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Senators overwhelmed by emails, calls pushing conspiracy theories about basic income legislation

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The headline reads: Senators overwhelmed by emails, calls pushing conspiracy theories about basic income legislation

I’d like to take a closer look at this article, written for the government-funded CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) by a skillful journalist named John Paul Tasker.

First of all, to Tasker, why the attack on people who don’t want Universal Basic Income? Can we not all have our individual opinion?

To call thousands of people you have never met conspiracy theorists and then go to the further extreme of labeling them as mentally unstable (a reference in the article that compares letter writers to people who go through manic and schizophrenic episodes) is really not appropriate. An individual assessment is required by a psychiatrist or psychologist before such a life-altering diagnosis. Otherwise it could be considered slander. I might add that groups of people are not mentally unstable just because they disagree with, or do not fully comprehend, the actions the government is taking.

If the government wants to do a “study” it is because the matter is being seriously considered. Studies generally lead in a certain direction. And let’s remember the cost of these studies generally runs in the millions of dollars. So, if the government is not considering a basic income then scrap the study. But, as with the truckers protest, we can now expect the government to become obstinate. Because the protesters have to be wrong.

Some people got wind of this and didn’t like it and found their voice. It’s so much more convenient if nobody makes a fuss about what the government is doing, but unfortunately actions of the government affect us all. And fortunately we have a voice. Or so we have thought was the meaning of democracy—representative rule by the people. The idea of representing the people is falling out of fashion, however, and along with it democracy.

What is really scary for the government and the CBC is finding out that a “fringe minority” might be a bit more than a fringe. So, as a mechanism of defence it become necessary to find a way to discredit those who disagree. Make them look like de-ranged crazies. This is a particular skill of the CBC–character assassination. Read the sub-heading: “Red Chamber grappling with a flood of messages claiming basic income is a plot by a shadowy global elite.” How could anyone possibly think that our government or global elites are “plotting” anything?

Of course basic income is not a plot. It is a plan. Am I right about that?

And then we have a photo, in the article, of COVID-19 protesters, dated back to December 20, 2020 with a caption stating “One protester holds a sign referring to the ‘Great Rest’ conspiracy theory.” This refers to the book written in 2020 by Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, entitled, COVID-19: The Great Reset, in which he talks about COVID-19 presenting an “opportunity” for a global reset. We have heard from Premier Jason Kenney that every premier in Canada received the book. I don’t exactly see how this fact qualifies as a conspiracy theory. However it could validates some of the fears expressed.

The author seems to dig himself deeper and deeper into the mire and anther example is a reference to LifeSite news, a conservative, Catholic news site, which, according to the CBC must not be believed, but none-the-less states exactly what we can find on the World Economic Forum’s website: LifeSite, a social conservative, anti-abortion website, has published a post on the legislation, linking Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland with the WEF. The WEF website states at the end of a lengthy bio that Freeland is “a member of the Forum’s Board of Trustees.” Let’s just add that there are more sources for information besides the CBC.

I recently did an article on my discovery of the WEF as a result of hearing Prime Minister Trudeau’s half-brother Kyle Kemper tell that Klaus Schwab is proud to call Trudeau his protege. There is video footage to support this. It’s not a big leap from there to imagine that this group of global elites—for that is what they are—might want to influence governments world-wide. Especially when you hear Klaus Schwab brag about infiltrating governments with young leaders.

The Great Reset is described in Wikipedia and the book is available on Amazon.

And as to the assurance of Kim Pate, Ontario MP who introduced the bill, that there would “absolutely not” be any clawing back of existing EI or Pensions, well, it is difficult to be reassured when in BC we were told we would absolutely not have vaccine mandates.

OK, I know that some are taking this a step towards basic income further than might be warranted, but they are afraid. They are afraid because we have had some pretty scary things happen in Canada. Our freedoms have been trampled on. You might have your bank account frozen if you support those who disagree with the government. You might be given a court order that disallows you to speak against the government or its mandates. And if we were to become dependent on a basic income then the government might one day decide to withhold funds because of such a thing as not getting a vaccine. See: National Post: Unvaccinated workers who lose jobs ineligible for EI benefits, minister says.

Klaus Schwab is famously known for saying, “You will own nothing and be happy.” Who is he talking about? What is he implying? A socialist form of government, maybe? You may want to check out his father Eugen Wilhelm Schwab, and also Freeland’s maternal grandfather, Michael Chomiak both of whom have Nazi ties. The WEF is an essential part of the UN and it cannot be denied that the UN has already influenced our public education, our climate change policy and our aboriginal treaty rights for better or for worse. The latter is being tested in courts.

I want to add that we may indeed be near the point of requiring a “guaranteed livable basic income” due to astronomical rising inflation. But CERB has shown us that an income supplement can be a disincentive to work. It also puts more money into the hands of drug dealers and increases overdose fatalities.

We know that home ownership in parts of Canada is already out of reach for a dual income family. Meanwhile large corporations like Blackstone, with huge buying power, are snapping up homes at an unprecedented rate and turning them into rentals in North America. See here and here.

These people sending letters are not all “crazies.” Some are actually very well informed. It turns out that much of what is being expressed is based on facts that are significant, especially in light of recent events. They consider the government and some news organizations as not completely forthcoming with the truth, I might add.

I think there is a better way of addressing the issue than continuing to aggravate people. It is true that some have been “broken” by covid. A few are believing clear fallacies. The first step towards helping people is validating their fear. Do we want to help these people or further alienate them?

For the CBC to print an article like this is only going to fan the flames. I’m surprised they don’t see that, unless it is their intent. Their descriptive of the people who wrote the letters is not too far from the truth about the CBC as well, “They’re trapped in their own echo chamber and they start to believe that everything outside of it is corrupted.”

See the article below.

Senators overwhelmed by emails, calls pushing conspiracy theories about basic income legislation

Red Chamber grappling with a flood of messages claiming basic income is a plot by a shadowy global elite

John Paul Tasker · CBC News · Posted: Mar 31, 2022 1:19 PM ET | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

People participate in a demonstration in Montreal protesting measures implemented by the Quebec government to help stop the spread of COVID-19 on Dec. 20, 2020. One protester holds a sign referring to the ‘Great Reset’ conspiracy theory. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

Members of the Red Chamber have been hit by a wave of questionable correspondence from Canadians convinced that a pending Senate bill would take away their pensions and lead to some sort of totalitarian world government.

Tens of thousands of calls, emails and handwritten letters urging senators to oppose Bill S-233 have flooded into the Red Chamber. The emails — many of them based on outlandish conspiracy theories — have at times overloaded the Senate’s servers, bringing the normal workflow to a grinding halt.

Bill S-233 calls for the creation of a national “framework” to allow the federal government to begin studying a “guaranteed livable basic income” program in Canada.

If passed, the one-page bill, which was introduced by Ontario Sen. Kim Pate, would not establish a basic income program in Canada. It would simply compel the Department of Finance to study the concept and report its findings.

Under parliamentary rules, a senator cannot propose any new spending or tax increases through a Senate public bill like S-233. Moreover, bills of this sort — and non-government legislation more generally — rarely pass through both houses of Parliament into law. The federal Liberal government has also been cool to the idea of a basic income program.

Despite those facts, senators are grappling with a well-organized letter-writing campaign driven by people worried that the bill’s passage will somehow result in real harms, like an end to Old Age Security and Employment Insurance or the contributory Canada Pension Plan.

Some of the thousands of letter-writers also falsely claim that, if passed, the bill would limit future social welfare programs to people vaccinated against COVID-19, or that cigarette smokers will be barred from government assistance.

The bill would not make any changes to existing government programs and does not stipulate who would qualify if the government were to implement a basic income scheme.

Some of the concern about pensions and income support seems to stem from a tweet by Peter Taras, a former Ontario candidate for the People’s Party of Canada. He told his followers that, if Bill S-233 passes, “if you are not vaccinated you will not receive EI, CPP, OHS, Social Services or Pension that YOU PAID INTO.”

‘Fantastical and untrue’

That message has been retweeted more than 700 times.

Pate told CBC News that the tweet is “absolutely fantastical and untrue” and people like Taras are “spreading misinformation … that unnecessarily terrifies people by telling them their access to financial support and services upon which they rely would be terminated.”

She said it is “absolutely not” her intention to wind up any existing program.

Ontario Sen. Kim Pate in 2013. Pate said people have been spreading misinformation about her bill, S-233, which would prompt the government to study implementing a universal basic income program in Canada. (Colin Perkel/The Canadian Press)

“Bill S-233 would not claw back or reduce services or benefits meant to assist individuals with needs relating to their health, disability, retirement, etc.” she said.

“The bill proposes developing a framework for implementing guaranteed livable basic income, an income support program available to anyone living in poverty in Canada. In my humble opinion, it could form one component of a robust, responsive, and comprehensive economic, health and social safety net that includes housing, child care, education, pharma, dental and mental health care, as well as programs like pensions, disability supports and EI.”

Other letter-writers took an even darker view of Pate’s push to have the government study a basic income.

Alberta Sen. Paula Simons told CBC News she has personally received “thousands and thousands” of emails, letters and phone calls from people who say the bill is some sort of plot by nefarious actors to establish a “new world order” or a system of state surveillance.

Simons said she and other senators have had trouble navigating through their clogged inboxes. They’ve had to resort to other messaging platforms because their email accounts have become “functionally useless,” she said. The Alberta senator said her voicemail is always full because of the sheer volume of calls.

Fascists, Soros and cyborgs

Those contacting senators’ offices to oppose S-233 blame the purported conspiracy to destroy the Canadian way of life on a range of bad actors: fascists, socialists, the Masons, billionaires like Microsoft founder Bill Gates or investor George Soros, or World Economic Forum (WEF) head Klaus Schwab.

Others bizarrely maintain the legislation will lead to “transhumanism” — an alleged plot to turn people into cyborgs.

“This is CANADA . . . not North Korea, not Russia, you are employees of the people! NOT EMPLOYEES OF THE WEF OR THE WHO,” one correspondent told Simons in a recent email.

“Bill S-233 is just the beginning. We are losing our freedoms to a group of elites that want to depopulate and control mankind, enslave us to experimental transhumanism, and the removal of any Christian and Godly devotions,” said another.

“Nobody voted for Nazi Klaus Schwab. Nobody even knew he existed 2 years ago. He has NOTHING to do with Canada or any other country. Schwab holds a statue of Lenin in his office! This is NOT CANADA. We are NOT going BACK to NAZI GERMANY. Please see NUREMBERG CODE & TRIALS,” said one letter-writer, referring to the WEF founder who has been the subject of many conspiracy theories since the onset of COVID-19.

Alberta Independent Sen. Paula Simons gives an interview in a park in Victoria, B.C. on Nov. 30, 2021. (Mike McArthur/CBC)

On Tuesday, all senators got an email that claimed the adoption of a basic income program would lead to the forced sterilization of people of child-bearing age and the extermination of the elderly and the disabled.

Simons said an untold number of Canadians have been “manipulated and terrified” into believing “outrageous” conspiracy theories that are patently false.

“Since the trucker convoy ended we’ve been bombarded. There’s been just a really sudden, dramatic spike in letters and many of them are from people who are deep into a conspiracy theory spiral,” Simons said.

Politicians are used to getting messages and calls from people who are “unwell,” Simons said, but there’s something different about this campaign.

‘COVID has broken a lot of people’

She said the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting public health restrictions have wreaked havoc on mental health, priming people to believe claims circulating online.

“I really do think COVID has broken a lot of people. There is a real delusional paranoia that runs through some of this mail. They’re writing to me about how this is a eugenics plot, a Masonic plot and at some point you go, ‘OK, this is really upsetting that people are preying on people who are already vulnerable.’ This is a thing that happens when people go through manic or schizophrenic episodes.”

Beyond Taras, the failed People’s Party candidate, Simons said it’s not clear who’s behind the effort to convince people that S-233’s passage would have such sweeping consequences.

LifeSite, a social conservative, anti-abortion website, has published a post on the legislation, linking Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland with the WEF. That website also quoted former U.S. presidential candidate Ron Paul who has claimed that the WEF wants to introduce global socialism through a universal basic income.

Since the LifeSite post was published, Simons has heard from church and community groups that have sent in large batches of form letters.

The WEF, a non-governmental organization that hosts discussions between world and business leaders at an annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, does not dictate what will or will not become law in any country.

The ‘great reset’ lives on

But Amarnath Amarasingam, a professor at Queen’s University, and one of Canada’s leading researchers on conspiracy theories, said the WEF is at the centre of so many COVID-related conspiracies because, in 2020, some its leaders talked about a “great reset” after the health crisis — a chance to evaluate how the global economy is structured after grappling with such a devastating pandemic.

Amarasingam said some theorists see Davos as a place where evil elites “basically do their plotting and their criming.”

Protestors hold a banner reading “COVID-19 The Great Reset, Klaus Schwab” — referring to World Economic Forum chairman Schwab — during a demonstration against coronavirus-related restrictions in Amsterdam on May 2, 2021. (Peter Dejong/AP Photo)

“A lot of people think sinister elites manufactured the pandemic to bring about a ‘great reset,’ and make humans financially dependent on the government,” he said.

“There is a concern that the vaccines and a basic income are all woven into a grand plan to basically make us robots, cyborgs that will listen to anything these billionaire elites tell us to do. They think programs like a basic income will take away financial independence and that that’s part of a broader plot by evil-doers so that they can eventually have their way with us.”

Amarasingam said there’s nothing new about conspiracy theories but the pandemic has “pushed them into hyperdrive,” fuelling a movement of people willing to believe there’s a global movement to “enslave” humanity.

‘Closed ecosystems of thought’

A noted decline in people’s trust in government, the press, academics and experts and public health authorities has made the situation worse, he said, while the advent of alternative social media platforms like Telegram has made conspiratorial material readily available.

“These alternative platforms have seen insane growth. It’s created closed ecosystems of thought where people only trust what they hear from other people online. They’re trapped in their own echo chamber and they start to believe that everything outside of it is corrupted. There’s a growing proportion of people who just live in an alternative universe.”

Amarasingam said people in these online forums are largely unaware of how the government operates — or how a bill is passed through Parliament — and those knowledge gaps “are easily filled with fantasy.”

“It’s easy to see a sinister plot when you don’t actually understand how the government works. These people aren’t civics majors,” he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Paul Tasker

Parliamentary Bureau

J.P. Tasker is a senior writer in the CBC’s parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. He can be reached at john.tasker@cbc.ca.

Follow J.P. on Twitter

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Empty Grocery Stores Could Become a Larger Problem, Thanks to Prime Minister Trudeau

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We’ve placed our trust in science. We’ve placed our faith in the government. And now we are here.

This morning I received the news that my uncle passed away in a care home. No, he did not die of Covid-19 or any of its variants. At 1:00 a.m. he was going to go out for a smoke, but was stopped by staff who told him it was too cold outside and he wasn’t allowed to go out. For as long as I can remember he has smoked outside without anyone telling him it was too cold.

My uncle is not one to respond mildly when provoked. An hour later, at 2:00 a.m. he was found deceased in his room. We are to believe he died of a heart attack.

In a country where we are accustomed to certain rights and privileges we don’t do well with someone removing rights we have had all of our lives. I’m now talking about the right to work, the right to travel, the right to sit in a restaurant of our choice.

Our Canadian Health Care system is in crisis and if we don’t pay attention we may ALL lose the right to medical care.

In Canada, the province of Quebec declared at the end of December that the province had “no choice” but to allow health-care staff who test positive for COVID-19 to keep working while infected. This is a direct quote from a Global News article.

Healthy, trained medical staff are not allowed to work while the health care crisis escalates.

Due to vaccine mandates created at the stroke of a pen, healthy, trained medical staff are not allowed to work while the health care crisis escalates. Imagine the impact of allowing up to 15% of our healthcare workers, those wrongfully dismissed, to come back to work.

There are Canadian citizens whose right to work in their field of training and medical expertise is being denied. They have been dismissed, along with numerous of other workers in government, banking, airline, hospitality and various other designations.

Take a moment to think about this and let this fact sink in. Don’t reason it away. We are allowing sick health-care staff who test positive for COVID-19 to keep working while infected.

Have we lost our minds?

The answer is, yes.

Jordan Peterson has painted a pretty clear and alarming picture of what he has witnessed happening in Canada, first hand, and warns us of the path we are headed down at break-neck speed. Read it here, National Post: Jordan Peterson: Open the damn country back up, before Canadians wreck something we can’t fix.

In some ways the Global News and National Post articles are saying the same thing: Canada is in crisis and our health-care system, along with our banking and airlines and other systems are failing due to emergency COVID-19 restrictions. The staff that could be working because they are still healthy, are not allowed to work, while the sick are mandated to work.

The two articles, however, offer opposite solutions. Peterson says, “open up the damn country.” The Opposition parties want to do more of the same…increase health measures…the things that have not been working. Peterson knows that there was a time before the current restrictions when things were working surprisingly well in Canada. There was food in stores. Airlines could be relied upon to provide travel, on time. Banks didn’t put you on hold for hours due to staff shortages. He still believes there is a possibility that we can make the necessary reversals and go back to that time.

We have long left the era of writing when journalists presented a mostly unbiased version of facts. No, along with the declaration of a pandemic came an edict that the vaccine was the only way out of the pandemic, as spoken by our own Prime Minister, and therefore it followed that this was the only message allowed to proceed from podium and pen.

I watched an interview of Elon Musk awhile ago. It was several years old and he was talking about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. When questioned as to whether he was afraid of the potential risks of AI, his response was, not as afraid as he once was. AI is a risk in as far as the players who use it for nefarious purposes and fail to see the need to set up appropriate boundaries. Upon further inquiry Musk revealed why he was less afraid now. He confessed it was because he had become more fatalistic.

Musk, who undoubtedly is one of the most knowledgeable people on earth, was not happy about what he saw coming. However, upon seeing there was little to prevent these dangerous outcomes, his only remaining option was to resign himself to acceptance of a risk he knew was inevitable. Since his words of caution to the world were not being heeded, all he was left to do was to mitigate his own fear.

There is only one thing more ominous than misinformation. It is when those who have the truth remain silent or are silenced.

Because I am an optimist, I think we still have a very small window of opportunity for Canada to turn things around. Unfortunately many of the voices we need to listen to have been silenced or have self-censored. Like Musk, they’ve stopped speaking because no one is listening. They are watching the drama unravel.

Claiming we don’t have enough health care workers, when we do and we have fired them, is unacceptable deception.

I am a woman of faith. And I believe in a God of justice. The way I see it is that the Omicron variant is showing up the injustice of firing unvaccinated health care workers. Claiming we don’t have enough health care workers, when we do and we have fired them, is unacceptable deception. The people who could help us out of our dilemma, and I’m not only talking about health care, are facing insurmountable barriers set up by our government in conjunction with our health leaders.

Peterson points out a clear life lesson: There are no risk-free paths forward.

But there paths that are more just than others.

We have an option beyond trusting science and government. We can do the right thing and trust God with the outcome. The right thing is to love our neighbour and not discriminate against them based on their personal health choices. We can place a little bit of confidence in the high vaccinations numbers we have reached, because this is aiding in reducing serious illness among the vulnerable. But to place all of our confidence in vaccination is to fail critically in other areas which could prove to be more detrimental to our society than any current disease.

In the clinic I frequent I was told that everyone there got COVID-19 and recovered. All were vaccinated according to our government mandate. This shows us that we can live with risk. We can get sick and recover and continue to work.

As I prepared to write, I noticed this article in my feed, National Post: FIRST READING: Ottawa’s 180-degree turn on mandatory vaccination. I admonish our leaders to stop and reverse mandatory vaccination requirements. To fail to do so is to show a serious lack of insight and to put our country at such a risk as we have not yet imagined.

The following is from the Global News: Opposition parties push for emergency health committee meeting amid Omicron surge. 

Ontario, Alberta., B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and N.B. have cut their quarantine requirements, which followed controversial advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that quarantines could drop to five days from the previous 10-day rule.

“This is a balancing of the risks compared with the need to protect your critical infrastructure,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public health officer, in a press conference on Jan. 5.

“Even with five days of quarantine, contagiousness is possible after that.”

Global News

Nothing is stopping the Omicron variant. Definitely not masks. Definitely not vaccination.

The Prime Minister of Canada is intentionally creating a crisis. Yesterday’s headline in CityNews Toronto was, Empty Canadian grocery store shelves could become larger problem.

All truck drivers entering Canada from the United States will need to present proof of vaccination to avoid a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

CityNews Toronto

The problem of empty grocery shelves could worsen over coming weeks due to the decision by Prime Minister Trudeau that all truck drivers entering Canada from the United States will need to present proof of vaccination to avoid a mandatory 14-day quarantine, starting January 15. This will potentially force thousands of cross-border truckers off the road. We rely on them for our food supply.

Mandatory vaccination edicts such as these are wrong for our country at this time, but, like Elon Musk, I will mitigate my fears if our government moves ahead with this disastrous plan.

I wonder if Peterson is right when he says, We are deciding, by opinion poll, to live in fear, and to become increasingly authoritarian in response to that fear.

When David met Goliath, he packed five smooth stones in his sling, but I would say he knew for certain that if the first one missed the mark, he was done. If we want to slay “Goliath” it is time to drop all but the most essential protective measures and take that one stone, called faith.

There are no risk-free paths forward. There is only one risk, or another. Pick your poison: that’s the choice life often offers. I am weary of living under the increasingly authoritarian dictates of a polity hyper-concerned with one risk, and oblivious to all others. And things are shaking around us.

Jordan B. Peterson

BC provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry reversed her promise not to implement mandatory vaccination and she needs to reverse her order again. The real problem for Canada’s Health Care system began back in October with this report as read in CTV News Vancouver:

“We’ll be implementing a new order that makes vaccination against COVID-19 a condition of employment across all health-care facilities in B.C.,” Henry said.

It’s time for a new order that puts life back to normal. The risk of serious disease is reduced to the point that we can now live with it and to prolong mandates will do more harm than good.

It’s Time to End the Vaccine Mandates

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I walked toward the Superstore entrance to pick up a couple of bottles of sparkling grape juice for our Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner with our son and his wife. It was a clear, crisp, Sunday morning, the kind of morning when I should be in church, but that has rather gone by the wayside with COVID-19. I noticed a woman sitting on the concrete, in a slightly recessed corner. leaning against a concrete wall, wrapped in a blanket. Nearby was a loaded shopping cart with an over-sized beige dimple foam on top of luggage and other things. She looked like she was crying and I stopped to talk to her.

She really was crying as she told me she was wet and cold and miserable. She coughed and her nose was running. Her eyes were bleary. Drugs, yes.

I chatted with her, trying to understand her situation and then suggested we meet at Burger King where I called every resource I could think of to find a shelter for her. I wish I could say I found a place that would take her. One place asked if she was of aboriginal descent. No. Did that make a difference? Would they turn away a woman based on her skin color?

Her name was Amanda. She had been homeless since Spring. She told me about the jobs she’d had and about her husband who was also homeless. They were sleeping in a tent and she hadn’t seen him for a day and was worried. Her two children were staying with a relative.

When she started rolling a joint in the restaurant and began to look restless I told her I needed to go. At home I finally got through to the one shelter that had given us some hope by asking us to call back, and call back again in an hour–and then call in another hour. I hurried out to find Amanda, but she was gone. I texted her but there was no response. She was able to find her phone cord and charge her phone at the Burger King when we were together. That had lifted her spirits a little. She had no phone plan, so could only call when she was able to get connected to wifi.

It’s been exceptionally cold on the coast this past week, and I’ve wondered about people like Amanda who can freeze outside. There are emergency shelters open, but not everyone is comfortable using them. The other night our building’s fire alarm went off. I didn’t want to go out in the freezing cold, even for a few minutes till the fire brigade arrived. It turned out that a side door was ajar and there was evidence of someone lighting a fire to do drugs. They must have left in a hurry when the alarm went off.

I’m thinking about this as I read the December 31 National Post headline, Unvaccinated workers who lose jobs ineligible for EI benefits, minister says.

Employment and Social Development Canada has issued a notice to employers enforcing vaccine mandates to help them fill out records of employment, a document needed to apply for EI benefits.

The department said if an employee doesn’t report to work or is suspended or terminated for refusing to comply with a vaccine mandate, then the employer should indicate that they quit, took a leave of absence or were dismissed-potentially disqualifying them from collecting EI.

National Post

As I read this I see something that is preventable. We can prevent more people from becoming homeless.

We can prevent it by not firing them, dismissing them, and refusing their final lifeline of support–Unemployment Insurance.

Our bureaucrats are creating issues. They don’t appear to care if more people end up on the streets. They don’t seem to notice that their policies are causing a crisis in our health care, as the staffing shortage they have created causes more burn-out of over-worked medical workers. We don’t know how desperate things will need to get for them to relinquish their obsession with data and begin to take a sensible and human approach. Does the health system have to collapse entirely? They can’t blame it on the unvaccinated. They can blame it on their obsession with meeting a vaccine quota. Where did the promise go of needing only 80 per cent of the population, or whatever it was, to be vaccinated? We are long past that.

I am fully vaccinated and I have vaccine regret. Since getting the vaccine my health has deteriorated to a frightful state. I’ve had heart problems, breathing problems, neurological problems with my arms and legs, constant UTI’s, vaginal bleeding, discolouration of my skin going from purple to white. And it’s getting worse by the month. Now I supposedly have fibromyalgia….inflammation in my arms is going into my hands. My husband has developed melanoma–skin cancer–since his vaccine, on the arm where he was vaccinated, but he is refusing to look at the possibility that the two may be related.

I’ve done a little research, as we do when we have health problems. It seems the spike protein is the culprit, causing inflammation. It’s not disappearing as fast as it was supposed to and it is going places it was not meant to go. Two medical professionals have, off the record, I’m sure, said to me that they are seeing a lot of this…symptoms I’ve described. So don’t be so hard on people who don’t want to get the vaccine.

All that accompanies vaccination is preventable if we allow people to choose. It’s time to realize we cannot escape the virus in its various forms but we still have a choice around vaccine injury. Or some of us do. I would like to be numbered among those who give others the option to choose, especially now that it is so apparent that the vaccinated can spread the virus too.

We are not going to vaccinate ourselves out of this.

While the Omicron variant rages–and it’s really no worse than the common cold–we are encouraged to get our 4th booster shot. Due to the stress of so many vaccinated people now getting sick, the isolation period has been reduced to five days. All of this is beginning to look rather random.

Fully vaccinated people are getting sick of the virus in droves. Can somebody define insanity for me, please? A few people are waking up and putting two and two together, namely, we are not going to vaccinate ourselves out of this. So stop the mandates. Mandates are evidence of the type of systemic oppression which disregards the possibility that people can think for themselves. It disregards the possibility that people need to be given the option to choose an outcome that differs from what those in authority want for them. Mandates are causing untold suffering for our country.

Let our New Year’s resolution be this: We will be there for one another as fellow members of society in the finest sense of the word.

Göran Persson, Prime Minster of Sweden

A friend posted this quote on Facebook: Let our New Year’s resolution be this: We will be there for one another as fellow members of society in the finest sense of the word.

Lest we forget, the healthcare workers who were dismissed for not getting the vaccine were also the ones who put their lives at risk throughout the pandemic when there was little to no protection for them. Regardless of their views around the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, they deserve our compassion and support. It is unthinkably cruel that our government leaders, along with our top health leaders, have turned on them.

And if we are all honest, the vaccine is not that safe or effective. As this CTV News article, published on December 31, states, there are “520 long term care staff with the virus” in Ontario. And as we know, they are all vaccinated. And they are all infecting others.

So the rationale in keeping the unvaccinated out of the workforce is falling apart completely. Never mind the punitive action taken by our government to refuse EI to those who were fired.

I repeat: The vaccinated are spreading the virus. Vaccine mandates and firings and refusal of EI should all stop, immediately. Let’s stop this tunnel vision and turn this world back to a time when we appreciated the contributions of our helpers. By this time we have enough evidence of the destructiveness of these mandates to our relationships, our livelihoods and our communities.

Wounds of a Friend or Kisses of an Enemy

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I am writing a more personal post this week. I watched the movie Emma and was struck by her lack of self-awareness. This of course is the theme around which the story revolves. I’ve been doing some soul searching. How unaware am I of the impact of my words?

The movie was timely as I was just brought up short by someone who corrected me with what I am to consider as a ‘loving rebuke from a brother.’

Rebukes are those double-edged swords. They can wound and heal or they can destroy. In the movie Mr. Knightley soundly rebukes Emma for her insensitive remarks to Mrs. Bates.

Mr. Churchill initiated a game requiring everyone to say three very foolish things. Laughing, Mrs. Bates self-deprecatingly says she is sure to say several foolish things if she opens her mouth. Emma then responds that the difficulty for Mrs. Bates would be to limit herself to three things.

So simply and beautifully done by Jane Austin.

Emma has mis-stepped before, but how her character flaw is laid bare before her friends. Mrs. Bates fumbles a little and mutters, “I see. I see….I will try and hold my tongue. I must make myself very disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing.”

Emma changes when the full impact of her actions dawns on her. She heeds Mr. Knightly’s rebuke, as spoken by someone who cares.

Mr. Knightley points out that Mrs. Bates is below Emma’s station in life and will continue to sink and this is why Emma’s behaviour is so disgraceful. He reminds Emma that Mrs. Bates has known her since infancy and that when she was younger “her notice of you was an honour.” He says others will take their lead from her in their view of Mrs. Bates. To her credit, Emma comes to deeply regret her words and determines to make amends.

Wounds that heal. Mr. Knightley is greatly relieved to see that he has not ruined his chances with Emma, and that deep down her character was what he hoped, not what he feared.

As authors and journalists, we have to hold ourselves to a gold standard that refuses to stoop to ridicule and chooses to see the world as it “could be.”

I watched a brief clip by Jordan Peterson in which he says, you don’t want a partner who will just pat you on the head; you want someone who will push you towards who you could be.

As authors and journalists, we have to hold ourselves to a gold standard that refuses to stoop to ridicule and chooses to see the world as it “could be.”

Comedians have recently come under fire. While I agree with the importance of having the liberty of free speech, I’ve been of the opinion that a good comedian makes us laugh, collectively, at ourselves, our lives and the dilemmas we face. ‘Collectively’ is the key word here. We may be embarrassed but we can laugh at ourselves without feeling we are a target.

It’s easy to go with the flow, and laugh even when we know something is hurtful to someone. There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Better are the wounds of a friend than the kisses of the enemy.” Do we really want the approval of the enemy? A true friend looks for fairness to all and is guided by kindness, while an enemy harbours malice.

Someone who does not like you when you are real will not like you if you fake it to go along with them.

I found a saying when I was young that went like this, “A fool convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.” Someone who does not like you when you are real will not like you if you fake it to go along with them, either. You become subservient when another can make you change outwardly and your outward behaviour no longer matches your inner convictions.

There is tremendous power in words to wound. There is also power to influence others for good or evil. It is much easier to tear down than it is to build.

In today’s society trashing a person’s life seems to be some sort of sadistic sport: Let’s see whose life we can destroy this week.

In Canada thousands of caregivers risked their lives during the worst part of the pandemic and have now lost their jobs, on top of it all, due to vaccine mandates. Some provinces have decided against firing health workers as we approach the “endemic,” and the journalistic response has been disturbing. Chris Selley covered the surprising attitude in a recent article entitled, Canadians are enjoying firing the unvaccinated far too much.

Kudos to our local school boards and unions who have decided to continue business as usual rather than lose teachers.

I’ve led a sheltered life and cruelty always comes as a shock to me. It may be because I’ve stayed off Twitter. (Smile.) The real reason why I am not on Twitter is because of how much of my valuable time it would consume. But there is another reason. I would find it too hard to resist firing off those zingers in the moment. I need a Mr. Knightly in my life to hold me to a higher standard.

If You Think They are Messing With Our Minds…They Are

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The Great British Baking Show

I was going to write about how the vaccine mandate is putting Canadian health care in an unprecedented state of crisis, with services being shut down due to staff shortages and the BC Nurses Union president resigning in objection to the mandate. The last date for vaccination, to get full vaccination before the October deadline, passed on September 27 and that is the date one ER in particular had to close. Those vaccinated against covid appear to be living in great fear of getting covid and they are the ones imposing further restrictions, even on themselves. Of course there are exceptions when it comes to big business and big entertainment such as major sports leagues and the movie industry which have avoided significant disruption throughout the pandemic. I drove by a closed gurdwara (Sikh Temple) at the height of the pandemic lockdowns, only to see trailers and tents of a movie set on the parking lot. Gurdwaras are attended daily and also provide food for the needy, when they are allowed to be open.

Evenings we sit quietly at home, vaccinated, but not supporting mandates and special privileges for special groups. And during recent quiet evenings we’ve watched the latest series of The Great British Baking Show, filmed during the pandemic, everyone quarantined, of course, but it still does give pause for thought when you read the credits. Yes, taking advantage of the very activity I criticized. Well, now I have to pay for it, literally.

On my last post I wrote about the CBC’s drop in ratings. The CBC is Canada’s government-sponsored television and radio conglomerate that receives a base of $1.2 billion in funding annually from the Canadian government. Divide that by approximately 35 million citizens–not households–to figure out our compelled subscription rates.

This week as my husband and I came to the second last episode we paused it, to be continued the next day. To understand the popularity of the show on CBC Gem programming, the Toronto Sun reported recently that, “In the week of Sept. 6-12, just three CBC programs showed up in the top 30 shows watched by Canadians – the English language leaders’ debate, Coronation Street and The Great British Baking Show.”

As my husband and I tuned in the next day, we unexpectedly found we couldn’t access the episode we had paused. We couldn’t press ‘resume. We couldn’t even get into the show we watched the night before. Overnight, the two remaining shows, including the one we started watching, had been placed behind a paywall!

A little red flag on the last two episodes read, Try Premium. My husband kept going back and forth between the subscription requirement and the show, thinking there must be some mistake. I was less surprised.

Not only is our government-sponsored news and entertainment source now asking for premium subscriptions, but the CBC was recently also blasted for introducing paid advertising. To add insult to injury, the Trudeau Liberals promised an extra $100 million, annually, to the CBC in this month’s federal election.

Although the CBC is supposed to represent Canadians, it leans strongly to the left in its content, and is not particularly representative, given that the Liberal party, in the last two elections, lost the popular vote to Conservatives. This sheds light on the drop in ratings. Adding a $4.99 premium subscription requirement in the middle of a series, for the final two episodes, won’t help, even if the first month is free. Incidentally, the new age of consent seems to be 13, as that is the required age for a subscription.

P.S. On Oct 12 we discovered the paywall was removed. I suspect the CBC heard about this matter from a few unhappy viewers.

News Commentary – September 28, 2021

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I am beginning a little experiment. Every day, like so many other people, I read and hear a lot of news reports. Like not as many others, I try to keep track of these reports. Now I’ve decided to share a commentary, my thoughts on what is happening around me, drawing out a few highlights.

Proverbs 5 warns against committing adultery and you may ask what this has to do with my commentary today. It goes on to say, “For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines your paths.” I believe that the only way out of the predicaments in which we find ourselves today is by taking a good look at how God views our lifestyle.

We are in trouble. I’ve wanted to be positive and say that things aren’t so bad. But they are bad.

I believe the only way out is by paying attention. Pay attention to how we, as individuals, are living our lives. Pay attention to our physical, mental and emotional health. Pay attention to our relationships. Pay attention to our need to provide for ourselves, and our need to stay strong and not give up. To keep walking forward. To stay above water and not drown. Maintain the faith that you can do this, and that, with God’s help, you can do it well.

In my previous article I wrote that writers are needed. You may have a message burning in your heart that we need to hear. You have a unique perspective and a way of saying things that is yours alone. It needs to be added to all the other voices.

I want to share something personal before I dive into my commentary. I edited my ‘About’ page and gave a summary of things which have affected my writing in recent years. I’ve been distracted by what is going on in the world around me. I’ve been busy trying to expose myself to information and to make sense of things. In the process, I have not always been understood. I’ve had the impression that what I was doing was not appreciated by everyone. I believed, and still believe, that the truth will come to light. And I believe I have a responsibility to be faithful in what I feel I am called to do, in the face of opposition.

Since this is a new endeavour, I may be tweaking things as I go along. For now I will just dive in.

The backdrop, to the news I want to discuss, is a book I am reading which came off the press recently, entitled, Willful Blindness, by Sam Cooper. It is a must-read, much more fascinating than a fictional crime thriller. On the back cover Calvin Chrustie, RCMP, summarizes the contents this way, “Canada is a haven for nefarious national security and trans national organized crime networks, and our democracy is at risk.”

The most recent big news in Canada is the release of Meng Wanzhou. Here is the initial CBC article. A Global News article clarifies, “In a statement, Canada’s Department of Justice said that there was “no basis” for proceedings to continue after the U.S. extradition request was dropped.” It adds, “Speaking Friday evening shortly after Meng’s departure, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed that both Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were on their way back to Canada after spending over 1,000 days in detention in China.”

For three years we have waited for this issue to be resolved, while the two Michaels languished under trumped up charges, in a prison in China, in what China denies was a related ‘tit for tat’ arrest, although they were arrested on espionage charges days after the Huawei executive’s apprehension. Now China claims that the release of the two men was similarly unrelated to Meng’s release and Chinese officials state the men are out on bail due to health reasons and can be required to return at any time.

In a National Post write-up we read, “In a post on her Wechat account reported by state media, Meng called China her backbone and said her freedom was thanks to a powerful home nation.”

An article by yahoo!finance reflects on the significance of Biden dropping the charges, “The agreement opened U.S. President Joe Biden to criticism from Washington’s China hawks who argue his administration is capitulating to China and one of its top companies at the centre of a global technology rivalry between the two countries.”

The Guardian reports the view of some that “the intended victim, a global bank, knew the truth even as it was allegedly being lied to.”

Meanwhile, the headline in the Georgia Straight, a local Vancouver newspaper, reveals another detail, Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou loved Vancouver and has two homes worth at least $18.2 million.

Meng, as a “prisoner” in Canada was surrounded by security in her home and wore an ankle tracking bracelet, but was free to come and go as she pleased. The Canadian government even brought her family over to visit on one occasion. The Michaels did not have these luxuries and it was reported that the lights were left on 24/7 in their cells.

Yesterday we read this in a Global News article, Canada, China trade barbs at UN General Assembly over 2 Michaels, Meng Wanzhou. I don’t think this is the end of the story.

What do I conclude? I have no conclusions. I only know that the night before the releases I prayed that it was time. Did this have an impact? Maybe.

I think a shout out should go to Canada’s ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, who was responsible for ongoing negotiations that brought about these events.