Citizen-led inquiry examines COVID-19 public health response to ensure harms are never repeated
Spanning across the country over several weeks, the National Citizens Inquiry will hear compelling testimonies from every-day Canadians harmed by COVID-19 related public health measures and give a voice to slandered, censored experts.
A citizen-led, citizen-funded inquiry into Canada’s COVID response kicked off last week in Nova Scotia.
The National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) will travel across Canada in the coming weeks to hear testimonies from Canadians who were affected by pandemic-related public health measures, and hear from experts who were silenced for expressing concerns with how the pandemic was being handled.
“These interventions into Canadians’ lives, our families, businesses, and communities were, and to great extent remain, significant. In particular, these interventions impacted the physical and mental health, civil liberties and fundamental freedoms, jobs and livelihoods, and overall social and economic wellbeing of nearly all Canadians,” the website reads.
The hearings began in Truro, Nova Scotia, last week with three-full days of trial spanning from March 16-18.
Spokeswoman for the NCI, Michelle Leduc Catlin, shared how the commissioners for the inquiry are chosen and how important it is for Canadians to get involved.
“The idea was to find people – citizens of Canada – who we trust to give an honest, objective opinion,” said Catlin. “Trustworthiness and credibility,” were key credentials of the commissioners, she details.
“It’s much like a public inquiry where commissioners are listening to testimony under oath,” she said. “They will submit a report for recommendations at the end of all of this.”
This is not akin to the Public Order Emergencies Commission, which was “the government inspecting the government,” highlights Catlin. “We are doing something that has ever been done before. This is a historic moment and a historic process.”
“This is an opportunity for us to exercise our democratic muscles by participating.”
Noting that 3 out of 4 Canadians were negatively affected by government sanctioned COVID policies, Catlin says that the inquiry will look into the broad range of social, financial, physical, emotional, and mental health impacts.
A disturbing trend that Catlin noticed during the first round of hearings was the number of experienced medical professionals fleeing their professions as a result of censorship and slandering of those who questioned the mainstream COVID-narrative(s).
This means that many people still will not come forward to share their stories.
“Many people whose businesses suffered don’t want their businesses to suffer further,” Catlin says.
Yet the political class has been radio silent on these proceedings.
“They have been invited, we want people to testify. We want the truth to come out, that’s the ultimate goal. Will they testify? Will they acknowledge the public inquiry? That’s a question that you’ll have to ask them.”
Leduc-Catlin’s biggest take-away from the hearings thus far is that “we are losing our best and our brightest.”
Catlin continued:
The people who have the moral courage to stand up for what they believe ina re the ones that we are firing. Are the ones who are leaving.
The nurses the paramedics the doctors the professors all of the people who are doing critical thinking and just asking questions are being censored and eliminated.
But I think more importantly, in some sense, is the heartbreaking stories of ordinary Canadians – who chose to get vaccinated or not get vaccinated – thought they were doing the right thing and are suffering enormous hardships as a result.
The impacts on children… about the emotional, cognitive decline and the fear that these children were living in; walking around afraid that they were going to spread disease and kill people. It’s impossible to encapsulate in a few words, in a few minutes.
Catlin also added that the inquiry will stop next in Toronto from March 30 to April 1, before heading into other major Canadian cities – Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Red Deer, Victoria, Vancouver with a final wrap up in Ottawa.
"I think we’re going to gain a lot of momentum. I think when people hear these stories, they will feel compelled to talk about it, to share the stories, to demand that some actions be taken," she concluded.
Overall, this grass-root, citizen-led movement is going to create a historical public record to highlight the harms caused by the COVID-response with the intent to ensure it never happens again.
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