Will Dove  00:00 Just a few days ago, the World Health Organization voted on the hundreds of amendments to the International Health Regulations. Amendments that will give them dictatorial power over all member countries to declare health emergencies internationally, and to demand that those countries adopt tyrannical health measures. Worst of all, the amendments define a health emergency as whatever the director of the WHO says it is.   Will Dove  00:29 Well, at the time of this recording, the WHO amendments vote has not yet happened. I'm predicting that they will ram them through in one form or another. Unfortunately, we, here in Canada, don't have to wonder what that level of power to violate our rights would look like. We need only look at our own province of BC, BC where in 2022, Bill 36 was passed as the Health Professions and Occupations Act, an act which gives the government their dictatorial power over health care workers. Thousands of frontline health care workers in BC lost their jobs over their refusal to take an experimental injection.   Will Dove  01:12 Last October, Bonnie Henry, the public health officer of BC announced that those requirements are still in place. And the BC health care system is collapsing due to a shortage of workers, a shortage which health officers mandates paused. Dr. Ben Turner was a surgeon in BC. He also holds a master's degree in health care ethics. And is the president of the Canadian Society for Science and Ethics in Medicine.   Will Dove  01:42 Ben contacted me recently, in regards to a court decision handed down just a few weeks ago, a challenge brought before the courts in BC by workers who had been fired for refusing the vaccines. They lost. The court decided in favor of the government and upheld their vaccine mandates, even for those working from home. This is what health care tyranny looks like. This is what the WHO wants the power to do to all of us.   Will Dove  02:22 Ben, it's a pleasure to have you back on the show.   Dr. Ben Turner  02:24 Thanks for having me, Will.   Will Dove  02:25 I wish we had something better to discuss. But I appreciate you taking your time to inform us all of what's going on in BC undoubtedly the most draconian province in the country in terms of what's happening in the health care system. And I think to give people a background, we're going to have to go back and talk about Bill 36. Just give them a little bit of history on that, of course, for the people who are not in BC, and I've even run into people in BC. In fact, I ran into a nursing student there a year ago, who had never heard of Bill 36, didn't know about it. So, if you can please give our viewers that background before we get into discussing this particular case.   Dr. Ben Turner  03:00 Of course, thanks for bringing it up. It's a very important question and underrated in its importance. Actually, it's interesting, even if you look at answers and you look at the statements of the principles of the Bill itself. They even say this is one of the most important pieces of legislation. It's chamber. And yet, isn't it interesting? Nobody seems to know about it. They speak this Bill itself.   Dr. Ben Turner  03:28 The billing question is still I think best known as Bill 36. Although properly speaking now, it should be called the Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA). So, we're going to call it Bill 36 (HPOA) until we can shift it over to what it's really called, because there's already another Bill 36 goes by year. And 607 paragraphs are worth more than 10 times bigger than that the preceding one. So, it's hard to summarize, but if I try to summarize it, the basic thing is it ultimately gives the province and in particular the Minister of Health complete discretion over the whole practice of medicine in the province, should it choose to exercise that discretion.   Dr. Ben Turner  04:12 So, it will just pick out a couple of the most shocking things but it actually allows the province to regulate what a physician can inline or must tell agent on a given topic, it doesn't specify which topics those would be so you can imagine, but...   Will Dove  04:31 I think we can make the assumption that they're referring to something like what happened with the COVID vaccines and anybody who told their patients well, you might not want to do this, they lost their license.   Dr. Ben Turner  04:41 Quite possibly, they're certainly set up for a tribunal. Yeah, so, that's just one aspect of it. It was advertised as a way to streamline things like discipline, make it more transparent, etc., which you could argue about the necessity of that. But at least it's a laudable goal. But then some of the things they worked into that end include things like anonymous complaints that allowed them to be defending yourself against the place that starts to codify things like, you know, there were physicians who were getting prosecuted up by regulatory colleges during COVID, for things they said publicly, which are clearly not meant to constitute the practice of medicine, but they're just public statements about matters of public interest in the medical realm.   Dr. Ben Turner  05:37 It's codified more clearly that you can be prosecuted for those things. They were sort of, before they were running on supposition. It wasn't explicitly in the previous Act, not to say the Act. So, a number of ways in which it really strips physicians, just to tell their patients or public what they really think, and obviously, you and I agree, that's pretty dangerous.   Will Dove  06:08 Right. But then, part of this, too, was also the vaccine mandates for health care workers.   Dr. Ben Turner  06:15 Yeah, so that's another one. And if you look at the debates, the recorded debates about HPOA, one of the things they wanted to do was get into legislation the ability for the province to mandate the vaccinations, whatever vaccinations they thought appropriate for medical providers. Because they were having trouble doing that with the existing structure during COVID, they would have liked and they made this very clear, explicitly clear, they would have liked to tie medical licensure to code vaccination.   Dr. Ben Turner  07:00 And one reason and another, they backed away from that. And I think one of the reasons is they didn't have the legislative apparatus for it again, they would have just been - they would have been bluffing. And they might have got away with it, they may not. Here they've got the legislative apparatus for it. Sorry, not to distract too much but the Bill depends a great deal on rules that have to be written later. And although the Bill was passed over a year ago, the kind of writing later rules, we're still waiting for them.   Dr. Ben Turner  07:33 So, we don't even really know exactly what's in the Bill, since it can't be interpreted those rules. And I find it hard to say that it was really voted on in the legislature, when most of the structure of it was never before the legislature. And that's leaving aside the fact that there was rushed through after discussing, I forgot, things like a couple of 100 paragraphs, they just skipped a bunch more and then forced a vote on it.   Will Dove  08:06 And that's very disturbing because the World Health Organization's amendments, that's exactly what they're trying to do there now, because they couldn't get a consensus from the countries that are involved. They're wanting to ram it through at the end of this month. And just basically said, we'll write certain things in later. Okay, but that's just basically giving them or the BC health or authority with a blank check to write whatever rules you want later on. And the rules are initially draconian already, it's alarming to think what they could do with that, if they're handed that kind of power, which they have been, saying, we'll just write them there.   Will Dove  08:45 Now we've given people that background. And I think I have to mention one more thing, as far as I recall. And please correct me if I'm wrong on this. The Act was passed in 2022, late last October 2023, Bonnie Henry, public health officer said, oh, no, no, you still have to have the vaccines to work in the system. There was some sort of review, and she said, Nope, you still have to have them. When the rest of the country has largely moved on, and a lot of provinces have invited back the health care workers who were fired or released or put on, you know, suspended or leave or whatever, because they didn't take them. And BC is still saying, oh, no, you have to have them. And so, you had a group of people there who took the public health officer to court. And I'd like you to tell us what happened, because the decision was just rendered very recently.   Dr. Ben Turner  09:37 Thank you for bringing it up. So let me lay in a little background there. So, you mentioned the order in October of last year, that's the most recent event of a whole set of orders that cover a variety of things, but you summarized them pretty well. If you say these are the vaccination mandates forward in the past though. Okay, so these are the mandates that came out about a year after the vaccines became available, and which made it impossible for physicians, nurses and what else to work in hospital without vaccination.   Will Dove  10:16 Which is why you’ve lost your position as a surgeon?   Dr. Ben Turner  10:20 Correct, yeah, well, yes, no, I'm a slightly odd situation that I was thinking. Yeah. Anyway, but I would have liked to transition to a remote job and that became impossible. But that made many more people certainly despite of lose their jobs. Nobody knows exactly how many the province grants that it's the exact figure they give, it's in the neighborhood of 1500. That's in their arguments about this ruling. But it's probably quite a bit more than that, because there were a number of people who did things like take early retirement, press leave, et cetera. And therefore, were switched to jobs, even within healthcare that didn't involve being in hospital, family physicians who had had hospital privileges or practicing medicine. So, it's very hard to know how many people were really lost. And I think several thousand is reasonable.   Will Dove  11:17 And of course, it is causing problems, one thing that they weren't doing may still be doing was shipping cancer patients to Washington, because they didn't have the staff to handle them.   Dr. Ben Turner  11:27 That's correct. And I don't know whether that's still ongoing or not, but there are specific people who have been very public about having to go to Washington for their treatment. And it said, that wasn't discussed publicly, I believe by the Minister of Health. I admit I could be wrong on that. So, that there's closure of rural emergency rooms, then there's - I think the things that are a little harder to measure as well, like nursing ratios. So, you could still have a hospital or open but it would have a suboptimal number of nurses, which is dangerous, and but which is hard to measure. And then also being understaffed, burns out the nurses they have which perpetuates the staffing crisis. Most of the staffing problems, I would say are related to nurses.   Will Dove  12:23 And I can't remember if it's BC, or Ontario, but I can remember, there's a clause in the Health Act that says to the hospitals that if a nurse isn't available that day, you will replace her with another nurse so that you keep the nursing numbers up. But they can't, they don't have enough nurses. So, they're violating that part of the Health Act that says you have to have enough nurses, but they can't do it. But it's their own fault. It was the problem.   Dr. Ben Turner  12:53 I'm not aware of the legislation on it.   Will Dove  12:58 As I said, I can't recall if it's BC, or Ontario, but I know I reported on that about six months back. But the point is, they're causing the problem. They caused the shortage.   Dr. Ben Turner  13:11 Yeah, and I find that really entertaining. And we might as well enjoy a little laugh, because we don't seem to think a lot of other wins. But one of the main arguments that the health officer made in all of your orders, respecting vaccination in hospitals was that it was necessary to maintain the workforce, lest people get COVID and then have to take time off work. And then the consequence of that is you take all of these people permanently off work, and this will fix the potential working crisis if a few people got COVID. It's worth it.   Will Dove  13:50 Yes. Okay. So that brings us up to this suit that was brought against the public health officers by - I believe it was, and correct me if I'm wrong here, because you know the details better than I do. People who lost their positions due to the vaccine mandates.   Dr. Ben Turner  14:04 Right, and it's a bit of a complex case. So, it's with a number of a number of people involved in it. Okay. So, it's to judicial review, which is essentially a way of holding governing bodies accountable for decisions they make that affect the public interest, but without a flat-out lawsuit. There were several parties to it. Different parties have different approaches to tactics. But ultimately, we're all taking in the same ruling.   Dr. Ben Turner  14:43 The reason we're talking, of course, is that I happen to be at the moment the president of the Canadian Society for Science & Ethics in Medicine, which is a society that helped with the fundraising for a couple of the petitioners. I'm not one of the petitioners myself, but a couple of members of our society are two of the petitioners. And so, the question was basically, was the mandate reasonable, and more particularly was reasonable going forward from that. So, there's the initial mandate, then it was renewed several times. And most recently, as you mentioned, last year, so ultimately, it was that most recent renewal mandate reasonable in light of the science rather than going vaccination. That's the approach that our set of wires took.   Dr. Ben Turner  15:38 The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms was also involved, they took – as they always do, it's their mandate, that more of a constitutional approach to it with a different set of petitioners. And ultimately, to some up, we pretty much lost on everything. So, it was thought that the mandates were broadly reasonable, with one small exception that if people were able to work completely remotely, the health officer had to reconsider those mandates. Not intended that the mandates were completely scrapped, just that the officer has to reconsider them.   Will Dove  16:19 Yes. And so, I'd like to get into certain areas of the decision that came from the judge, because I just, I got to admit, Ben, I find it difficult to believe some of these things. And let's talk first about that Charter challenge that the JCCF did. And the judge ruled that it was not an infringement of their Section 7, Charter of Rights, security of the person.   Will Dove  16:47 Now, the reason why that one bothers me so much, and I've been harping on this now forever, because this is hardly the first time that a court has said, Oh, no, no, it's not a violation of that. And the lawyers have argued over what is meant by security of the person. It's very interesting that the honorable Brian Peckford, who is the third premier of Newfoundland, whose sole surviving author of the Charter, I know him well. I've talked to him about this. And I think another important note to put in there is that when the JCCF and Brian Peckford brought their suit against the federal government for the travel ban, they refused to let Brian Peckford testify. Why? Well, because he knows exactly what was intended.   Will Dove  17:25 So, I want to just get on this here, because it says that the judge here saying that it was not a violation of their Section 7 Charter of Rights, security of the person. Now, I asked Mr. Peckford directly, when you wrote security of the person, you and the other premiers, when you wrote that in there, did that include your right to make a living? He gave me a one-word answer, yes.   Will Dove  17:47 So right there, that's a violation of their Charter of Rights, whether the courts want to say that or not, one of the last surviving authors of the Charter says, yes, it is a violation. You can't take away the right to make a living. So, I think that's the first thing that I want to just mention, because it just seems ridiculous. But I wanted to get into this particular case. And there's three key findings that are in the summary. I would like to address them one at a time, because every single one of them just - I wish I was a lawyer, because I could sit in the courtroom and just tear these things apart.   Will Dove  18:19 So, transmission of the virus continued to pose an immediate and significant risk to public health throughout the province, justifying the ongoing use of the emergency powers in the Public Health Act. I interviewed a fellow who was in the Victoria Hospital, back in the spring of 2022, when the newspapers were saying it was full of COVID patients, he has video, which by the way, is in that interview, walking through the COVID ward, it's empty.   Will Dove  18:50 So, the conclusion I have to draw from this is that the court is taking all of this on what's called judicial notice. And we keep running into this, where the court says, well, we're just going to accept what the government says as being true, what the public health officer says being true, because we're not positioned so we don't know. But that seems to be a very dangerous direction for our courts to be going in. It always used to be based on, what are the facts and until the judge knows the facts, they can't make a ruling. They're not even asking for the facts. They're not asking for the government to substantiate what they're saying.   Dr. Ben Turner  19:24 Well, I would modify that a bit. So, number one, I mean, judicial notice, I'm sure most of your viewers are aware it's very dangerous thing. The idea is basically that the court doesn't need to ask for evidence or weigh arguments or whatever to show that the sky is blue, right? If the information just be agreeing that the sky is blue, then skies blue, end of topic.   Dr. Ben Turner  19:50 But it has been used a bit more recently to basically take notice that one side is right on the question the party they're disagreeing on, and that's obviously very worrying. That is not what happened here. And so, the judge actually goes to some lengths to talk about balancing of the deference that he thinks he owes to the health officer with avoiding the – it’s the one that has a rubber stamp for the decisions. Otherwise, it's no point having judicial recusal.   Dr. Ben Turner  20:27 And these are good principles that he's like. There are parts where I'm not - I can't quite follow how he's following those principles in practice, though. So, for the question of whether the vaccine is, sorry, pardon me the question, yes, is slightly different from the question you just brought up. But obviously related. The question of whether the vaccines really prevent transmission? He said, there's plenty of evidence here. There's thousands and thousands of pages that are made by the government, there's submitted by petitioners. And so, we've got a robust record here, we should be able to tell the right answer.   Dr. Ben Turner  21:13 How do we tell the right answer? Well, there's this helpful summary put together by Dr. Duff, who is from the provincial health office, she tells us how to read all this evidence. And if that's not rubber stamping, it's hard to see a rubber stamping. It looks to me as if you asked one party of the disagreement, how to weigh the evidence before and that's the degree of deference that seems very close to nullifying the whole point of the judicial review, of the whole process. Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I’m not a judge. And I want to get docs to address the question as well. But at the same time, I do think that there's room for recent discussion and common sense and legal matters.   Will Dove  22:16 Yeah, and it should, because this, to me, this is the foundation of the whole case, it’s the foundation of the vaccine mandate, the claim that there was this dangerous pandemic.   Dr. Ben Turner  22:28 Yeah, so let's get back to that one, too. That's an interesting part of both the rhetoric of the provincial health officer and the judge on the case. The question, is there still - we never got into the question, was there ever a pandemic? Was there a dangerous pandemic? My own experience in hospitals is that I get there were a decent number of people really, really sick with COVID. Yeah, it's not made up. The strain on the system was overrated.   Dr. Ben Turner  23:00 But anyhow, that's not part of the question. The question is, are we still in an emergency situation? And we thought we have then when the provincial health officers started coming out with the same things they were like, okay, finally, we're now at this phase where we can start treating COVID like seasonal flu. We thought, okay, great, well, flu vaccines aren't mandated to work in hospitals. So COVID vaccine won't be anymore, either. And so that question comes up to the Council for the provincial health officer, and then basically they said, well, there's a distinction. Okay. There's a distinction between outside hospital emergency and inside the hospital. And what the provincial health officer was like, there's no emergency outside of the hospitals. There's still an emergency inside of the hospitals. And therefore, we still retain all of these emergency powers. I mean, I find that less than persuasive.   Will Dove  24:10 The contradiction here strikes me and that was what we were discussing a few minutes ago. So now they're claiming they're still an emergency in the hospitals by which they must mean, they're understaffed. They don't have enough resources to handle the patients, but they caused the problem with the vaccine mandate in the first place.   Dr. Ben Turner  24:29 Well, they contributed to it. I mean, to be fair, and as fair as possible, to make the argument they make is that COVID could impact in the hospitals. You know, they didn't mention much about staffing or anything. I think basically my problem with that particular point it's not that they contribute staffing crisis, it's that they've got such a low bar for what counts as an emergency that I really have no idea what would ever be considered not to be an emergency, there's always going to be people with infectious disease.   Will Dove  25:04 That a very interesting statement, Ben, that you've just made, I'm going to ask you to expand on that. Their definition of an emergency. You are a physician, you're a surgeon, I think you're pretty qualified to judge what would be a health emergency and what wouldn't? What's your thought? So, how low they set this bar? What's an emergency to them?   Dr. Ben Turner  25:23 Well, it's interesting. The legislation basically says an emergency is what the provincial health officer counts as emergency.   Will Dove  25:30 It’s like anything the provincial health officer says an emergency is an emergency.   Dr. Ben Turner  25:34 Pretty much. And that's also the judge in the case relies on that part of the legislation when, again, to give him justice as he's not. This is not the only argument he uses. He also tries to look into the science on the question, obviously, different versions of conclusions there. But one of the points that he makes is, here's what the legislation says, if the provincial health officer thinks it's still an emergency, it's still an emergency. And he's right, it says that. So, obviously, we're all disappointed in this ruling. We have various concerns about the ruling itself, but it does also depend quite legitimately on bad law. It's good in some ways, again, I have problems with it but in some ways, it's a good interpretation of law.   Will Dove  26:31 Now, and as I was saying, when we started talking about this point, the claim that there is a health emergency is the foundation of the entire thing. And yet the courts aren't questioning it. They're just going to take on judicial notice from the public health officer, Oh, there's an emergency. As you said, what the heck is the point of this judicial review if they're just going to automatically side with the government?   Dr. Ben Turner  26:56 Right, and again, forgive me, if I sound like a broken record, I don't believe that judicial notice is the right expression to use here, because the Justice didn't try to do more than just take it on notice that the British health officer says there's sort of - it didn't try to discuss the question, I think you can be wrong conclusion.   Will Dove  27:22 Let's move on to point B, an unvaccinated healthcare workforce continue to pose a risk to patients, residents, clients and health care workers in hospitals and other health care settings, and to the function of the healthcare system, and to constitute a health hazard as defined by the Public Health Act. But the governments and the public health officer across the country have come right out and said the vaccines don't stop transmission.   Dr. Ben Turner  27:48 Yeah, I don't believe that the provincial health - I don't believe that the BC has made any statements like that, although they imply statements like that, the mandate question respects the initial series of vaccinations. So, if you had the first two jabs back at the beginning of 2021, you're still good, and you're still okay to work in hospital. Whereas at the same time, they're pushing very hard for people to get booster after booster, because the initial series doesn't work, or at least doesn't work anymore, if it ever did. And they want to have it both ways. Even that comes up in the rolling. And I won't try to drag you through the gambling that makes the initial series good enough for people who work in hospital but not good enough for people who might get sick in hospital. You know, good enough that people can work in hospital but bad enough that we have to really strongly encourage people to get the next one as a worker doesn't fit. And, unfortunately, that was the last I said.   Will Dove  28:57 Right. And I'm sorry, but I've got to harp on this because I wasn't there. And you're being very fair, Ben. And I appreciate that. You're being very fair to the judge. And I want you to continue to do that. But as an outside observer, I got to tell you, this is really starting to tick me off. Because I very recently interviewed Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, he's a virologist. He's an expert in vaccines. He used to work for Big Pharma. Heck, he used to work for Bill Gates, before he figured out that these organizations did not have the people's best interests at heart.   Will Dove  29:27 And even he and I can – he says, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. Obviously, he has a problem with the mRNA vaccines because we know the damage that they cause. But he talked about this, he says even if you forget about all the damage, and you just look at the vaccine itself. One, what we've got out there is a vaccine that's the Wuhan strain. So, you just said a couple minutes ago, they ruled if you've had two shots back in 2021, you're fine, except that was for the Wuhan strain which is long gone, long gone. It didn't make any protection at all, whatsoever. Nothing.   Will Dove  30:01 And so once again, the logic here does not hold up. It says to me, and I'm sorry to keep harping on this because I almost feel like I'm taking an opposing viewpoint to what you're saying, because I don't like what this judge has come up with. Did the judge not ask any of these questions? Because the science is all there, there's plenty of experts who would have told him what I just said to you, to our viewers.   Dr. Ben Turner  30:25 Okay, so the question is, did he look at the science around - that's one of the problems that I haven’t notice, I think that's where he just liked a little too much deference for the health officer so far. The main thing he, at least by my reading of it, and I have read the whole ruling. On my reading of it, the chief thing he relies on is a report filed by Dr. Duff, who one works for the provincial health officer. And this report is to summarize all of the admittedly voluminous data around vaccinations advice, that they're very effective against illness.   Dr. Ben Turner  31:16 And so, I can't remember if she wanted to fight it, but supposed to be somewhat effective against transmission as well. But that's where I have a problem. If you've got thousands of pages of documentation, fine. Yes, you need some way to summarize that. But if you assign that summary task to one of the parties in the dispute, then you've already decided one, I just - it doesn't seem to me that the principle of not rubber stamping the thing was completely followed to the end.   Will Dove  31:54 So, if I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, the judge did ask for some kind of evidence, was submitted thousands of pages, I'm assuming by the public health officer or their office.   Dr. Ben Turner  32:02 Yes, but also by us as well, like I said, when I say, us, have been the various petitioners.   Will Dove  32:12 But then he allowed the public health office to summarize that information.   Dr. Ben Turner  32:18 I believe that's a fair way to put it. Yep.   Will Dove  32:22 So, I'm sorry, Ben, I find it this a little hard to believe. So, you're telling me that this judge…   Dr. Ben Turner  32:28 Let me try to be just the teensiest bit more to correct myself just a tiny bit there. I believe the way to put it more most accurately is a summary of the rest of the evidence was also submitted as part of the evidence and was considered. Yeah, so it's not like they got the evidence, and then he gave a special job to Dr. Duff, they summarize this and tell us what it says, it's not like that. That summary was submitted early on as part of the evidence. I think in the interest of perfect accuracy, not because I think it makes a difference in that outcome. The outcome is ultimately relied on what the PA do, not herself but says the evidence says.   Will Dove  33:19 Yes, but the essential question I'm trying to get at here because I'm maybe I'm not understanding correctly is our side got to submit evidence as well. But it's sounding to me like the people who summarize that evidence that our side provided was Dr. Duff, the PHO.   Dr. Ben Turner  33:36 Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, no, forgive me, I cannot recall whether she considered the evidence that our side submitted specifically or against it.   Will Dove  33:49 Okay. So, I'm still maybe not following here because our side submitted evidence. Did the judge review that evidence?   Dr. Ben Turner  33:57 He did, none of it really made it into the into ruling. So, I don't know how it weighed while he was deliberating.   Will Dove  34:09 And do you know the details of what was in that evidence that was provided?   Dr. Ben Turner  34:13 Yeah, largely about - it was just turning, just things back on herself. Like the fact that now we're considering COVID to be in roughly a flu. But obviously that's rhetorical. But then there are also detailed reviews of how the initial vaccination series doesn't protect really particularly against anything anymore, but it's still - which they granted, well, partly granted, I should say. They granted that it doesn't work as well as what they would like.   Dr. Ben Turner  34:53 What I want to tell you is how the judge, and I think this is what you want me to say. How did the judge interpret the evidence we submitted? And I can't say because he didn't, it didn't say himself.   Will Dove  35:07 So, in the ruling, there's no - and I admit, I've just had time to read the summary of it. It's something that in 80 somewhat page document. In this ruling, and of course, you've read through the whole thing, there's no references in there to the evidence that was presented by our side.   Dr. Ben Turner  35:22 Not down to line item, like he repeatedly says, and counsel for fill in the blank, whichever petitioner submitted evidence regarding fill in the blank, but not particularly the specifics of it within a particular paper that were cited. Although it might interact with the papers cited by the PHO, etc. So, it leaves us a little in the dark, but on the other hand, not too much in the dark, because in another place, he says, here's this summary by Dr. Duff, cites it several times and says why he thinks that this is where he should really go to in the jury with the evidence.   Will Dove  36:07 Okay, so I just want to be very clear here, Ben. So, what I'm seeing so far is a decision was made by this judge where he accepted at face value, statements that were made by the public health office, and appears to have given very little consideration to the evidence that was presented by our side.   Dr. Ben Turner  36:26 That's how I read it, again, I want to give as much deference as I can, but I just - from his own statements in the ruling, it seems to me that he considered it his duty to take the provincial health officer’s summary of everything as this positive. That I believe I'm correctly stating what he himself stated.   Will Dove  36:58 Yes, and my point here, and I realized that you're a very diplomatic person, and I appreciate that. I don't, you know, I want people on my show who will fairly present but I'm just a journalist, I'm a freedom fighter, I have my own opinions, and I'm going to voice it here. It sounds to me like this decision, this was made, the decision was made before you ever enter the courtroom. The judge is going to just except for the public health office side. And they're barely going to even look at your evidence.   Will Dove  37:30 Let's move on to this last point, point C, it was essential to maintain the high level of workforce vaccination already in place in the settings, as the best means to mitigate these risks and safeguard the public health system in the province. But as we've just discussed, the vaccines that were admitted even if we accept that they worked, therefore, a strain of the virus is long gone. Dr. Vanden Bossche, and many other epidemiologists, virologists that I've interviewed have said, yeah, it might give you a higher level of antibodies for a while, but it wanes very quickly. So even if that strain still was around, these vaccinations still wouldn't protect you. I'm sorry, Ben, but it just seems to me that there is zero evidence for that statement. That it's somehow going to protect the healthcare system.   Dr. Ben Turner  38:21 Well, it's at least very, you have to take a number of steps, and each one's questionable. So yeah, I think it's best summarized by the PHO’s office itself. In the fact that they don't pretend that the initial series is really all that effective in any other context. Like so talking about whether they want people to get other vaccinations, booster vaccinations, the latest strain of vaccination against COVID-19, there is no context except for these ongoing orders, where they claim that the initial series is of any significant. And then they do try to finesse that in the ruling, and that the judge finds them persuasive. Well, maybe having had the initial series plus having got COVID is better than just having got COVID - I think you can get a little tied up in 85 pages of trying to make sense of every little point. And sometimes it helps to back up to 40,000 feet and say, you are trying to have it both ways. And it can't, it doesn't make sense.   Will Dove  39:57 No, it doesn't because nothing about the decision make sense to me. So, the last point before we get into more general discussion, as you said very early on the interview, the one concession that the judge made sort of concession was saying that he did not find it reasonable that the public health officer, were still requiring people who are working remotely to have the vaccines, working from home, supposedly.   Will Dove  40:21 But there was no order made to the public health officer to change that, right? There's just, while you should take this under consideration.   Dr. Ben Turner  40:29 Exactly. Yeah. So, she could perfectly easily I'm not going to speculate what she'll do, is basically are two options. One is just let people go back to their remote work, and be done with it. Or say that she's reviewed all of these cases and say that actually, on review, you're still not allowed to work. And then that opens her up to further actions in court. And I don't know which it'd be interesting to see which way she goes. But you're absolutely right. The judge put it back to her. He didn't make the decision for her. Although he says it in the right circumstances, that would have been the thing to do. But given the present circumstances, the right thing was to go back to her.   Will Dove  41:25 All right. So now, Ben, I want to get into more of a general discussion. Because of course, yes, you work as a surgeon in BC, you've been heavily involved in fighting for the rights of the health care workers there. Here we are in May of 2024. Vaccine mandates across the country were largely ended in the spring of 2022, almost two years ago. And we've still got BC with these draconian measures. I'm not even sure what specific question to ask you. It seems like a train wreck to me. They’re just destroying the health care system in BC. Where do you see this going if they keep doing this? Because I don't know how to harp on it enough. I don't see any justification for this decision whatsoever.   Dr. Ben Turner  42:16 Well, this is in a really tough place. I mean, it's not even all down to this ruling. And in the fact that they even had to take this to a judicial review is part of the problem. The legislation backing the whole thing up is a problem, in the knowledge that they're going to get much worse once Bill 36 is finally enacted. I don't know what the right word would be, but once it's officially in play. And on the one hand, I know  many people who have left the province for other provinces, other countries, some physicians, some nurses, some others. And I think at the beginning, a lot of us would have liked to come back. And when we've seen the way things have developed, in general, quite aside from the hospital mandate, I'm not sure we want to come back anymore. It just seems like it's set up for the next thing to go wrong, whereas a lot of other countries seems to have just moved on.   Dr. Ben Turner  43:18 I kind of forget what happened. It is not a great approach either. But at least it's better than pretending it's still 2021. As you say, there's no other - the Nova Scotia was the last holdout and they dropped their mandate. Ontario is a little different, because they don't have a provincial mandate. But so many hospitals have their own mandates that it's not unlike having a provincial mandate. But you're right, BC is the only one, that as a province level one. And it'll drop too, it will. But the question is just when and how much damage will have been done by that. And when it just said, to try to be as optimistic as possible. When it drops, this particular type of transmission will not happen yet. They had one chance at this and they took it, and they're not going to get away with it a second time. I don't think not in our lifetimes.   Will Dove  44:25 Right. Now, one of the things that you said to me when you contacted me to bring me this information was that they're trying to do this quietly, sort of slip it under the rug. And that's reason why we're doing this interview. So at least some Canadians will be informed about what's going on. That implies to me that they know their decisions aren't justified. Why would they be trying to keep them quiet? If they felt they could completely justify what they were doing?   Dr. Ben Turner  44:52 You would think there'd be some big news release. I don't know. Maybe there's been one and I missed it, but I don't think so. Something like a news release, hooray! Bonnie wins against that horrible anti-vax gang of darkness. I haven't seen such a release, maybe dismissed it. And I think you're right, I think it's more just they want to let this go away, maybe even have a plan for when to take the mandate off. And just hope that by then people have forgotten about it. And then the really annoyed doctors simply left the province. But again, there, I can only speculate.   Will Dove  45:30 Alright, last question, Ben, then I realize you're not a politician, you're not a public health officer. But you've watched all of this unfolding throughout your career. And it seems to me a big part of the problem is the system itself, the way that government healthcare system is structured, almost lends them this ability to take on this sort of tyrannical power. If you were in a position to fix this, if you were in government, and you could pass legislation, how would you fix the system so, this kind of thing can't happen again?   Dr. Ben Turner  46:04 Number one, repeal Bill 36, the Health Professions and Occupations Act, like we had enough problems under the under the previous regime? They will, the opportunities for misdeeds will be much, much, much greater. That there's one thing I could change that would be it. But I would also have to reexamine some of what was in place under the previous Health Professions Act. Because there's some of those things in there that are worrisome and that nobody ever really thought about because it didn't come up.   Dr. Ben Turner  46:52 And then in 2021, especially, well put 2020 really, if we want to talk about lockdowns, example, push came to shove, and things started to matter that looked like they weren't going to matter. And so there are a bunch of bullet points, but you could summarize by saying the emergency powers of the provincial health officer and of the Minister of Health should be drastically curtailed. There was a while there were, it really seemed like Bonnie Henry was the premier. There was, every major decision in the province was made by her and that that is never appropriate, even if you could have a real emergency, a major war something, I suppose a pandemic, but something where the normal, slow structures of society have to be sped up and you need one person making a decision. That shouldn't be a politician, believe it or not, I don't like the idea very much. That's why we don't have emergencies very often, but that shouldn’t be a politician, it should be somebody who is responsible for all aspects of society. Like whether people can get to work, whether the buses are running, what the strain is on the hospitals, fine, you know, but all aspects. When you turn the whole government over to the provincial health officer, her job is to think about one small aspect of society and so very thoroughly, she will kind of ignore the rest of society. Because people have - your tiny chunk of it is the only thing that matters right now. Go. And so, the ability for the possibility for that to happen needs to be completely exposed.   Will Dove  48:41 Yes, and I agree with you. None of us like the idea of one person being that sort of dictatorial position. But if it's a politician at least we elected our dictator, rather than having them appointed over us and then being given this blanket power.   Dr. Ben Turner  48:58 Yeah, I agree and even legitimate emergencies often become pretexts for decades long tyrannical rule. And that goes back to ancient Rome. We know this, right? But at least let's not give it to someone who's supposed to have such a narrow focus.   Will Dove  49:21 Yes. Ben, thank you so much for taking the time for this interview for notifying me of this case, which I hadn't been aware of until you've emailed me on it. It's vitally important, because and not just because, you know, BC is a big part of Canada, and we shouldn't be concerned with what's happening in one of our provinces. But what I'm seeing here is very much a parallel with what the World Health Organization is trying to do with their amendments, and they pass those and as we were discussing earlier, well, a public health emergency is whatever the public health officer says it is. The WHO passes the amendments and health emergency is whatever the director of the WHO says it is. And that puts us in a horrendously vulnerable position where somebody outside our country is now dictating to us how we can live, where we can go, what vaccines we have to take. And so, I'm seeing what's happening in BC as the canary in the coal mine for that. And we're seeing it fall apart because of that.   Dr. Ben Turner  50:18 Yes, and maybe the only way out is down, you know. I would like to think that the pendulum has swung about as - I would like to and I do think the pendulum has swung about as far as explained to, at least in the medical realm, in BC. And I think we're going to start seeing things swinging back the other direction.   Will Dove  50:46 Right, I think you are right. Something I've taken a great deal of encouragement from is that the conservative party there, just a few months ago, the polls said, and keeping in mind, folks, in BC right now, the Conservative Party has two seats. But the polls a few months ago said if there was election, then the Conservative Party would form the official opposition. As of just about three weeks ago, the poll said that when a minority government but the wit, and to me, I'm living in Alberta next door to BC, and obviously, I've been visited BC and it felt like many other Albertans it's an extremely liberal NDP province to hear that British Columbians would vote conservative. That really tells you something.   Dr. Ben Turner  51:29 That hasn't happened in a while. Yeah, I mean, we've had, I mean, the conservative that for the sake of other one of the provinces, the conservative party in BC, for as long as I have think was the Liberal Party. And so, it was sort of like, liberal, but everybody knows we're conservative, was the name of the party. And then during COVID, everyone realized, you don't seem to have really very many conservative principles, certainly none that you'll stick your neck out for. And so, obviously I don't personally and obviously, especially in my capacity as President of CSSEM, I don't endorse any parties. But I can observe that the Conservative Party in British Columbia, is they seem to be filling that void. The people seem to be finding something in them, they didn't find it in the Liberal Party. And if I were to speculate what that is, I do notice the Conservatives are the ones who will say things like, for example, the vaccine mandate should go up. I mean, I take that back, maybe the next Liberal Party this new dynamic. I think maybe they've been making some weak statements there as well. Obviously, just in the wake of the conservatives, again, I am not trying to endorse any candidates or parties, but just observe the trend.   Will Dove  53:09 Yeah, I think you’ve made…   Dr. Ben Turner  53:13 I guess I would like to end it on a happy thought. So, the premier recently had a little clip talking about - we can't have a Conservative government in BC because the head of the Conservative Party recently called for unvaccinated workers to come back to work in hospitals in BC, how horrifying! There's measles. There's measles around. People die of measles; children die of measles. And it's good for chuckled because the vast majority of people who are part vaccine have had the measles vaccine, and we're really happy to have had it. But it's also been for some optimism because it shows that COVID is not scary enough anymore, ram to score political points by going solid actors.   Will Dove  54:09 Yes. I wanted to just add one last point because I thought it was very perceptive what you said about how historically the Liberal Party in BC was the Conservative Party, because of course, they were right of the NDP. Well, John Ross’s dad, who is now the leader of the Conservative Party, used to be a liberal, and he left the party. And within I think it was a couple of months was elected the leader of the Conservative Party. So, I think, yeah, you're right. What we're seeing is just this, maybe it's more of a shift back to rationality really, I would say that probably for somebody in Alberta, having interviewed John Ross’s dad, I think he's got some great policies but I would think that his policies to more Albertan we're still seem fairly left. And yet in BC, they're much more rational, much more centered. And hopefully, we're going to get back to that kind of rational thinking, rational government that will not tread on people's rights. So once again…   Dr. Ben Turner  55:03 Yeah, I couldn't agree more and I think that another theme that has come up in past few years related to that is it's not a right-left thing anymore. It's a freedom or not freedom thing. And there are people on the right and there are people on the left who completely betrayed their countries. And there are people on the right and people on the left who found in the last few years, a new stimulus to go back to basic human rights. And I think that very much smaller second group is just starting to wake up.