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COVID-19

A COVID-19 day of reckoning is long overdue

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This article supplied by Troy Media.

Troy Media By  Perry Kinkaide

Our youth are facing mental health struggles, disrupted education, and stunted social development due to Canada’s failed pandemic policies

The evidence is irrefutable: Canada’s response to COVID-19 betrayed its youth. Policies like school closures, social isolation and activity restrictions, meant to protect, ended up stunting the social, emotional and educational development of an entire generation.

While many adults navigated the pandemic with relative ease, Canadian youth, biologically the least vulnerable, suffered disproportionately. The damage is still unfolding, leaving lasting effects on their mental health, education and social development.

Young Canadians are now bearing the psychological and social scars of these misguided policies. Mental health struggles surged, with anxiety, depression and social isolation peaking in the years following the onset of the pandemic.

Research from the Québec Resilience Project confirms this, showing that mental health challenges among adolescents have remained high, even after restrictions were finally lifted. These struggles were not caused by the virus itself, but by the policies meant to protect them.

The impact is stark when compared to other countries. In nations like Sweden, Finland and Norway, where schools remained open, youth experienced far less disruption. They were able to maintain social connections, mental stability and routines—key to preserving their development during the pandemic.

By contrast, Canadian youth endured some of the longest school closures, with Ontario shutting down schools for over 26 weeks, more than double the global average. Canada’s extended school closures and social isolation were a profound misjudgment, failing to prioritize youth well-being.

While many youth were harmed, some were able to adapt and overcome the impact. Some, particularly those with strong family support, resilient routines and access to digital learning tools, adapted remarkably. Resilience, however, is not just an individual trait; it reflects the support systems in place. Those with resources to maintain normalcy were better able to recover, while those without such support were left behind.

The crisis has shown that the challenges facing youth are far more complex than originally thought. A generation is now grappling with emotional disengagement, academic delays and difficulties forming meaningful relationships. These issues will have long-term consequences, affecting not only their personal lives but also the broader Canadian economy.

We must recognize the full impact of these setbacks, especially regarding education and workforce readiness. The mental and social toll of these
disruptions will be felt for years to come.

This failure was not just the result of reactive public health policies; it was a failure of a system that de-prioritized youth needs. Young people were treated as threats to public health rather than as citizens with developmental needs. Adult focused activities, such as retail and liquor stores, remained open, while schools, sports and social activities—essential for youth development—were shut down.

This policy overreach wasn’t just avoidable; it was a betrayal of the next generation.

Now, as we emerge from this crisis, Canada faces a crucial choice: ignore the long-term consequences or confront the painful reality of how we failed our youth. The damage is not just a public health issue—it’s a societal one, impacting the mental and emotional well-being of an entire generation. Canada owes its youth more than apologies. It owes them a future free from the mistakes of the past.

Governments, educators, mental health systems and communities must step up—not just with lip service, but with meaningful action. We must rebuild the systems that support youth development, ensuring that this generation is not defined by the failed policies that stunted their growth.

The clock is ticking, and the question is no longer “What happened to our youth?” It’s “What are we doing to ensure this never happens again?”

Dr. Perry Kinkaide is a visionary leader and change agent. Since retiring in 2001, he has served as an advisor and director for various organizations and founded the Alberta Council of Technologies Society in 2005. Previously, he held leadership roles at KPMG Consulting and the Alberta Government. He holds a BA from Colgate University and an MSc and PhD in Brain Research from the University of Alberta

Troy Media empowers Canadian community news outlets by providing independent, insightful analysis and commentary. Our mission is to support local media in helping Canadians stay informed and engaged by delivering reliable content that strengthens community connections and deepens understanding across the country

COVID-19

Trump DOJ seeks to quash Pfizer whistleblower’s lawsuit over COVID shots

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From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

The Justice Department attorney did not mention the Trump FDA’s recent admission linking the COVID shots to at least 10 child deaths so far.

The Trump Department of Justice (DOJ) is attempting to dismiss a whistleblower case against Pfizer over its COVID-19 shots, even as the Trump Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is beginning to admit their culpability in children’ s deaths.

As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, in 2021 the BMJ published a report on insider information from a former regional director of the medical research company Ventavia, which Pfizer hired in 2020 to conduct research for the company’s mRNA-based COVID-19 shot.

The regional director, Brook Jackson, sent BMJ “dozens of internal company documents, photos, audio recordings, and emails,” which “revealed a host of poor clinical trial research practices occurring at Ventavia that could impact data integrity and patient safety […] We also discovered that, despite receiving a direct complaint about these problems over a year ago, the FDA did not inspect Ventavia’s trial sites.”

According to the report, Ventavia “falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in Pfizer’s pivotal phase III trial.” Overwhelmed by numerous problems with the trial data, Jackson filed an official complaint with the FDA.

Jackson was fired the same day, and Ventavia later claimed that Jackson did not work on the Pfizer COVID-19 shot trial; but Jackson produced documents proving she had been invited to the Pfizer trial team and given access codes to software relating to the trial. Jackson filed a lawsuit against Pfizer for violating the federal False Claims Act and other regulations in January 2021, which was sealed until February 2022. That case has been ongoing ever since.

Last August, U.S. District Judge Michael Truncale dismissed most of Jackson’s claims with prejudice, meaning they could not be refiled. Jackson challenged the decision, but the Trump DOJ has argued in court to uphold it, Just the News reports, with DOJ attorney Nicole Smith arguing that the case concerns preserving the government’s unfettered power to dismiss whistleblower cases.

The rationale echoes a recurring trend in DOJ strategy that Politico described in May as “preserving executive power and preventing courts from second-guessing agency decisions,” even in cases that involve “backing policies favored by Democrats.”

Jackson’s attorney Warner Mendenhall responded that the administration “really sort of made our case for us” in effectively admitting that DOJ is taking the Fair Claims Act’s “good cause” standard for state intervention to mean “mere desire to dismiss,” which infringes on his client’s “First Amendment right to access the courts, to vindicate what she learned.”

Mendenhall added that in a refiled case, Jackson “may be able to bring a very different case along the same lines, but with the additional information” to prove fraud, whereas rejection would send the message that “if fraud involves government complicity, don’t bother reporting it.”

“The truth is we do not know if we saved lives on balance,” admitted FDA Chief Medical Officer Vinay Prasad in a recent leaked email. “It is horrifying to consider that the U.S. vaccine regulation, including our actions, may have harmed more children than we saved. This requires humility and introspection.”

The COVID shots have been highly controversial ever since the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative prepared and released them in a fraction of the time any previous vaccine had ever been developed and tested. As LifeSiteNews has extensively covered, a large body of evidence has steadily accumulated over the past five years indicating that the COVID jabs failed to prevent transmission and, more importantly, carried severe risks of their own.

Ever since, many have intently watched and hotly debated what President Donald Trump would do about the situation upon his return to office. Though he never backed mandates like former President Joe Biden did, for years Trump refused to disavow the shots to the chagrin of his base, seeing Operation Warp Speed as one of his crowning achievements. At the same time, during his latest run he embraced the “Make America Healthy Again” movement and its suspicion of the medical establishment more broadly.

So far, Trump’s second administration has rolled back several recommendations for the shots but not yet pulled them from the market, despite hiring several vocal critics of the COVID establishment and putting the Department of Health & Human Services under the leadership of America’s most prominent anti-vaccine advocate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Most recently, the administration has settled on leaving the current jabs optional but not supporting work to develop successors.

In a July interview, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary asked for patience from those unsatisfied by the administration’s handling of the shots, insisting more time was needed for comprehensive trials to get more definitive data.

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COVID-19

Canadian Health Department funds study to determine effects of COVID lockdowns on children

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The commissioned study will assess the impact on kids’ mental well-being of COVID lockdowns and ‘remote’ school classes that banned outdoor play and in-person learning.

Canada’s Department of Health has commissioned research to study the impact of outdoor play on kids’ mental well-being in light of COVID lockdowns and “remote” school classes that, for a time, banned outdoor play and in-person learning throughout most of the nation. 

In a notice to consultants titled “Systematic Literature Reviews And Meta Analyses Supporting Two Projects On Children’s Health And Covid-19,” the Department of Health admitted that “Exposure to green space has been consistently associated with protective effects on children’s physical and mental health.”

A final report, which is due in 2026, will provide “Health Canada with a comprehensive assessment of current evidence, identify key knowledge gaps and inform surveillance and policy planning for future pandemics and other public health emergencies.”

Bruce Squires, president of McMaster Children’s Hospital of Hamilton, Ontario, noted in 2022 that “Canada’s children and youth have borne the brunt” of COVID lockdowns.

From about March 2020 to mid-2022, most of Canada was under various COVID-19 mandates and lockdowns, including mask mandates, at the local, provincial, and federal levels. Schools were shut down, parks were closed, and most kids’ sports were cancelled. 

Mandatory facemask polices were common in Canada and all over the world for years during the COVID crisis despite over 170 studies showing they were not effective in stopping the spread of COVID and were, in fact, harmful, especially to children.

In October 2021, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector, saying the un-jabbed would no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, a new report released by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) raised alarm bells over the “harms caused” by COVID-19 lockdowns and injections imposed by various levels of government as well as a rise in unexplained deaths and bloated COVID-19 death statistics.

Indeed, a recent study showed that COVID masking policies left children less able to differentiate people’s emotions behind facial expressions.

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