Connect with us

COVID-19

Preston Manning stepping away from National Citizen’s Inquiry to focus on the Alberta Public Health review

Published

7 minute read

From the National Citizen’s Inquiry

The National Citizen’s Inquiry (NCI) – a citizen-led inquiry into Canada’s response to COVID-19 – is finalizing plans to hold hearings across the country. With two of five commissioners now in place, the inquiry has booked its first two events – in Atlantic Canada and Central Canada.

Across the country, we are seeing more and more clear signals that Canadians are not only ready to ask the hard questions about how our governments reacted to this pandemic, but also require the answers.

Nation-wide concern

Another Liberal minister has said the quiet part out loud. Former Finance Minister Bill Morneau joined his one-time colleagues Joel Lightbound, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Marcus Powlowski, John McKay and Yves Robillard in expressing dismay that the Trudeau Liberals used vaccine mandates as a political wedge issue, an approach that “stigmatizes and divides people” as Lightbound put it.

In fact, after two years of vaccine distribution, the state broadcaster this week also published one of its first articles chronicling widespread vaccine injuries. The article acknowledged that those suffering from adverse effects also deal with “silence” and “stigma” as a result of the overly politicized tone set by Ottawa.

In Ontario, 164 former health care workers rallied to let the public know that, while the provincial health care system buckles under immense pressure and nurses are shipped in from other parts of Canada, there are hundreds of workers that were terminated because of vaccination mandates – and to the surprise of most – they are still not permitted to resume their careers.

In Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith has commissioned a Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel which will “review the legislation that guided Alberta’s response to COVID-19 and recommend changes to improve the handling of future public health emergencies for Albertans.”

NCI Spokesperson

On that note, Preston Manning will be stepping away from his role as spokesperson for the NCI to chair the Alberta review. The NCI welcomes this positive initiative by Premier Smith and believes the people of Alberta will be well-served by the appointment of Mr. Manning as Chair. Taking over for Manning is acclaimed investigative journalist Trish Wood. Wood worked for 10 years on CBC’s Emmy Award-winning Fifth Estate before exposing the heartbreaking stories of Iraq War veterans in What Was Asked of Us and later pioneering the modern renaissance of true-crime storytelling. This experience has allowed her to hone the kind of unapologetic critical thinking and investigative skills that she will bring to bear in this role.

Hearing Details

Plans for the Inquiry’s in-person hearings – supplemented by virtual participation – are now being finalized. The first hearings will be in Atlantic Canada e.g. Truro/Nova Scotia, March 16,17,18 and Montreal/Quebec, 22, 23, and 24 of March.

Additionally, the Inquiry has appointed its first two commissioners. They are Bernard Massie and Ken Drysdale.

Invitations will soon be sent to government officials at all levels across the country. These individuals will be invited to provide their perspectives and reflect on the decisions that were made.

Invitations are also extended to experts in the areas of economics; health care; mental and physical wellbeing; constitutional expertise; learning; and any other area significantly affected by pandemic response at any level. The Inquiry is also welcoming non-experts with personal stories that will help illuminate any unarticulated and overlooked shortcomings in the government responses. As demonstrated in the article reference above, there are many Canadians who feel silenced and stigmatized. 

Take the example of Christian and Margarita

Immigrants from Mexico, they chose to start a life and a family here in Canada. Christian holds a PhD and was a lecturer at a prominent Canadian university. His wife was a program manager for a regional health authority.

After soberly considering their risk profile against the available data, as well as suspecting that the mRNA vaccination was incompatible with aspects of their faith, they chose to wait.

And in their situation, we see the unfortunate cascading effects of these poorly considered policies, developed in bureaucratic silos.

Christian and his wife – who worked from home, incidentally – were both put on indefinite administrative leave by their employers. Both streams of household income effectively removed.

And because of the Federal government’s policies, they were also deemed ineligible for any employment insurance.

Being immigrants, they also did not have family around them. In fact, their main community connections were from a church they attended. Unfortunately, they were also no longer allowed to attend worship services because of the imposition of the vaccine passport program by the provincial government.

At the time this happened, Christian and Margarita were also living on an island. Federal travel mandates left them effectively stranded.

In the span of a month, these highly skilled individuals – who had made Canada their new home – lost all income; were disqualified from any social assistance; lost their primary community support system; and could not even get on a plane to leave.

Now Christian and Margarita are in the process of returning to Mexico, where they have more confidence that the government will leave them in peace.

It is stories like this that will not be heard at an internal meeting between government officials and senior bureaucrats. It is stories like this that demand a citizen’s inquiry.

About the National Citizen’s Inquiry

NCI is a citizen-led and citizen-funded initiative that is completely independent from government. In early 2023, the NCI will hear from Canadians and experts and investigate governments’ COVID-19 policies in a fair and impartial manner. The NCI’s purpose is to listen, to learn, and to recommend. What went right? What went wrong? How can Canadians and our governments better react to national crises in the future in a manner that balances the interests of all members of our society?

 

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Freedom Convoy

Trudeau’s use of Emergencies Act has cost taxpayers $73 million thus far

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Expenses for the Emergencies Act, the use of which a federal court ruled ‘not justified,’ included $17.5 million for a judicial inquiry, $400,000 for charter flights and $1.3 million for hotel rooms for out-of-town RCMP officers.

The Liberal government’s use of the Emergencies Act against the 2022 Freedom Convoy has cost Canadian taxpayers over $73 million thus far. 

According to newly released records obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s enactment of the Emergencies Act, the use of which has since been ruled “not justified” by a federal court, to drive out Freedom Convoy protestors from Ottawa in 2022, cost the Department of Public Safety $73,550,568.  

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the $73 million figure was part of records released by the department at the request of Conservative MP Ziad Aboultaif, and despite its high number, is not the final account.

“With regard to enactment of the Emergencies Act in 2022, what was the cost burden for the government?” Conservative MP Ziad Aboultaif asked.  

“Cost associated with fiscal year 2023-2024 are still to be determined,” the department responded.  

According to the Department of Public Safety, most of the public safety expenses were attributed to local authorities in Ottawa and Windsor, Ontario.  

“It should be noted additional funding allocated by the government to Ottawa and its partners as well as Windsor were not specifically as a result of the Emergencies Act invocation but meant to compensate both municipalities for the extraordinary expenses incurred during and after the protracted blockades,” the report said. 

Other expenses included $17.5 million for a judicial inquiry, $400,000 for charter flights, and $1.3 million for hotel rooms for out-of-town RCMP officers.  

The costs were incurred after Trudeau enacted the Act on February 14, 2022 to shut down the Freedom Convoy protest which took place in Ottawa.  

At the time, the use of the Act was justified by claims that the protest was “violent,” a claim that has still gone unsubstantiated.

In fact, videos of the protest against COVID regulations and vaccine mandates show Canadians from across the country gathering outside Parliament engaged in dancing, street hockey, and other family-friendly activities.

Indeed, the only acts of violence caught on video were carried out against the protesters after the Trudeau government directed police to end the protest. One such video showed an elderly women being trampled by a police horse.   

Recently, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that Trudeau was “not justified” in invoking the Emergencies Act.

However, the Trudeau government has doubled down on its heavy-handed response to citizen protesters, filing an appeal with the Federal Court of Appeal – a court where 10 of the 15 sitting judges were appointed by Trudeau.

Continue Reading

COVID-19

Pro-freedom Canadian nurse gets two years probation for protesting COVID restrictions

Published on

Ontario nurse Kristen Nagle

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Ontario nurse Kristen Nagle, a well-known figure in Canada’s pro-freedom movement during COVID, said her sentence of two-years probation is effectively a way for the government to silence her for the foreseeable future.

A Canadian nurse found guilty of violating Ontario’s COVID rules for participating in an anti-lockdown rally and speaking out against COVID mandates says despite scoring a recent “half-win” in court, her two-year probation sentence is designed to stop her from “speaking out or going against public health measures.”   

“The Crown wanted an egregious amount of $50,000. They saw my GiveSendGo, they saw the support, they saw that I was not deterred by the $20,000 sentencing and so they wanted to sentence me for $50,000- and two-years’ probation,” said Canadian nurse Kristen Nagle in a Facebook video posted on March 21.   

“So, kind of a half-win, the JP (justice of peace) agreed to the two years’ probation, I don’t really know what that looks like, what that means yet, but I’m under two years’ probation, I don’t know, and $7,500. And $7,500, is really not that bad compared to $50,000.” 

Nagle was heavily involved with the activist group Canadian Frontline Nurses and became a well-known face from those in the medical community in Canada who protested both the mRNA COVID jabs and lockdown dictates imposed by all levels of government.  

She worked at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) in Ontario before being terminated in 2021 for attending anti-lockdown rallies in 2020. She resigned from the College of Nurses of Ontario in January 2023. 

Nagle was found guilty by a court in February for violating Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Reopening Ontario Act (RAO), after she attended and spoke at an anti-lockdown rally on January 22, 2022, in London, Ontario.  

At the end of March, a court ruled against the Crown’s requested $50,000 fine, and instead fined Nagle $7,500, plus a victim surcharge, which brought the total to $9,375, along with two years’ probation.  

The event that led to Nagle being charged had a crowd size of some 150 people, which was over the allowed 10-person limit that was in place at the time. 

Nagle’s current GiveSendGo fundraising page lists regular updates regarding the various charges incurred for speaking out against COVID mandates.  

Probation sentence a tool to discourage ‘speaking out,’ nurse says

Nagle said her two-year probation now means she “[c]annot commit a crime,” and “must keep the peace” and be on “good behavior and not commit the same offense,” which she said would impede her ability to speak freely.  

“It just seems crazy that when this probation is over it will be 2026! That to me just seemed absurd to think this is still looming in the background until then,” she noted in a recent email to her followers. 

“It was difficult to listen to them talk about the possibility of the next thing, and that we can’t have people going against public health measures in a crisis. It would be naive of them to think that we won’t find ourselves in something similar again, so this probation is to stop me from speaking out or going against public health measures should another ‘public health emergency’ find us again,” she added. 

She also thanked everyone for their support in helping her, as well as everyone’s “encouragement, prayers, and financial contributions throughout the years!” 

“You have no idea how much it has meant to me and my family and lifted up my spirits when I thought I could not go on!” she wrote in her email. 

“Thank you for everything! It has meant more to me than words I am able to express!” 

Earlier this year, Nagel was also found guilty of two charges under the RAO for attending as well as organizing another rally in November of 2020. She was fined $20,000. 

Another charge against Nagle for attending an anti-lockdown protest was withdrawn. 

In 2022, she was fined $10,000 for attending an Easter church service during Ontario’s COVID lockdowns in the spring of 2021, at the Aylmer Church of God. She appealed the fine, which was later reduced to $3,750.  

As recently reported by LifeSiteNews, some healthcare workers who refused to get the COVID jabs were successful in getting positive rulings from arbitrators. 

Indeed, two workers from a Toronto area hospital who chose not to get the COVID shots and were then fired from their jobs were wrongfully terminated, an arbitrator ruled. 

Many other recent rulings have gone in favor of those who chose to not get the shots and were fired from their jobs as a result. 

Draconian COVID mandates, including those surrounding the experimental mRNA vaccines, were imposed by both the provincial Ford government as well as the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 

In April 2021, the Ontario provincial government once again increased its COVID measures and declared a state of emergency over rising cases of the virus. It then put in place a complete ban on all outdoor gatherings that, in effect, made peaceful protests illegal in the province. 

COVID vaccine mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children. 

The jabs also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result of this, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them. 

Continue Reading

Trending

X