This is my wish for all the MPs whose lack of evidence-based information on these matters ended up leaving federal government employees and the travelling public WITHOUT a guarantee that what was experienced in 2020-2022 would NEVER happen again:
One way to start the conversation in your offices would be to ask your staff whether they too have heard stories such as the ones told to the National Citizens’ Inquiry by the courageous individuals listed below and then to discuss possible concrete actions that can be taken in alignment with the NCI Commissioners’ Final Report to be released in the coming weeks.
While listening to the stories below, I urge you to realize that there are likely many more stories just like these in your own ridings.
Ask: “How comfortable are my own staff members and my constituents in sharing their stories with me, if they know I stand with those folk who refer to them as ‘anti-vaxxers’, ‘conspiracy theorists’ or worse! How do I regain the trust of those of my staff and constituents who until now have heard nothing but denialism from me? How do I face them in the hallways, with the knowledge that I voted AGAINST their wellbeing?
Workers who lost their jobs due to Mandates
Zoran Boskovic, former Ministry of Forests employee
Phillip Davidson, former BC public service worker (former Director of Policy and Stakeholder Relations for Advanced Education)
Dr. Ben Sutherland - Fisheries & Oceans Research Scientist
Vaccine Injury Experiences
Artur Anselm - heart inflammation
Leigh-Ann Coolen — stroke & silence re: proximity to vaccine injection
Elizabeth Cummings — nerve pain, headache, shingles, exemption denied
Kirk Desrosiers & Tami Clarke - Interview with advice to listeners
Kirk Desrosiers “It feels like someone is sitting on my chest all the time”
Kristen Ditzel — neurological issues
Drue - mother, massage therapist, yoga teacher - POTS
Caroline Focault - menstrual issues and more
Paul Hollyoak, former Coast Guard Rescue Specialist, physical & neurological injuries, also speaks on challenges in getting injury compensation
Patricia Leidl - neurological and other injuries
Shawn Muldoon — severely vax injured, blood clotting and more
Mohammed Tisir Otabachi - severe burning sensation in the skin - interview
Serena Stevens - as a nurse, she shares firsthand account of the physical and emotional toll of vaccine injury
Tami “Warning, extremely emotional testimony”
Kimberly Warren - severe kidney injuries, battling the adverse reaction reporting system