A month ago John and I ambushed our MLA, Adam Walker, at one of his meet and greets. As he sat down at our table, John asked him why the government was allowing BC Health to run the whole show mandating comprehensive lockdowns, masking, social distancing and vaccination without balancing the needs of the economy and the charter rights and freedoms of Canadians.
His reply, simply put, was that once the health emergency is declared the Public Health Act takes over and politicians step aside and the Medical Health Officials (MHOs) take over. We tried to ask why the BC Health had implemented dubious policies but there was no time for additional questions and Mr. Walker, invited us to make an appointment next week, and turned to his next guests.
A month later we were able to make that appointment. Meanwhile, John and I did some research on the Public Health Act and found that it states the following:
Which, if my interpretation is correct, gives BC Health the go ahead to circumvent elected officials and the legislature itself to impose rapid onset emergency measures. They are all there, quarantine, social distancing, travel restrictions, limiting public gatherings, closing restaurants and gyms. There is even an edict for quarantine facilities. This provincial act appears to allow BC Health officials to trump national laws, including the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without the need for proper legal justification.
It is left to the expertise of the medical health officers to decide what constitutes an emergency, what factors determine the length of the emergency and the criteria for when the emergency eventually ends.
This led to our first question posed to Mr. Walker.
Although John and I see the need for rapid response to an emergent situation there seem to be no checks and balances in the Public Health Act to prevent overreach of the provincial health officer and the medical health officers. BC Health appear able to initiate an emergency, prolong the emergency and even decide when the emergency ends. What are the controls to prevent overreach and prevent long term infringement of the rights of British Columbians?
Part of Mr. Walker’s answer was the media creates checks and balances. Then we all had a good laugh, Adam too. He seemed aware that the media was parroting support for the health mandates without proper journalistic pushback. To give him credit he did agree that there were not adequate controls on overreach and we discussed ways this could be done. John and I naively suggested that after a short period, perhaps two weeks, the emergency measures should be reviewed by the legislature, and reviewed on a continuing basis. Mr.Walker agreed with a need to review but candidly asked us if we had ever seen the legislature in action. He suggested that the legislature is not the place if you want results and thought that that a review would be better conducted by an independent review committee. On further discussion Mr. Walker suggested that a review committee might include BC’s Lt. Governor and a BC Ombudsman.
There was no agreement on mechanism, but the three of us did agree that there should be checks and balances so that decisions were not made solely on the benefits of health concerns but the decisions also considered the costs to society, education, mental health and the economy.
In the Health Act there is the following provision:
A post-incident review should be conducted. John and I see this as a way to hold BC Health accountable for the last two years. If BC Health knows it will be accountable after the fact, they should be more careful creating those facts. We asked Mr Walker these questions:
When will the review take place?
What form will the review take?
Will it be a public event?
Will members of the public be able to attend? Be able to contribute? Ask questions?
Mr. Walker quickly typed into his laptop and found that a COVID-19 Lessons Learned Review had already taken place! The public’s ‘valued input’ was accepted from March 16, 2022 to 4:00 pm April 20, 2022. Even though the notice had been posted in 13 languages from French to Farsi neither John nor I knew about it. Mr. Walker also was unaware. Despite the value put on the input, apparently there was not a lot of input. Why was this review not well known? Did you know about the review?
So a body of unelected medical health officials are in control of the initiation, prolongation, and termination of an emergency, and then these same MHOs get to mark themselves on their performance. According to the website ‘A report with a comprehensive summary of findings will be delivered to government by fall 2022’. Do you think they’ll get an A?
Just this week there have been articles about the 4th and most powerful branch of the US government “the [unelected] administrative bureaucracy that rules this country in a way that bypasses both the legislative and judicial process, and has ruined the checks and balances inherent in the US Constitution”. It would seem that Canada has its own entrenched bureaucracy of its own that is a law unto itself.
Despite missing the Covid review bus, John and I submitted the following questions that we would like answered:
We believe the following questions should be put to the Medical Health Officers responsible for British Columbia’s response to the Covid epidemic:
1. Was there an overreach of the Medical Health Officers (MHOs) during the Covid emergency that illegally breeched the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
2. Was inaccurate information used to determine public health measures?
3. Why has the age stratification of those most affected by Covid not used to allay the fears of younger British Columbians?
4. Why were measures taken that locked down everyone, young and old, for extended times without evaluation of the economic, educational, social and mental risks weighed against the doubtful benefits?
5. Why was there little to no attempt to allay fear by publishing the fact that the average age of Covid related deaths has been the same as normal life span (82 yr)?
5. Why were early treatments ignored, misrepresented and ultimately banned?
6. Why, in violation of the Nuremberg laws, ratified by Canada, was complete and accurate data not published to enable informed consent by people receiving the vaccine?
7. Why were the vaccinated told that the experimental vaccines were safe and effective before adequate testing had been done to establish these as facts.
8 .Why even as recently as April 2022 did Canada’s Health minister describe the vaccines as safe and effective even though it was known that the vaccines were losing effectiveness within weeks and that there were known to be many severe adverse effects including death caused by the vaccines.
9. Why is BC Health continuing to promote the vaccination of children even though Covid presents a negligible risk to under 20s and yet the vaccine causes severe adverse effects ?
According to Health Canada there is at least a 0.011% risk of severe adverse effects with each shot of the mRNA vaccines. Early data provided to the BCCDC indicated 0.056% severe adverse effects, far higher than any other vaccine in use.
10. Why was there no mention of the prophylactic effects of vitamins and minerals despite early evidence that supplements lowered the mortality rate of Covid?
11. Why were the vaccines promoted as safe and effective even though within weeks of their use there were reports of high numbers of severe adverse effects including death?
12. Why were physicians apparently discouraged from reporting adverse effects?
13. Is ‘lessening vaccine hesitancy’ supportable if the MHOs are lying to the public directly or by omission?
14. Why were later waves of Covid described as ‘a pandemic of the unvaccinated’, stigmatizing the unvaccinated despite evidence that the vaccinated were as likely to catch and transmit and die from Covid?
15. Why was the advice of virologists that you ‘never vaccinate going into a pandemic’ ignored despite evidence that leaky vaccines would promote the evolution of new variants?
The meeting with Adam Walker ended well. He actually appeared to be knowledgeable about political realities and the Public Health Act. He was aware there were problems of public confidence in BC Health and realized that the media was not playing their adversarial role as the fourth estate. Most important, he was able to listen to contradictory viewpoints without judgement, denial or bluster, sometimes with a sense of humour and sometimes adding his own helpful insights.
At the end of the meeting Mr. Walker said he would continue to look into and get back to us about:
• the progress of the Covid-19 Lessons Learned Review
• the question about an independent review body
I added a personal concern. I am unable to visit my almost 100 year old ailing mother in her care home because of my vaccine status. Any such discrimination is purely vindictive, according to BCCDC data there is no difference in the rate of infection or transmission of Covid if you are vaccinated or unvaccinated. Adam said he would look into my right to visit. I hope so.
Scico 
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