[00:00:00]

Konstantinos Merakos
Hello again everyone. I am Konstantinos Merakos from the firm Bergman & Associates. So we have our next witness. This next one is about social media. As you know, there has been a lot of debate between citizens and governments about the COVID measures. And these debates, or battles, have taken place not only in the street-through peaceful demonstrations, through courts of law-but also, and I would even say mainly, on the internet and more specifically, social networks.

I have with me on Zoom Madame Éloïse Boies. Madame Éloïse Boies, can you hear us?

Éloïse Boies
Yes.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. I’ll swear you in, Madame Boies. Do you solemnly swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Say: “I do” or “I do solemnly swear.”

Éloïse Boies
I do.

Konstantinos Merakos
Could you please spell your name?

Éloïse Boies
É-L-O-Ï-S-E B-O-I-E-S.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. Thank you. Are you alone in the room?

Éloïse Boies
Yes.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. So Madame Boies-or if I have your permission, I’ll call you Éloïse. Is that all right?

Éloïse Boies
Yes.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. So Madame Éloïse, I’d like to start by talking a little about you, your current career, your work, and so on.

Éloïse Boies
I’ll be fairly concise. My career right now is paused because I’m on maternity leave for the whole of 2023. I just had my second baby in January. My career is actually in television. I was an actress before the pandemic, then I became increasingly involved in production as a production coordinator. Then I was production manager for a documentary just before I went on maternity leave. So I won’t go into the details of how complicated it can be to work right now in our field, the television industry, which requires a whole lot of- In any case, during the peak of the pandemic, it was really very difficult to work. So that’s it, I was an actress for a long time.

And now I’ve started my YouTube channel-which isn’t just on YouTube, but it’s simpler to say so. I’m very present on the social network platforms and I’ve tried to do journalism as professionally as possible. In fact, I don’t consider myself a journalist but rather I create entertainment. I get people with expertise to give their opinions, whether they’re scientists, lawyers or psychologists. I felt it was important to give a voice to people who weren’t being heard in the mass media, to bring nuance back into the public sphere. And since I’d been in the entertainment business for a long time-as an actress and I’m also a singer, so in the communications field-I knew I had the expertise to do it. My partner also works in the same field-he’s a director and cameraman-so we started out doing something really professional together and it proved to be successful.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. Thank you. You said it was difficult to work in the media industry during the pandemic. Can you share a few details or experiences that explain this difficulty?

Éloïse Boies
Yes. Well in fact, at the peak of the requirements, or mandates as we say in English, the Union des artistes [Artists Union] required three doses of vaccines, even though everywhere else it was two doses for the vaccination passport. In our field, in order to work in front of the camera, you needed three doses. And children-even children who dubbed or worked on sets-needed two doses. I don’t know, as of today, what it is. I just quit, and I don’t work anymore, I don’t audition anymore. Anyway, I quickly became an outcast. So that’s it, I don’t work in front of the camera anymore.

And even behind the cameras on set, masks and all that were required. The working conditions were really difficult. My partner experienced this because he continued to work during the pandemic; it was really peculiar. Suppose the actors had to do a scene where they had to get close and it was less than two meters, well there was someone on the set to time them. During the day, they were allowed just 15 minutes. If it was more than 15 minutes, they couldn’t do the scene: it was postponed to another day. It was totally crazy. It wasn’t about “stopping the spread of a virus” at all. It was just creating endless rules and rules and rules.

[00:05:00]

So working under conditions like that can be extremely anxiety-inducing. And I really had no appetite for it. I was a new mother; I had my daughter in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. So my priorities were my family and continuing to make online content to keep people as informed as possible.

Konstantinos Merakos
Excellent. Before moving on to the theme of the content, you talked about rules, rules, rules. Were there any exemptions to be made in your field, either religious or medical?

Éloïse Boies
No, not to my knowledge, with reservations. But I’m in contact with many people in the industry who don’t dare say publicly that they’re against the mandates, but who do tell me privately because I’m publicly opposed to what we’ve been through. At least I have a lot of reservations about what the government has done. Really well-known actors write me to say- I know one actress who got an exemption to return home in order to avoid getting her second dose because she had extremely serious side effects after her first dose. And she’s one of the very, very few in the country who managed to get an exemption. In the industry, it’s definitely talked about. I don’t think it’s interesting or relevant to bring it up because it’s rumour, but exemptions were exceedingly rare.

Konstantinos Merakos
Yes, and just as an example of practice, I would be bound to ask you if you’ve applied for exemptions. But since your medical records are private, I’m not going to ask questions like that, just as an example to the world, because you didn’t mention your vaccination status. That’s between you and your doctor. So just as an example, to show the world.

Éloïse Boies
Exactly. But if I may just digress for a moment.

Konstantinos Merakos
Yes, go ahead.

Éloïse Boies
Because of my positions, people assumed my vaccination status, but I never mentioned it publicly. So in making assumptions about me, people also assumed my spouse’s vaccination status. Then my spouse found out from people who usually hire him that they hadn’t called him for contracts because, “Ah well, you’re not vaccinated!” In principle, nobody knows that. Nobody knows that. They surely cannot know for certain: they just assumed. So my husband lost some work because of it and me too-because I publicly asserted my reservations. I’ve hosted scientists who criticized the injection. So people assume that we’re not vaccinated; they stop calling and they don’t give us work anymore. And so we’re self-employed.

Konstantinos Merakos
Excellent. Thank you for this. Let’s go with the content of your videos. Tell us briefly: What was the specific content during the pandemic? If you made any videos, what were they about? What were the themes and topics?

Éloïse Boies
I launched my channel by making two videos that had nothing to do with the pandemic- because I come from the entertainment field and already had expertise therein. I observed the presence of paedophilic themes in Hollywood or that sort of thing, where in entertainment we saw the normalization of the hypersexualization of young people, et cetera. Then I decided to do one on media misinformation, which was my first video that had more to do with the pandemic. I started explaining propaganda techniques, things I knew about because I’d done a lot of research on it before. As I say, I come from a background in entertainment. It’s important for me to understand how the means of entertainment are also used to control people to think in a certain way, to create social currents, et cetera, so I made videos on that.

I made a video on censorship because I realized that people around me went about their lives with their little daily routine; people went to work-“commute-work-sleep”-and weren’t really aware of the extent of the rampant censorship, the extent to which so-called “dissident” discourse was being stifled. So I made a video giving examples of the extent to which the media reported news in a very biased way, already telling us how to think about it. It was very pragmatic because I try to make all my videos in a very pragmatic way, and so my video on censorship was censored by YouTube. YouTube completely deleted it. And I have several videos that have been deleted-most recently, one of Louis Fouché that I had just put online privately because I wanted to publish it later, and then YouTube deleted that.

Konstantinos Merakos
Yes, excuse me. You’re ahead of me. That’s exactly the next question. Has the censorship video been censored, as well as other videos you’ve published? So tell us a bit about that. Which videos have been censored and why?

Éloïse Boies
Okay. Well, the censorship video was the first one. Then I made one that went viral called “Why Refuse Vaccination?” It was online for 16 minutes before it was suddenly deleted by YouTube, creating a wave of frustration.

[00:10:00]

And it went even more viral on Facebook; Facebook didn’t delete it. And in my video, I used excerpts from scientists who explained details about vaccination-renowned people like Dr. Zelenko, Dr. Malone, people with international reputations who had the expertise to at least give their opinion-in order to bring a plurality of points of view into the public sphere so we could have a clearer opinion. If you want to receive medical treatment, you should have free and informed information. And that video was censored. And then I’ve just been through it more recently with Alexandra Henrion Caude, a geneticist I hosted last week. I’d reached 40,000 views after two days on Facebook, when Facebook deleted it saying it could cause physical injury.

So there’s been a wave of censorship that is obviously not over yet. Right now, we’re well into 2023, and I am still facing a lot of censorship. But basically, it was YouTube and Facebook. That’s pretty much where I experienced the most censorship.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. And what reasons or justifications did they give you for censoring these videos? What messages did YouTube and Facebook send you after censoring you?

Éloïse Boies
Well, the lamest excuse, if you ask me, is probably algorithms that detect content and keywords. So I don’t think there are actually humans who sit down and watch our videos before handling the request. So generally, they say it goes against YouTube Community Guidelines or Facebook Community Guidelines. I even had a comment deleted on a group that I manage. I’d said, “Thank you so much for this.” I was replying to someone and said, “Thank you for taking the time to reply to me.” It was just like a thank you, yet it was judged as “against.” So you can see that algorithms sometimes get a bit mixed up. But if we appeal, it falls through the cracks.

As for Facebook, I usually don’t get any feedback. And with YouTube, they usually respond in minutes to say, “We’ve reviewed your request but unfortunately, we’re maintaining our position.” And it often comes with sanctions: either they threaten to shut down your channel after three warnings or the algorithms completely stop us from working, which is what happened with my channel. For a year or two, I had no growth at all on YouTube. Now, I’m earning-I don’t want to say my income because I’m not really making any money with “Élo veut savoir” [“Élo wants to know”]-but it’s still my job and I invest a lot in this project. So it’s important for me to reach a lot of people and to have a lot of subscribers. And when there’s censorship like that, it also hurts my ability to have what I do be seen by people and perhaps affects my chances to partner with sponsors, that sort of thing. So I can tell from the developments surrounding my project that it’s actually enormously detrimental to my career.

Konstantinos Merakos
Excellent. Have you received any personal or hateful attacks from other people on the internet for posting these videos, in your private messages, et cetera?

Éloïse Boies
Yes, all the time, that’s for sure. Trolls are everywhere on social networks.

Konstantinos Merakos
And another question, perhaps more important: Have you been discredited or attacked, either by government agents or by the media?

Éloïse Boies
Yes, that’s it; that’s even more disturbing.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. Go on.

Éloïse Boies
Because whether you’re on one side or the other, there’ll be trolls. At some point, you learn to live with the hatred that’s out there. But in fact, the problem arose when I was present in Ottawa during the Freedom Convoy: I went with my phone, I met truckers, I went live. Then it went super-viral because people were hungry for information that was neutral. I was just a normal person interviewing people. My goal wasn’t to tell people how to think, as the mainstream media was doing when reporting the news by demonizing the Convoy. So at that time-it was January 2022-I exploded on Facebook.

It also goes back to what I wanted to say earlier. My other video that went viral was “Why Refuse the Vaccine?” When videos go super-viral on the internet, what I’ve noticed- I had the same thing happen with scientists I interviewed on a talk show I created called “Juste pour savoir” [“Just To Know”]. I had three scientists on: Bernard Massie, who is here today, Patrick Provost, and Christian Linard. They came to explain, to give another point of view, to give nuances contrary to what we always hear in the mass media. That video went extremely viral. I think we were up to half a million views.

[00:15:00]

That’s when the media started attacking me regularly. The first time was the vaccine video. Le Soleil did an article on me to say that ultimately, it was a pack of lies. “Fact-check”: it’s become the most-used word in the last three years. But what I do is more or less ‘fact-checking’ because I give the floor to internationally renowned scientists who have the right to their opinions which are based on facts. And then we have a journalist straight out of journalism school who feels he can tell internationally renowned scientists that they don’t know what they’re talking about. And I experienced the same thing with my video featuring the scientists I’ve just named. This time it was more difficult, because Radio-Canada [CBC] actually did a program on Décrypteurs. Then came an article in which they debunked my video. Excuse the Anglicism but, hey, they “fact-checked” it and “debunked” it.

I was more or less attacked personally. I was just seen as this terrible conspiracy theorist. They didn’t use the word “conspiracy theorist” though because I don’t think anyone could label me that way when I’m just a host who interviews people. But in the article, they took the statements of the scientists I interviewed, one by one. In fact, I think they were the ones who received the tsunami of criticism. But what happened when Radio-Canada-which in the eyes of the general public is seen as a recognized, credible institution-attacked me, well afterwards, I definitely felt the repercussions in my private life.

Konstantinos Merakos
Thank you. So we are talking about censored videos, about the media trying to discredit you. In your opinion, is this an attack on your freedom of expression?

Éloïse Boies
Yes, it is crystal clear.

Konstantinos Merakos
Tell us about freedom of expression.

Éloïse Boies
You want me to talk about it?

Konstantinos Merakos
Yes, feel free to go ahead.

Éloïse Boies
Well, for me, it’s the most important thing. That’s why I’m suing Google and YouTube with my lawyer, William Desrochers, who contacted me during the pandemic. Because we were saying to each other, “This is serious, you know. We have a Charter that’s supposed to protect our freedom of expression.” My comments do not incite hatred nor do they incite anyone to commit a crime. I’m just trying to give a voice to scientists who have something else to say, and I get censored repeatedly. There’s something extremely alarming-

Konstantinos Merakos
Excuse me, I’m just going to interrupt just to warn you not to talk about the court case with your lawyer. You can mention the theme, et cetera, but we won’t go into detail. Politely, I ask you this.

Éloïse Boies
No problem. Anyway, I can’t give you the details; it’s not my expertise.

Konstantinos Merakos
Excellent. My apologies. Please continue.

Éloïse Boies
In fact, the point is quite simply that I think many of us felt that our fundamental rights were really being trampled underfoot during the pandemic. We even found a way of ridiculing a word that should never be ridiculed: namely “freedom.” And, no, it’s not all raving lunatics who say the word “freedom.” It’s so incredible that we’ve reached this point as a society. So for me, the battle is here: I’m a mom now, and we’re in the process of creating a world. And when we bring children into that world, well, of course we ask ourselves what we’re going to leave to that future generation. It involves me in a completely different way in society; to me, this is important.

I’m lucky to have a voice. I already had experience; I wanted to be an entertainer for a long time in my life. I had the opportunity to express myself publicly, to host people, to ask questions. What’s more, as I said, I was also lucky enough to have the technical resources around me. A lot of people put their shoulders to the wheel for free, in the shadows, to make sure that our productions were really aesthetic, beautiful, and professional. But just to see the extent to which people didn’t want their names mentioned in my projects shows just how much fear there was, as Madame Bohémier referred to earlier: that fear of expressing oneself publicly; that self-censorship; that fear of losing one’s job; that fear of being judged; of losing friends. The social climate is really- I never thought I’d go through this in my life. And I intend to continue fighting as peacefully as possible, but as I see it, what we’re going through as a society is extremely serious.

Konstantinos Merakos
Thank you. The next topic is more personal in tone, and you’re free to answer as you feel comfortable. I’d like to talk a little about your family. You have a husband and a son and daughter? You have a young child?

Éloïse Boies
Two children: one boy, one girl.

[00:20:00]

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. Congratulations.

Éloïse Boies
Thank you.

Konstantinos Merakos
So I’d like to talk about your family’s situation, your family’s quality of life. Did you suffer social rejection, ostracism, financial hardship? Tell us a little about what you and your family went through during this very, very difficult period.

Éloïse Boies
Yes, well, we’ve certainly been through the same thing as everyone else, you know. I’m here to talk about it today, but I have the impression- So many people wrote to me to share what they were going through, and so many of us went through it: it was violent. Let’s say for example, Patrick Lagacé’s article calling us toothless-that’s where the term “toothless” began-making totally meaningless associations, like we were less educated if we opposed vaccination. If we went to Ottawa, we were transphobic, misogynistic-really, just denigrating labels that mean absolutely nothing in this context. It has nothing to do with anything but it’s just repeating the rhetoric over and over: denigrating, degrading people who have chosen use their critical spirit to position themselves differently from what those in power want. So yes, we’ve been through it, and in my partner’s case, a lot of friends have stopped talking to us. Some of his friends even took him aside because they were worried about his mental health after seeing the report about me on Radio-Canada-because they thought that he was probably under the influence of a conspiracy theorist-which is extremely hurtful when these are childhood friends you thought you knew well.

And where I personally really experienced- As I said, in February 2022, last year, Radio-Canada wrote the article about me right after-really, immediately after-my videos had gone viral. I had videos in Ottawa that had reached 300,000, 400,000 views. And I also had the video on the scientists, which was rolling at the same time that Radio-Canada ran the program on Décrypteurs, right afterwards. That’s when my daycare called my partner to say that we no longer had a space at that daycare. It’s a family daycare. It’s extremely difficult to find a daycare centre. And we never found out why; she simply said she didn’t like the way I talked to her, even though I’d never had any conflicts with her. So for sure, the timing of events was rather dubious. We’ll never know for sure why we lost our daycare centre in February 2022, but it came at a time when I was very publicly exposed, when social pressure was enormous.

As I said, I never talked about my [vaccination] status, but just as a reminder: those who opposed mandatory vaccinations, those who opposed all of that, couldn’t go to the SAQ [Société des alcools du Québec – provincial liquor store] anymore. If I wanted to go to my pharmacy, for instance, which was in a Walmart, I had to be escorted by a person to ensure I didn’t go anywhere else in the big-box store-because I wasn’t allowed to pick up my little prescription [alone]-and then return home. So the social climate made it okay for people to hate us. Monsieur Legault even talked about depriving us of healthcare if we weren’t vaccinated, and this was picked up by the media. At the time, Denise Bombardier was repeatedly calling for war against the unvaccinated in the Journal de Montréal. I published her articles two or three times; she used that terminology, which is extremely violent, yet can be interpreted more or less positively by the people who receive it. So in my opinion, her freedom of expression should have been stopped right there.

And that’s when it became really alarming. The day we lost our daycare centre, we had to downsize. My husband turned down contracts because we were now working full-time with one child. At the time, my channel was doing really well so I was trying to expand. I was also starting an independent media company called Libre Média. So everything was happening at the same time. My partner stayed home more to allow me to continue working. But to this day, I’m still pretty sure that we lost our daycare centre because some people must have reported that I was in Ottawa, and that Décrypteurs had done a show about me.

Konstantinos Merakos
Thank you. These attacks-or this situation between you and your husband: Did it affect or touch your children’s lives or quality of life, whether at school or elsewhere? What was their reaction to what they saw Mom and Dad go through in the media or through friends, in the community, et cetera?

Éloïse Boies
Well, my daughter was born in 2020, so you could say she was protected because she was so young.

[00:25:00]

And I had my son in January. We were lucky enough to have grandparents around. And I make no secret of it, my parents were extremely present in the early years. I don’t know how it’s possible for those who followed the recommendations to not have their parents’ help. That is why it is always said that it takes a village [to raise a child], especially for young children. I thought it was important for my daughter to see faces; I thought it was important for her language. There are plenty of scientists, plenty of studies around the world, that have come out saying that when children do not see faces, it delays their language. In any case, we know that, but I won’t go into that now.

But for me, putting my daughter through that was out of the question, so I made sure she kept seeing people. Of course, we didn’t go out in public much. I wasn’t really going to the grocery store with her; I didn’t want her to see people wearing masks. It was important for me to protect her from that. So I think we did a good job of protecting our children. We succeeded: my daughter is almost three years old, and she speaks extremely well. And I’m very pleased about that because at the daycare centre, there are actually children who speak very, very little. In fact, I think it’s my daughter who speaks the best. Even four-year-olds have problems with language delay. So you can see it all around us: where the mask mandates have been applied, well, the kids have paid the price.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. Then it’s a good thing they were still too young to understand what was going on around you.

Éloïse Boies
Truly.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay. I’d like to give you a minute to add anything if you want before we go to the commissioners for their questions.

Éloïse Boie
Well, I think we’ve skimmed through the most important part of what I had to say today. We can go straight to questions if you like.

Konstantinos Merakos
Excellent. So Commissioners, it’s your turn. Oh, yes, before I proceed: they told me we need to swear in each individual. So we’ll do it again if it hasn’t already been done. They gave me the go-ahead, so I’ll do it. Do you solemnly swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Please say, “I do.”

Éloïse Boies
I do.

Konstantinos Merakos
So if it’s [already] been done, it’s been done now a second time.

Éloïse Boies
We did it.

Konstantinos Merakos
Okay, excellent. They gave me the signal. And when they give me the signal, then I clearly do it. I’d rather be 100 per cent sure than have a little doubt. So thank you very much for the gesture. We’ll continue with the commissioners and their questions. So go ahead.

Commissioner Massie
Hello, Éloïse. I’d like to thank you very much for your testimonial. I understand that in your current situation it’s not easy to free yourself up for this, so we really appreciate it-especially as your testimony was quite special, as it concerned both your professional and personal life and where the two are a somewhat intertwined. And as circumstances have it, you’ve been at the forefront of many phenomena, including censorship. It’s quite paradoxical to have a video about censorship censored: it’s a lesson in absurdity. And I’d like to ask a question about censorship in social media. I’m not young so I don’t know much about social media. In fact, I’m a bit confused about it. And I find it hard to understand, let’s say, the consistency of censorship assessments where a video is removed, not removed, put back. What’s the mechanism whereby, for example, YouTube and Facebook decide that such and such content is okay or not? How does that work? I find it a bit anarchic.

Éloïse Boies
Yes, it is indeed anarchic and it is totally incoherent, as with absolutely all the rules we’ve had for the last three years. Don’t look for coherence, you won’t find any.

However, what I do understand is that they respect the WHO [World Health Organization] recommendations. This was stated by the CEO of YouTube, who said at the start of the pandemic: “Anything that doesn’t respect WHO recommendations,” for example, taking vitamin C, “will be removed,” so deleted from YouTube. I included it in my video on censorship, by the way.

[00:30:00]

So unlike Facebook, which adds a banner- You can see it on Spotify too now, where it says “COVID-19: for WHO recommendations,” and then there’s a hyperlink you can click on- YouTube, on the other hand, removes it altogether; it’s a much more aggressive approach. But then what I experienced this week was that Facebook became just as aggressive and decided to delete my video about the vaccine with geneticist Alexandra Henrion Caude. However, it’s also hard for me to understand, because Alexandra Henrion Caude has been interviewed on Sud Radio, by André Bercoff, on several occasions. All the interviews are available on YouTube; none are censored. So I can’t quite understand it, it’s really multifaceted. I can’t explain it because I don’t even think they’d be able to give us a logical explanation; there isn’t one.

Commissioner Massie
My other question has to do with all these stories of denigration and mud-slinging by social media, trolls, and institutions. You mentioned in your testimony that you were quite affected by being very vigorously targeted by Radio-Canada with Décrypteurs. Does it bother you on an emotional level to be attacked like that, or are you disturbed because an institution like Radio-Canada, which has an aura of respectability, seems to have lost its moral compass?

Éloïse Boies
Yes. Well actually, I don’t think I’ve been personally affected from an emotional point of view. On the contrary, I expected it, I knew it. It happened on February 19; I remember because it was the last day in Ottawa and the trucks were leaving. Then I woke up in the morning and I had lots and lots and lots of messages. Everyone was saying, “Did you see it? Did you see it? Décrypteurs wrote an article about you.” Then I just went, “I knew it was coming.” Because I was too successful; it’s called character assassination. It was only a matter of time before someone came after me. They had to destroy my credibility to make sure no one was going to take me seriously.

So as you say, Bernard, it’s more disturbing to see an institution-that we also pay for, as taxpayers, with our taxes-that hasn’t represented us, that hasn’t given us a plurality of points of view, even though that was their mandate. And even today, as I said- Well, of course I’m changing, it was Facebook that censored me. But anything that goes against vaccination, no matter how watertight, factual, or evidence-based the argument, if it leads you to doubt about getting that injection, it’s considered disinformation and shouldn’t be broadcast in the mass media. In my view, that’s the big red flag. It’s absolutely abnormal. It’s like listening to only one person in a conflict. It’s totally illogical. Our parents taught us, as brothers and sisters, to at least listen to both points of view before making up our minds about a conflict or taking a stand.

So I can’t understand why we’re only allowed to hear “Oh, the vaccine, it’s wonderful! It’s absolutely fantastic!” But we can’t hear about all the women who’ve lost their menstrual cycles. You can’t hear all the other arguments that might make you doubt, especially as in my case where I wanted to have a second child. So there you have it. Basically, I think that Radio-Canada, like all journalists in the mainstream media-with few exceptions-have failed us. And I think people just wanted to keep their jobs. I know people who worked for Québecor who managed to write articles that gave the floor to pediatricians who had reservations, “In the case of children, is it okay to wear masks to school?” And then he was told, “You’re not writing about the pandemic anymore.” So that’s how it was during the pandemic.

Commissioner Massie
My last question may be a little more personal, but anyway: How does someone like you find the strength to get through this? Not only are you weathering the storm, but it seems like you are even proactive.

Éloïse Boies
Thank you.

Commissioner Massie
What gives you this energy?

Éloïse Boies
Well, we’ve already talked about it together, Bernard, but we certainly have a sense of community. It’s good to feel that we’re not alone. And when I was on the front lines, I was lucky enough to have a lot of people writing me to share their distress-a lot of distress-and to share their appreciation of what I was doing. Because they were telling me that thanks to me, “I feel less crazy because at work, there’s no one who thinks like me,” and so on. So it kind of gave me the feeling that someone was needed in the public sphere who was articulate, who had a command of French.

[00:35:00]

It sounds a bit corny but, for me, it’s important to do it in a professional manner. It takes someone to do it, and I can see that not that many people have had the courage to go to the battle front because some people are afraid of losing their careers. As I was saying, I’m very close to the cultural milieu. Artists have been criticized for not speaking out but I can understand why they didn’t want to, when you see how Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge was treated when he finally spoke publicly. We were getting our heads chopped off.

So to answer your question, Bernard, I think I’ve always had a very strong sense of injustice or justice; I’m very sensitive to injustice. For me, what we are experiencing is profoundly unjust. So given my personality, I couldn’t just sit back knowing that I had the tools to do something in the battle. So I decided to go to the battle front. And also, I enjoy the interviews I do. I enjoy the human contact. It’s intellectually stimulating. I was lucky enough to meet Oliver Stone, who invited me to his home in Los Angeles. So there are people who appreciate the work I do and who appreciate the work of searching for the truth.

Commissioner Massie
Thank you so much for your testimonial, Élo.

Éloïse Boies
Thank you.

Commissioner Massie
Questions?

Konstantinos Merakos
Any other questions? No? So Eloïse, by chance, you’re my last witness. And we end on a good note, an important note for the future. These days, everything happens on social networks, on social media.

Before I say goodbye to this adventure, I’d like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your testimony and your courage, on behalf of the National Citizen Inquiry. So thank you very much and good evening to you and your family.

Éloïse Boies
Thank you for doing what you are doing too. Have a nice evening.

[00:37:06]

Final Review and Approval: Erin Thiessen, November 18, 2023.

The evidence offered in this transcript is a true and faithful record of witness testimony given during the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) hearings. The transcript was prepared by members of a team of volunteers using an “intelligent verbatim” transcription method, and further translated from the original French.

For further information on the transcription process, method, and team, see the NCI website: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/about-these-translations/

Summary

Elle subit une forte censure sur sa plateforme de médias sociaux en raison des sujets qu’elle aborde concernant les mandats de lutte contre la pandémie, les politiques gouvernementales et les vaccins. Elle parle du “gaslighting” et de la discrimination dont elle a fait l’objet en raison de ses prises de position publiques.