Shawn Buckley
Hello. Welcome back to the National Citizens Inquiry. My name is Shawn Buckley. I’m lead counsel for the inquiry. I’m very pleased to be calling our next witness, Jamie Sale. And I’ll introduce Jamie, but for most of you, I’m just going to be telling you what you already know. Jamie, can you hear me?

Jamie Sale
I can hear you perfectly, Shawn.

Shawn Buckley
And thank you for attending today. We’ll start. I need to swear you in. So do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Jamie Sale (Speaker B)
I do.

Shawn Buckley (Speaker A)
And will you please state your full name for the record? Spelling your first name and spelling your last name.

Jamie Sale
Jamie Sale. J-A-M-I-E S-A-L-E

Shawn Buckley
Now, Jamie, you have two children. You have a son named Jesse who is 16, and a daughter, Samantha, who is now 10.

Jamie Sale
Correct, yeah.

Shawn Buckley
And for those of you—I mean, it might be the odd person that, you know, was in a coma for the last 20 years, but you are a very well-known Canadian. In 2001, as a figure skater, you became the world champion.

Jamie Sale
That is correct.

Shawn Buckley
And then in 2002, you got a gold medal in the Olympics for the pairs figure skating.

Jamie Sale
That is correct.

Shawn Buckley
And so, basically, you became a darling of Canada. And I just say that so that we can contrast what your experience was recently. But it’s fair to say that you became a celebrity and that basically you were welcome and known wherever you went.

Jamie Sale
Very much so. It was like you said, Shawn, I was basically called Canada’s sweetheart in figure skating. And, you know, I think it’s the ponytail and just the look, but anyway, it’s what it was.

Shawn Buckley
It’s just interesting how the people you come across—and I’ve known you for some time now—but I remember back in 2002, you know, being on the edge of my seat watching the Olympics, because Canada had not won a gold forever. And everyone thought that this was the year, 2002, that it could happen. And it did happen. So, I mean, I remember that. And now you’re in the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame. And I want you to share with us your COVID experience. So, maybe starting at the very beginning.

Jamie Sale
Okay. I hope everybody’s got a lot of time. I will do my best, actually, to insert as much of the details as I can in a short amount of time. It was a very interesting experience for me. I would say the first eight months or so of COVID—it started in March, and towards the end of March—like everybody else, I was following all the rules. We had to stay home. My friends and I would text and go, “Oh, you know, it’s that time of the day. Let’s have a drink.” And we were just kind of making fun and trying to find ways to get through it.

After the 10th day, we’ve watched all the movies, we’ve had enough phone calls, we’ve connected online. We’re just kind of getting antsy. And then we were allowed to kind of go back to somewhat normal, but everybody was still wearing masks out and about. And again, I was just following what we were being told to do for quite a while, until, I would say, the summer of 2020. And we went back to what we thought was fairly normal. Everyone was kind of getting excited because it seemed to be calming down a little bit.

At least here in Edmonton, there were a lot of people that were still paranoid, but I wasn’t. I knew I was healthy and my kids were healthy. But I was married to a CNN watcher, and he was very much glued to the TV. And I could see right away at that point, even by the fall, the summer/fall, that we were in a “casedemic.” It was just constant bombardment of the cases, the cases that were coming through on the app that we could check. And him and his family and even some friends were constantly going, “Oh, there’s 500 more cases now.” So it just became again through the fall and into the winter, just this constant fear, this propaganda push of just, “Oh, oh, here it comes again. Here’s another wave of it.”

And I would say, Shawn, it was by definitely into the winter where I was starting to see that something was really not right, and I was getting annoyed with the fact that we were getting locked down again. And again, I apologize. I don’t remember specific dates and times, but I just remember it was winter, because we were told that we could only have so many people in our houses. You know, if we were going to have three cars parked in our driveway, the police would be called. I mean, it was, as we all remember, it was crazy. It was insanity. And for what? We were healthy.

And at this point, I forgot to tell you this before when we had had our initial conversation, that I was one of those people that actually went and did the swab, and the throat was the first one I had because I was travelling to BC that summer and I wanted to make sure, you know, I didn’t have COVID. And then I did two more after that, again, just because I didn’t want to put anybody at risk. And those were up by my nostril.

And I remember after leaving the third one going, “This is crazy. Like, I’m healthy. I don’t feel sick, and I’m testing for something I don’t even have.” And then I thought, “Well, something else is really weird about this. I’m testing today. It’s a Monday,” let’s say, “and I don’t get my results till Friday. So what if between Monday and Friday, I actually contract COVID, but my test comes back that I’m negative?” Like, I just started to see that this didn’t make sense.

And so that Christmas, I had to sneak my mom and her husband around to the back of my house to the walk-out basement to give them a hug, because I was scared that anybody, if my neighbours or anybody would see me having them through the front door,
I would get into trouble. And, you know, I’m a high profile person. I’m the perfect person to rat out, right? So I was paranoid.

And then it was, I would say January after New Year’s, I had a girlfriend that lives in Guelph, that she was starting to put things in my ear very gently because she knew, as we all have experienced when we start sharing information, that she had to be very careful and gentle with me. But I was actually more awake than she thought, and I even thought. And so she shared a graph with me about Sweden. And Sweden hadn’t followed a lot of the guidelines that we were, and mandates. And her graph was showing that Sweden was actually doing really, really well.

And I said, “Well, mine is showing that they’re doing terrible. Where did you get your graph?” And she said, “Not on Google.” I was like, “What? Where are you getting your information from?” She said, “I’m going to tell you that—” you know, she informed me about the media and all these mainstream sites that we get our information from are basically fudging numbers. They’re lying to us.

And it just clicked. Like, I just went, “I knew it.” And so I said, “Send me more information.” And so she did. And, like a lot of us, again, drinking through a fire hose, I was thirsty for it. I just said, “Send me more.” And I was getting constantly, not just from her at that point, information sent to me about what this was that we were living through.

And I was also going on certain sites, whether it was following somebody on Instagram or Twitter or whatever, and I would see other people that would comment that maybe I knew from my past. I was really trying to connect with people that were also seeing it. I’ll never forget that part of it, because I felt so good when I would see a familiar face on a site that was also seeing what we were now seeing, you know, seeing what it was.

And so that was very helpful, because what I was actually trying to do with all this information I was being fed was share it with my family and my network: my best friend group, and even just some friends around Edmonton, around Canada. I was just trying to share. Like, I’m a very passionate person. If anybody watching this knows me, I’m an extreme empath, and I will definitely get emotional during this testimony. But I’m very passionate about helping people, and I just wanted people to see.

And, you know, they humoured me in the beginning because it was like, “Oh, you know, thanks for sharing.” But I often would hear things like, “I don’t have time to watch that. That’s a long video,” or that’s a long interview, or whatever it was. But they had time to go on social media, or they had time to go for drinks, or they had time to watch a hockey game, but they didn’t have time to look into really what was being sent to them. Or I would get “Jamie look at the site that this is coming from,” and I know that most people listening right now are nodding, going, “Yep.” It was everything you sent people: If it wasn’t on mainstream, it was false information, it was a conspiracy, it was wrong, I was down a dark path.

And that’s basically what was said to me very shortly after I was sharing all this information with my husband at the time, my family, my ex-husband, David, who’s my son’s father. I was sharing with everybody, because I knew the shots were coming at that point. And actually, some of my family had already gotten them—the older members of my family. But our age group, it was our time. And I was like, “Please, you guys, please do your due diligence. Look into this. Research.” And everybody was like, “Aw, I just want to get this and move on.” And nobody wanted to listen to me.

And, you know, in hindsight, Shawn, I definitely wish I would have been calmer. I wasn’t irate, but I was really, like, panicking. And the worst part for me was my best friend group told me that—well, this isn’t the worst part; sorry, that’s coming after—but my best friend group ended up telling me that I couldn’t be around them anymore because I was a risk to be around if I wasn’t going to get the jab.

And I remember at that point, I was in such discernment that this was so wrong that I was holding this, like, strength in me going, “That’s fine. You guys go and do it.” And I was putting on a brave face, like it’s not bothering me.

And then my husband actually had taken it without telling me. And I had told him that I wanted him to tell me if he was going to get it. And he was at that time doing the playoffs for the NHL. And I just told him, I said, “Please don’t get this.” Like, our marriage was not great, and I don’t need to let everybody know about my personal stuff, but it wasn’t just this that ended my marriage, but it was definitely the catalyst. And he came home and told me that he had already gotten it. And so I felt incredibly betrayed because I wasn’t told that he was going to get it.

And I said, “I can’t be in a relationship where there’s no communication or truth. And I was also incredibly concerned about being around vaccinated people or being intimate because of shedding. And that was everywhere. And I tried even sharing all of this with him and my family, but everyone kept sending me the opposite information, and basically validating that I’ve lost it and I’m going crazy.

Shawn Buckley
And can I just back you up? Prior to the vaccine coming up, my understanding is that you came to have some concerns about masking and also that your son was having difficulty with masking. And I don’t want us to skip over that. So I’m wondering if you can share with us what happened there.

Jamie Sale
Thank you, Shawn. That was major because it actually caused a big issue within my own family, my ex-husband and my current husband at the time, my son. The kids were back in school at this point. They did online for a bit, and they went back. And my son was in grade eight at this time, I believe. And again, I apologize if I have the dates wrong or the details wrong, but he was really struggling with this masking situation.

They couldn’t take them off. They had to be in cohorts at school. So he only was allowed to be around certain kids outside. Like, outside in what isn’t maybe fresh air, but he’s outside. And he had to be with a certain, I think it was five to six kids, and they had to wear their masks outside. And he started to have panic attacks, and he would call me and say, “Mom, I can’t breathe. I’m really struggling.” And of course, you know, there was more to it.

I think it was just these children were really feeling—I think intuitively, they knew this wasn’t right. But they felt suffocated. And even without the masks, they couldn’t leave their classrooms like they usually did, to get up and walk to the next classroom to go to music class or to go to math class. They had to stay in their same desk all day—he didn’t have any windows in his room—and masked. And it was like, you can’t even look over your shoulder to talk to anybody. Like, he had to stay forward. The mandates in the schools were insane.

And so I was getting calls, and unfortunately for me, I wasn’t being supported by either dad. I was being told, by picking him up from school or bringing him home— I was studying neuroscience at the time. I really knew that this was the right thing to do: to pick him up, bring him home, calm his nervous system, and I had zero support. I was told that I was enabling him. I was basically raising a wimp if I was going to continue doing this. And not exactly those words, but I was just not supported at all.

And my son at night would cry and tell me he didn’t want to live—like, night after night after night. And I didn’t know what was going on at school. Like, is he being bullied? What’s happening? My daughter, she’s five and a half years younger than him. And she was like, “Why can’t you come lay with me, mom?” And I just said, “I’m really sorry, Sam, but your brother is really, really struggling. He’s really, really sad.” And her dad was away a lot, so I was a single mom a lot that way.

And Jesse was mostly with me at that time. And I just remember feeling like, “God help us. Like, what am I gonna do?” I don’t have any support. My family thinks I’m going crazy. And my husband just got vaccinated. Nobody’s seeing this. And I was just so helpless, I didn’t know what to do. And I lost my best friend group, so now we’re back to that.

And then my son went into grade nine, and he switched schools, and he was in a golf program. And again, I don’t remember the exact date, but there was some mention that he was maybe looking at getting the vaccine. And I said, “Please don’t. Please don’t, Jesse. Don’t do this.” You know, he was sending me videos on Instagram of kids that were dying. Like, not kids, but teenagers and 20 year-olds, and he would make comments like, “Well, sorry for them. You know, they should know better.”

And so I was like, “Okay, he’s with me, he’s with me. I’ve got this. You know, I’m going to—” I’d also emailed his principal, which was a new school principle for him, and I sent her all the information on our rights as humans: “Here are God given rights.” And she actually emailed me back and said, I’d like to talk to you because I appreciate how you approached this. Your son will not be the only one not wearing a mask, because I said, “He will not be wearing a mask.” And I was very polite in my email, and she really appreciated it.

And his dad called me and said, “What an embarrassment. This is his first year at the school and you’re making a fool of yourself and you’re embarrassing our son.” And I’m like, Dave, how can you not see this? But he would say things to me like, “Why is he only like that at your house?” And I would say, “Because he feels safe with me and can tell me he’s scared.” And so I thought, you know, I’m doing the right thing as a mom. I’m protecting him from not only just wearing a mask, but he’s with me in the vaccine situation.

And then it wasn’t long after he started school that he texted me and he said, “Mom, I’m going to get it.” And I just about died. And because he couldn’t, he called his dad. He was golfing with the program and they were going into the clubhouse at this time, and he couldn’t go in because he didn’t have a vax pass—didn’t have the initial paper ones. And he called his dad crying and he felt embarrassed. And I don’t blame him.

And I was told he did his due diligence. He’s talked to two doctors, and they were sports doctors here in Edmonton. I think you can figure out who that might have been, considering who David works for. And he said, “They said it was safe for him to take. And I was just sobbing on the phone. I’m like, “Please.” I was pleading and begging, “Please, no.” I’m watching all these young people die and get very sick and myocarditis and all these health problems, and I was sick.

And my poor daughter was watching me literally in fetal positions daily for weeks because I not only lost my son to the whole propaganda crap, but he stopped talking to me for a year and two months because he was listening to his dad and his wife and everyone in their community telling him that I’ve lost it and it’s best to stay away from me. And so I couldn’t even communicate with him. I didn’t know if he was okay.

And six months later, I get a phone call from his school that he missed his class. And this is, like, anyone that’s awake and knows what these shots are doing, it’s like I was kind of waiting for a day where I got a phone call that he was in the hospital. So when I got this call that he’d missed school, I was just like this huge rush of fear went through me. “Oh, my gosh.” So I reached out to him again, hoping he would at least tell me what’s going on. And he still wasn’t talking to me.

And I feel like it was around April the following year, because he got his shots in October and November. And he goes, “Mom,” he took a picture and he sent it to me. And he goes, “I went to the dermatologist.” And it was this kind of a c position or like a line of rash on his side. And he said, “I just went to the dermatologist to get this checked, and it’s sand. They said it was sand bug bites. It’s nothing. But my appointment was during school time.” And I sent the picture to three doctors that are awake, and he said, “That’s a version of shingles.” And I said, “I knew it.” Like, shame on these doctors.

And I tried to tell him, “You know, I need to detox you, Jesse. I need to detox you. Please let me help you.” And then, of course, I’m crazy. “Mom, I don’t have shingles. I’m not 50 years old.” Because his dad was telling him what to say to me. And I said, “This is what the doctors are seeing now, buddy, you know.” I was trying not to scare him, but I said, “I can help. I can help you.” I didn’t hear from him again until Christmas. And then I think he just got tired of not having me in his life.

But I never gave up. I always tried to message him and tell him I love him. You know, it’s not his fault. I don’t have any diagnosis from any doctors, but being in my life now, I have been able to detox him, but he definitely has a compromised immune system. We went to Mexico this year, and his whole upper lip just imploded with cold sores. And I know people go, “People get cold sores all the time.” But my son has never had a cold sore in his life. So it’s just I’m seeing it, and it’s hard.

There’s just people that know this and listening to the story before me, I’m just sitting here crying because I go, “We know what this does.” And that’s my baby, and I tried. He knew this was wrong. But his dad said to me, “He can’t get into the Oilers arena, Jamie. He can’t get on an airplane. He can’t go see my parents.” But he saw his parents the year before without a shot.

And I said, “Is that not a red flag, that we can’t live in society? He can’t go to a restaurant. He can’t get into the clubhouses for golf.” And I just said, “Is that not a red flag? David, you and I both are athletes. We know,” because I told him, “the media is lying. They’re lying.” And I sent him things to watch, and he’d sit there and go, “Yeah. Like, yeah, I see this,” or whatever. But then he stopped even caring about all that. Then he told me all that—that he can’t do anything, he can’t live, he can’t go into the Oiler’s arena.

And I just remember thinking, “Why is that not a red flag to you? We were lied about most of our career, like, and now you’re gonna believe the media?” “Well, if we can’t believe the media, who can we believe?” he said. And I said, “I’m sending you things, and you’re going to be called crazy if you even watch it, or you start believing it but,” I said, “this is what we’re living.” And he took my son without my consent. And I go, “How is this even doable?” I have a separation agreement that says you have to agree on health, religion, and school. What is the point of having an agreement if the other parent can just take your kid?

Well, Shawn, I realized. I called a lawyer, and I said, “What do I do?” And he said, “Our amazing government had lowered the age to a mature minor to a 14 years-old.” They can’t vote, they can’t drink, they can’t drive, but they can decide whether they want an experimental gene therapy injected into their body, okay. He said, “You don’t have a case, Jamie, because Jesse was 14.” I was like, “What?” And he wanted to get it. He wanted to live in society. He wanted to function like a normal 14 year-old.

Shawn Buckley
Yeah. Imagine, because you think of the age, right? Teenagers wanting to fit in. And he was in a golf program at school, so you can understand that. But I just want to clarify: So because Jesse was living with you. Like, he would go and visit his father, but wasn’t he primarily residing with you, and then all of a sudden for 14 months he’s with his father and not seeing you at all?

Jamie Sale
Yes. We don’t have an actual agreement with Jesse. It was just wherever he wanted to be, and it worked out. Before he went to the sports school, he was with me, I would say 70% of the time and with his dad 30%—maybe 60/40 [per cent]. It depended on certain times of the year. I would say even 60/40 for most the time. And then when he moved schools, his dad actually lives near the sports school so that’s where I would say the percentage switched. I was getting him 40%, maybe even 30%. And because his dad lived closer, it was a long drive, it was more convenient.

But I definitely felt once the shots came up for the kids, there was massive coercion. And it wasn’t even because Dave— That’s the hard part for me. Dave didn’t believe COVID was even a thing. He just said, this is garbage. I don’t believe this. We’re fine. Jesse’s going to be totally fine. If anything, in the beginning, I was upset with him because, you know, we can only be around certain numbers of people throughout that summer also. And I said, “You’re seeing too many people. You’re putting him at risk.”

And then he’s coming to our house, because Craig was all upset that they weren’t really treating these mandates very seriously. And Dave’s like, “Jesse’s fine. He’s going to be fine, Jamie.” And I was like, “Okay.” So he was the first person I called when I woke up to everything. And I said, “I’m so sorry for being upset with you for living and doing what you really should be doing,” right, “and ignoring all of this.” And he was like, “Yeah, no worries.” So when the shots came, it wasn’t even that he believed that he needed them, it was,”We’re getting them to live in society.”

But I was screaming from the rooftops. And even my son knew that these were dangerous. It wasn’t even like it was rare. We were seeing people already; they were like the death shots. People were dropping dead, like hours after, or even a month after, or two weeks later. There were kids, you know, between 14—because Jesse held out as long as he could at his age group—they were like his age to in their mid-twenties that were in the hospitals, myocarditis. We all know what we’ve seen, right? So he was aware of this, and yet these two doctors, sports doctors, told him it was safe. So I, yeah.

Shawn Buckley
I’ll just move on to another part of your family. So Jesse’s father, David, but you’re married to Craig at the time. What happened to your marriage? Because you already told us that things started to get more tense with your position on the vaccine and COVID issues.

Jamie Sale
Yeah, and he said things to me like, “You’re saying they’re coming after us.” I said, “Yes.” “You’re saying that they’re coming after our kids.” I said “Yes.” “You’re saying they’re coming after our house.” I said, “Yes.” And he said, “That’s all I need to hear. Like, you’ve lost it. You’re crazy.” Like, we were all called all these things: “You’re following conspiracy things. You’re down a very dark path, Jamie, with no good ending.” And I was just like, I just remember feeling numb.

No one in my world—my current family, friends, network—nobody was wanting to hear it anymore. So I said to him, “If you get the shot, I’m done.” And so our marriage was over. He came home from playoffs, and that was the beginning of him working on my family. You know, he was obviously very sad and scared for me, because he genuinely thought I was down a dark path, but it was: “She’s left. Our marriage is over because I got vaccinated.” And that’s my personal stuff, that of course I’m like, “That’s not why. That’s not the only reason.” It was just kind of the nail in the coffin for me. But that was the beginning of just everybody walking out of my life saying that I couldn’t be around them anymore because I wasn’t vaccinated. I’m a risk to be around.

My daughter was sick once a month. Once the school year started again, she was sick once a month. I was taking her for live blood analysis to figure out what was wrong, because at this point, I don’t trust the medical system. I don’t want her doing any blood work. I don’t want her seeing a doctor. So I find out, you know, she’s got some minor issues, but I got her on some really great supplements. But her dad would constantly tell me, “If you just got her vaccinated, she wouldn’t be so sick.” And then I would say things back, “Have you thought about the fact that you’re shedding on her?” And that didn’t help. It was just a constant war. It was a constant war.

I was constantly told that I was so sad. I got emails from family members saying that, you know, ridiculous things, that I was down a dark path, but also that I was going to be murdered. Psychics were saying things that, you know, that I’m very ill. So I had all these family members that were crying behind my back and scheming how they were going to save me, because they cared about me.

Shawn Buckley
So you basically lost your friends, you lost your family, like basically everyone in your family except your daughter. But you came to start speaking out and meeting different people. Can you tell me about that part of the experience?

Jamie Sale
Yeah, it was when the trucker convoy— I didn’t speak out the initial first year I was awake. I would say even 10 months, 12, 11 months I was waking up to everything. I got very emotionally and even physically at times ill, being awake to things, going down all the rabbit holes. And so I dove into healing. I was working with, I don’t even know anymore, I think at least twelve different types of healing modalities I was trying and working with. And when I saw the convoy, at that point I remember like everybody else in Canada just thinking, “This is—” Like, I felt alone. I felt that we were down a road that we just couldn’t do anything. I felt helpless and like giving up a lot of days. Yeah.

And then I saw the convoy and I was like, “Oh my gosh.” And I felt so guided to put it on social media, that I went to the local convoy to support them. And I was so proud. And I immediately got in trouble from my daughter’s dad, Craig. How dare you involve her in your conspiracies. You’re supporting a terrorist group. I got absolutely annihilated on social media. I posted just photos of how many people. I was showing videos and taking snapshots of how many people and trucks and signs there were at the local rally, never mind the convoy and how long that one off to Ottawa was.

And we drove all the way around the Anthony Henday, and we actually closed it, that’s how many we were. Like, we were, you know, the front of it connected to the back of it. And I just remember crying in joy and relief, even, just feeling like, “Okay, there’s more of us.” You know, it was like so exciting. And then within hours I was just getting absolutely pummelled on social media: “You should be ashamed of yourself, Jamie. You’re an embarrassment to Canada. You should have all your medals stripped of you. I can’t believe that I thought you were this Canada’s sweetheart, and you were this, and you’re this, and you’re this, but you’re not that at all. You’re a fraud. You’re crazy.” I was called everything.

And then shortly after that, Shawn, I started getting it from local radio stations. People would call in and say, “I can verify she’s crazy. She told her son this. She told people this. She’s told this.” And so then I was getting local radio stations, I was getting national papers and even talk shows, because I have the proof of all of this. Toronto Star, National—like all these national papers and bloggers and people that obviously are paid on mainstream media, they’re paid to do this, just came at me. And it didn’t really slow down.

Shawn Buckley
Can I just, stop for a sec? Because, so I mean, you are Canada’s darling. You’re a celebrity. Everyone knows who you are, wherever you go. And all of a sudden, you’re basically sharing your joy about the truckers convoy, and you start sharing basically your view on other things and you’re being totally annihilated in the media. But are any of the Toronto Star and the radio stations—I mean, these are mainstream media outlets. Surely the reporters are calling you and asking, “Well, you’re saying this. Can you verify?” What was that dialogue with the reporters so that there would be fair reporting?

Jamie Sale
I never had any reporters that reached out to me to talk to me. Not one of them came to me and said— Well, they did later on. They came to a couple events that I was hosting and they wanted to interview me. But at that point, I was in kind of a protection mode of: “I know that if I do this interview with this person from the Toronto Star, which is a complete joke of a paper, that they’re going to twist what I say anyway.” So I didn’t, actually. I declined these. I had my group, Canadians for Truth, I had them write me a letter to send to anybody that was going to ask me to do an actual interview and why I wasn’t doing it, because I didn’t trust them.

Shawn Buckley
Can I just clarify? But earlier on, when they’re just going out of their way to basically assassinate your character, they’re not calling you then.

Jame Sale
Nothing.

Shawn Buckley
So they’re running hit pieces on you without actually speaking to you to see what you’re actually saying and why you’re saying it.

Jamie Sale
Correct. I was not approached by anyone. I had hit pieces out on me that were saying things, like actual lies, too. They were saying, “Well, no wonder she’s lost custody of her children.” Things were being—you know, it was a perfect thing for them to turn me into this conspiracy theorist, because my whole career I never spoke out about anything. I never talked about politics. I never had an opinion about anything as far as publicly. You know, of course, with my family and friends, maybe.

So the fact that I’m actually speaking quite loudly on social media months into this whole after the convoy happened, and I’m sharing more and more info, and I’m calling the media out, too, at this time, they just had a heyday with me. So it was like, they had fun just making me out to—yeah, as if I just woke up one day, Shawn, and I went crazy. And so no, there was no fair, “Hey, Jamie, we’d like to have you on our talk show,” or, “We’d like to interview you for this paper.” Nothing. And you’ll notice that there are no quotes. The only quotes that they used were from my social media pages. That’s all that they were getting comments from. “And she says this and she says that,” but they didn’t actually talk to me.

Shawn Buckley
Now, my understanding is you’ve lost a fair number of social media accounts. So can you tell us about that?

Jamie Sale
I still am. And I was taken down on Twitter. My Twitter account went from 12,000 followers before I was speaking out to 111,000 within six-seven months. And that was taken down before this whole takeover, with Elon Musk taking over. I was taken down and I had to start over. Like many people, Facebook, I was taken down for 30 days. My Instagram account was hacked, and I was taken down on there. I’ve had to start over there. And I’ve recently, again, been hacked on Twitter. So I am done on Twitter now. I can’t even get on to log out to report it. I can’t do anything. I am actually done.

Shawn Buckley
And this is a Twitter account because you got involved with Canadians for Truth, and basically would be regularly interviewing people and putting things out, and actually working the social media channels. But recently, that channel disappeared for you.

Jamie Sale
Correct. I had my own personal name for a while, which got taken down, and then I created the Jamie Soleil CFT, which was Canadians for Truth. But then I switched it because I’m no longer with Canadians for Truth. And I switched it to just Jamie R. Soleil, and that’s the one recently that was hacked and taken down. Basically, I can’t get on at all.

Shawn Buckley
Before I turn you over to the commissioners, I’m just going to ask a couple of questions. And the first one is, what lessons did you learn through this?

Jamie Sale
To get real with God. It was all I had. I just remember praying through my healing to show me the way through this, God. And I’m not religious. It’s not about religion for me. It was about really developing a strong relationship with our creator. And I wasn’t like this before, and not that I was atheist, I just didn’t really didn’t go to church. I knew that, you know, it was important. I was a very spiritual person, but I just remember praying every night, please protect my son. Please show me the way through this.

And I actually got many gifts. I had an incredible tribe show up to support me. I had lots of Canadians that reached out to me, which I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you to everybody that reached out to me and sent me direct messages over the last three years. It meant a lot. You have no idea. I needed it. And my tribe, my local tribe, my Canadian tribe, even global tribe that I’m now friends with, and I had Canadians for Truth that gave me a bigger platform. I’m so grateful that I was able to work with them for at least a year and a half and do really great things.

But I am a very positive person, and I’ve always known that even in the hardest times we have to look for the gift. It might not be obvious. You might not even really believe at that moment that there is a gift. But I’ve been trained to always look, at least tell myself that I know there is one in this. And through prayer, I was receiving a lot of gifts. And so I just tell people, now, “Have faith. Believe. You know, we’re in a war. We are in a psychological war, and this is absolutely horrifying. But to not be fearful and to live with faith and know that, you know, we are incredible beings. And the more we get together, the more we stand together, the stronger we are. And that’s what we’re seeing, even in the freedom community, is that we’re winning. And love wins and God wins.”

Shawn Buckley
Thank you, Jamie. I’ll pass you over to the commissioners and ask them if they have any questions for you. And the commissioners don’t have any questions for you. Jamie, on behalf of the National Citizens Inquiry, I sincerely thank you for coming and testifying this afternoon.

Jamie Sale
Thank you for the opportunity.

Credentials

Jamie Sale is a celebrated Canadian figure skater who achieved great success and fame in the early 2000s. In 2001, she became the world champion in pairs figure skating. Her crowning achievement came in 2002 when she won the gold medal in pairs figure skating at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. This victory was especially meaningful as it ended a long gold medal drought for Canada in figure skating. Sale’s talent, dedication and charismatic personality endeared her to Canadians, earning her the nickname “Canada’s sweetheart”. She became a national celebrity, widely recognized and welcomed wherever she went. Sale was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in recognition of her outstanding athletic achievements representing Canada.

Summary

Jamie Sale testifies about her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, describing how she initially followed all the rules and restrictions but began to question things by late 2020. She shares how she started researching alternative information sources and became concerned about vaccine safety, especially for her teenage son. Sale recounts losing relationships with family members, friends, and even her husband as she spoke out against vaccines and mandates. She describes the pain of her son getting vaccinated against her wishes and not speaking to her for over a year. Sale talks about publicly supporting the trucker convoy on social media and subsequently facing intense backlash and criticism in the media. She shares how she lost access to social media accounts and faced what she felt were unfair hit pieces written about her without journalists contacting her directly. Throughout her testimony, Sale emphasizes the emotional toll of feeling isolated in her views and losing important relationships. She concludes by discussing how she found strength through faith and connecting with like-minded people in the “freedom community”.