[00:00:00]

Shawn Buckley
We just have one more online witness, Jamie Paquin. Jamie, if you can hear me, turn on your camera.

James Paquin
Yep.

Shawn Buckley
We can’t see you yet.

James Paquin
How’s that?

Shawn Buckley
There we go, and my understanding is you are in Japan today.

James Paquin
That’s right. Tokyo. Bright and early.

Shawn Buckley
I’m going to ask you to start by stating your full name and then spelling your first and last name for the record.

James Paquin
James Robert Paquin, J-A-M-E-S-P-A-Q-U-I-N.
Shawn Buckley
And Jamie, do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but truth?

James Paquin
Yes, I do.

Shawn Buckley
Now, you were in Japan when COVID hit.

James Paquin
That’s right.

Shawn Buckley
And you’re there because you run an old Canadian wine business in Japan.

James Paquin
Yeah.

Shawn Buckley
Now, can you tell us how the Canadian COVID measures impacted your business?

James Paquin
For our business, we had a lot of logistics problems. So that’s the first major hurdle: shipping containers were extremely expensive. Then the inflationary measures that were brought in. Also, disruption of supply chains increased the price of the goods significantly. There were bottle shortages, many wineries upped their prices significantly. And at the same time, the yen to the Canadian dollar dropped dramatically. So we probably ended up, in one swoop, in a large container order, losing about $50,000 due to those factors.

Shawn Buckley
How did it affect you personally, the Canadian COVID measures?

James Paquin
The Canadian Charter-violating restrictions on travel made it practically impossible to go back to Canada. I haven’t seen friends or family since 2019. And as you know, none of this was based on science or previous measures to deal with the virus. So facing fines of up to a million dollars or three years in prisons for violating an absurd two-week quarantine while people with vaccines who are positive for COVID could stroll into the country made it really treacherous to think to go home. And even the financial cost of spending weeks doing that, before you could even start a visit, made it impractical.

So these measures have robbed me of three years of friends and family. And they’ve also caused huge rifts in family relationships because of the propaganda on the Canadian side that has really damaged a lot of people.
Shawn Buckley
Can you share some details about that?

James Paquin
Yeah. Very early on— I have an academic background and I also saw that what they were saying didn’t make very much sense. So I started following a lot of the academics who were producing the data, like the infection fatality rate being lower than influenza. I knew the games they were playing with classifying COVID deaths based on PCR tests. And I had looked at the all-cause mortality rates that weren’t increasing in most places. Japan had the lowest death rate in 11 years in 2020, actually.

And then the Japan side: We weren’t subjected to things like bubbles, mandates, travel restrictions, and all of that. We were living— They did implement some sort of disruptions to the restaurant trade, trying to get restaurants not to serve alcohol in the evenings, but these were largely violated. You know, I could go to restaurants packed with people. They closed gyms for about six weeks but, after that, we were all able to go back.

Shawn Buckley
Can I just probe you a little bit more so I can understand the differences with Japan? Are you saying they didn’t do a general lockdown in Japan?

James Paquin
Yep. For about six weeks in March they did things like put tape on play devices at parks. But you could still use the parks, people were just largely ignoring that. They got people to work from home quite a bit.

[00:05:00]

But stores and everything were still open. Like I said, the gym was closed for about six weeks and then reopened. And my wife and I just traveled domestically. We’d go down to Okinawa, the Southern Islands, multiple times. Various smaller jurisdictions would get worked up and they’d try to get people not to visit, but these things were all largely voluntary. And so we were living in a very different sort of world. People weren’t being yanked out of other people’s homes for gatherings and these sorts of insane things. And all the while, anyone that wanted to could just look at the data and look at these shady practices they did with the PCR testing schemes. It was largely a facade.

I was communicating all the data to the friends and family in Canada. But when you’re on a 24/7 psychological operation with the media doing the government’s bidding, they were basically impervious to facts, just like we’ve seen with the arguments about mass formation psychosis and this sort of thing. I could show them the data but it just bounced right off. And eventually you have people just— They’re just—the cognitive dissonance that they face when you present them with this, they just want to shut down and they refuse to discuss it. So there’s a lot of family members I know I’m going to have trouble with when I go back.

Shawn Buckley
So basically, there’s some family relationships that right now are broken.

James Paquin
Yeah, either in that zone of where I know if I bring up the topic of COVID, we’re going to have issues and they’re going to want to retreat from it. And you can tell there’s a silence on that side because they suspect that if they do talk with me, that it’s going to be brought up.

Shawn Buckley
Right, so there were no mandates in Japan.

James Paquin
No, nothing that would be remotely close to what was going on in Canada. And if you look at the world data site, interestingly, there’s continual gradual increases in COVID deaths in the last two years—not in 2020. After each booster round, you see these continual increases in the daily death rates. But in 2020, there was virtually no—like I said, the lowest death rate in 11 years in a very elderly society and that was without having the sort of severe measures that were imposed on Canadians. We weren’t hiding in our basements for a year and a half out of any sort of imposition by the government.

Shawn Buckley
Right.

James Paquin
A lot of masking, a lot of masking. Which is still an obsession in Japan because of the conformism here, even after the government told people a year ago to take them off the outside and then March 11th, they said they’re completely voluntary. I haven’t worn one for ages but my gym used to force us until March 1st. And I would put up a fuss there and demand that they show me some data, but that’s all about conformism in Japan. People will sit in restaurants for hours in the most tight confines. You can’t even find restaurants as densely packed in Canada as they are commonly here. And people will be there with no masks for hours and then they’ll slap one on when they go outside. It’s just social theatre.

Shawn Buckley
Okay. I have no further questions for you, but I’ll ask if the commissioners have any questions for you.

James Paquin
OK, thanks.

Shawn Buckley
And they do not, so Jamie, we’ll let you go. On behalf of the National Citizens Inquiry, thank you so much for sharing with us today.

James Paquin
Yep, thanks for your time.

[00:09:01]

Final Review and Approval: Jodi Bruhn, August 16, 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.

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

Summary

Mr. Paquin runs an “all Canadian wine business” in Japan, and was there when COVID hit. His business endured logistics problems due to disruption in shipping, supply chains, increased cost and inflation measures.

The Canadian COVID measures restricting travel robbed him from seeing family and friends since 2019. Quarantine measures and fines of up to $1,000,000 and 3 years in prison were what he faced.

In 2020 Japan had the lowest death rate in over 10 years. There were no bubbles, mandates or travel restrctions in Japan; only had a lockdown for 6 weeks, but not anywhere near as strict as in Canada. Domestic travel, stores were open, gatherings in restaurants and parks continued. Masks are still worn in Japan, but not mandated by the Government.