In this very important testimony retired Lt Colonel Redman, a former officer in the Canadian Armed Forces with a 27 year career in command appointments, and experience working with all levels of government developing emergency management procedures, chronicles the deliberate disregard of a long established plan for government to manage and mitigate a pandemic. He provides important context as to how the government's emergency pandemic procedures, already in-place and well-established, were completely disregarded during the COVID-19 crisis.
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Colin Murphy’s business was active countrywide and required months of preparation and planning to stage big sporting and music events. When the COVID shutdowns happened, inspite of the government providing 75% of the wages, Colin said, “if you have no revenue, you can’t cover anything.” Staff disappeared while the company shut down and people stopped talking to each other. Colin said, “they don’t share the stories in one unit, one big group. And because they don’t share in one big group, they can’t connect the dots.”
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Judy Soroka describes the lack of opportunities to treat or manage her chronic back pain during the COVID lockdowns, the general degeneration of her health, and loss of friends due to her choice to not get vaccinated. In 2009 a doctor gave Judy a new treatment for her back pain and she maintained it for years with exercise but she said all that stopped, "when the lockdowns happened, I could not go to the gym. I could not swim. And I began to have more pain."
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Heather Burgess tells the heartwrenching story of her elderly mother and father during the pandemic. Heather’s father died just prior to the pandemic and her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s dementia, was left without him for the first time in 67 years. The subsequent moves in housing and the lockdowns further confused Heather’s mom who thought she had been kidnapped. It would be 5 months before a family member would be allowed visit her and give her a hug.
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Zoey Jebb had just started a new business in Manitoba and had taken out a large loan to purchase equipment when the pandemic started. They had just had a soft opening for the business before Christmas but Manitoba's restrictions prevented the business from ever getting underway completely. Zoey was left with all the debt and had to put her home up for sale.
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Dr. Gerald Bohemier was 72 and a retired chiropractor when the pandemic started. He has been involved in natural health issues for many years. Dr. Bohemier saw the fear in people about the virus and wanted to attend rallies to have people hear his voice allaying their fears. He was ticketed many times, accumulating $12,000 in tickets. Dr. Bohemier and his wife were harassed at their home by thugs banging on their door while police watched from their cruiser.
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Patrick Allard, the owner of a renovation company in Winnipeg, was deemed essential early in the pandemic. He felt compelled to speak up for others who had not been so lucky and whose lives and livelihoods were impacted by the mandates and lockdowns.
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Ms Ugolini is an independent journalist who covered the NCI, but she appeared as a lay witness to share her family’s economic and personal difficulties due to the lockdowns in Ontario. She is a wife and mother of five, (her youngest was born during COVID).
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Elizabeth Galvin tells the heartbreaking story that led to the death of her 20 year old daughter Danielle. The class of 2020 high school graduates experienced no in-person graduation ceremonies, no dance, no peer camaraderie to mark the end of their schooling after having just spent 3 1/2 months of online school. The frustrations continued for Danielle as she attempted to select a university to attend, only to have her choices limited and subsequently changed by the university at the last minute.
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