(0:00 - 2:20) In a few days, we'll go to the polls to elect our next dictator. I say dictator because Canada is not a democracy. We don't get to make most of the choices that affect our lives. We just get to choose the people who do. This was demonstrated to devastating effect during the COVID lockdowns that cost Canadian lives and jobs, broke up families, and made it clear that words on an official document are no guarantee of our rights. While our government approved an experimental injection for Canadians without doing any testing of their own, they were and are at the same time working to take away our right to access natural health products, demonstrating that Canada has become an out-of-control nanny state where the interests of the rich and the powerful have far more influence on our elected dictators than we do. There may be no one in our country who has been more a first-hand witness to this than lawyer Shawn Buckley. He is the founder and president of the Natural Health Products Protection Association and a founder and the lead legal counsel for the NCI, the National Citizens Inquiry, which is still ongoing and which has borne witness to the devastating actions of our elected dictators when they become corrupted by outside interests. On Monday, April 28th, Canadians will choose the direction our country will go in, but this election is not like others. For the first time in Canadian history, we are going to the polls in the aftermath of one crisis, the COVID narrative, and in the face of another, the tariff war. Trudeau demonstrated that a single administration can dramatically alter our country, and so too the government we elect next Monday will not just determine the course of the next four years, but our future and the future for our children. Choose wisely. (2:21 - 6:28) Sean, welcome back to the show. Oh, so glad to be here, Will. So I wanted to do this interview with you because, of course, we have this election coming up and this interview will be out before then. You and I have done a number of interviews now on the NHPPA, the National Health Products Protection Association, which you've been running for decades, fighting our government's attacks on our access to natural health products, and the outcome of this election could be extremely impactful in that. Well, yes and no, and this is the funny thing. There's no question that right now we are more aware than ever before that we really don't have basic rights and privileges. I mean, even just the... You picked the topic, right? We're finding time and time again that really our rights are dependent completely on just privileges that the government grants us. So they're not even rights at all because a right is something the government can't take away. Okay, so let's get that straight. If you have the right to do something, it's not subject to His Majesty through His Majesty's representatives that swear loyalty to him. It's not subject to granting them to us on the king's terms. So really, what right do we have, Will? Do we even have right over our own lives? Because is it not the case that parliament could pass a law as soon as they get in saying every able-bodied person's got to go and die in Ukraine? This is a fundamental civilization crossroads, and we've got to go fight that evil empire, and you and I would have no choice. I mean, they could make it law that it's treason not to go with the penalty of death. They have that right. See, they have the absolute right. They don't have to ask us or anyone else for permission to pass laws that are life and death for the rest of us. So, you know, in the area of natural health, I mean, it's interesting is, you know, what is more fundamental to any of us than actually having the right to decide how we're going to stay healthy? Because, you know, nothing is more important than our health or the health of our family. And what's more important than the right to decide how we're going to treat ourselves? But we don't have that right. We're in this drug model, and I'll just explain it again. So what's happened is, in Canada, we've got the Food and Drug Act, and it's been with us for almost 100 years. But this drug model was introduced, you know, probably about 90 years ago in all of the Western nations. And it really has three parts, and I'll just talk about it in the area of serious health conditions, because it's a clearer explanation. So the first thing the drug model does is it defines anything used for health purpose. So anything for a therapeutic purpose, whether it's to prevent illness or to treat illness that you would ingest or put on yourself topically, everything's a drug, regardless of what it is. So literally, if I said to you, you know, you look dehydrated, will you please take some water? I've made water a drug. So in fact, water, if you were going to sell, and sell includes giving, if you were going to give somebody water to prevent them or treat them from being dehydrated, you've now broken a whole bunch of federal law because you've made water a drug. You've used it for therapeutic purpose, and you don't have a product license, and you haven't proved safety and efficacy, and all of this, and you haven't given Health Canada a whole bunch of money to have the right to do that. (6:29 - 7:51) So the first thing is, is you make absolutely everything a drug. And the second thing is, is you make all drugs illegal. So the starting point is, is everything, including water, it's illegal to sell it, to give it away for a therapeutic purpose. Absolutely 100% illegal, but the government will grant exemptions, temporary exemptions to this blanket, blanket, you know, everything's illegal. They'll grant exemptions in the form of licenses, so temporary exemptions. So we find ourselves in the legal philosophical world in Canada, where it's only legal for us to prevent illness or to treat illness with things the government has given permission for us to use. Permission. It's illegal for us to use things that the government has not granted us permission for. I hope your audience is listening. That's our reality. Now, the third part about the drug model is for serious health conditions, and I'll just stay there right now, but I'll move us to moderate when I get talking about what's happening with our natural products. But for serious health conditions, you make the drug approval process so expensive, you know, and 10 years ago, the average was about a billion dollars. (7:52 - 8:56) So you make it so expensive that in our lifetime, and in the lifetime of everyone watching this show, there's only been one drug that's gotten through this approval process that didn't have a patent. And what's the importance of that is, well, if you have a patent, then you have a monopoly. A drug patent lasts for 25 years. So let's say you're Pfizer. I like to use Viagra as an example because that was the first erectile dysfunction drug, and their marketing was so good. They just made money hand over fist. But when Viagra got through this billion dollar process, Pfizer could charge whatever it wanted for a pill because they had a patent. No one could compete with them. And I remember the mainstream media, they would actually run stories about how a single pill cost because it was just so popular. And Pfizer could charge whatever they wanted. Now that the patents expired, anyone can make Sildenafil. That's the generic name for Viagra. (8:56 - 9:14) And the prices dropped like a stone. But you see how the games played. So Pfizer will go through this billion. They'll put 10 drugs through this billion dollar process. If two get through, they will recap the 10 billion spent on trying for 10. And then they'll make nosebleed profits. (9:15 - 9:49) The pharmaceutical industry just makes gobs of money. But the reality for the rest of us is, is because you have to have a patent, and you can't get a patent for natural things, natural products, things that God made with plants and that, you can't get a patent. It has to be something you invented. So it's a novel chemical. Well, the effect of this is, and it's not by accident, this is by design. The effect is, is it's only legal to treat serious health conditions in Canada with novel chemicals that didn't exist when we were born. (9:50 - 10:12) So if anyone watching this show has a heart attack and they're rushed to the hospital, or, you know, they've been screened for cancer and they get a text saying it's stage four, go to the hospital immediately. Or, you know, they have a mental breakdown and they, they get rushed to the hospital. The only treatments you're going to be offered are novel chemicals that didn't exist when you were born. (10:12 - 10:18) Right. Because they're the only legal treatments. And the kids that are born today. (10:19 - 11:30) So the kids that are born in Canada in 2025, when they're our age and they have serious health, you know, problems, the, the only treatments that are going to be available to them are novel chemicals that don't exist today, because when the patent wears out, you know, the drug stays around for a while, but eventually they stopped making it because they will have put a new drug through for that condition. And their drug reps will be pushing it. And the medical journals will be pushing it. And the med schools will be pushing it. It's all this, this controlled network. And then they'll stop actually making the old drug, even if the old drug was safer and worked better. They're called orphan drugs. We even have a name for it. And so our kids, the kids born in Canada in 2025, if we allow this to continue, when they have serious health conditions, they're our age, they will be treated with chemicals that haven't yet been invented. Now, if we were to ask everyone watching this show, like, okay, we're abolishing all our drug laws. We're abolishing all our drug policy. Come back to us with how do we get good health outcomes for serious health conditions? Not a single person in the world is going to come back to us and say, I got it. (11:31 - 12:12) I got it. I know how Canadians can be healthy. Just make it illegal to treat them with anything except chemicals that haven't been invented yet. That's how you're going to get good health outcomes. That's madness. That's madness. And we know it's madness, but that's the world we're in where we actually, the, the only drugs that we can use, the only treatments that are, that are legal for us to use for serious health conditions are ones granted to us by the government because we don't have the right to choose for ourselves. And Health Canada shuts down all the competition on serious health conditions. I mean, they are a police force with sharp teeth. (12:12 - 12:59) Right. So just before we move on, I think it's very important to summarize that for the viewers, because there's, there's a lot of significance in what you just said. So you're talking about this drug model and what you've outlined here is it's not just that Health Canada is, are basically health Nazis and no, you can't have this. You can't have that. You can't have that. Even if you've done your research and you think this would be something that would work for you, it's only protected as long as it has a patent. So as soon as that patent expires and now anybody can make it a knockoff of it, it's no longer a value to the company that made it. And it's, it's no longer protected under this drug model. So the drug companies have to make something new, even if the new thing they make does not work as well as the old one. (13:00 - 13:34) Well, it's the business model. I mean, once you're, once you've gotten through the approval process, like, you know, so Sildenafil, I mean, it's, it's gotten through this process. So as long as somebody is paying a yearly licensing fee, it can be made and sold in Canada. But from a business model perspective, you, because people can compete with you, you want to get a new chemical through, and then you want to orphan this one, you know, and you want to teach it in medical schools. The new one's better. You want the drug reps press, you know, saying the new one's better. (13:34 - 14:44) You know, you want your bought and paid for journal, journal articles to say, no, no, use this new one. Right. So everything that's shiny new, like they control the messaging as, you know, we're kind of learning with the mainstream media, aren't we with the pharmaceutical advertising in the United States being the biggest single advertising block. So yeah. And, and so the, you know, the first worry is, is understand you don't have the right over your own body. You don't have the right to decide how you're going to treat yourself. The King has not granted us that right. The King has decided to protect intellectual property rights through this drug model. And it is there to protect intellectual property rights. That's its full intention. When you're in this drug model for long enough, you just realize it took me about 10 years of where about half my, my law practice was in the food and drug act and regulations where it's kind of, it's suddenly dawned on me. Oh, wait a second. We're here to protect intellectual property rights. So just so we're clear, we'll know we're in the food and drug act or regulations. Is there anywhere that, that tells health Canada, you have a legal obligation to protect Canadian self. (14:44 - 15:37) It's not there because it wasn't set up to protect us. It was set up to protect big pharma. Yeah. Yeah. That it's exactly, it's there to protect intellectual property rights. So now what's happening with natural health products. And, and remember, this is a recent thing. Like when, when I was a young person, there weren't health food stores, hardly at all, definitely not like now there's one in every mall. I was probably in my thirties before I even heard the word homeopathic doctor or naturopathic doctor. Like we didn't have them. Now we did a hundred years ago, we had homeopathic hospitals and naturopaths and all of that, but they were wiped out with this allopathic chemical drug model, but they resurfaced, they started resurfacing in, you know, in the late seventies into the eighties. And it's now just exploded and it's exploded because public pressure has allowed it like health Canada keeps trying to shut it down. (15:37 - 19:36) And the FDA keeps trying to shut it down. And, and we keep rebelling as citizens and here we are. And now Health Canada has a problem. Is there, there to protect intellectual property rights. They're, they're jealously guarding serious health conditions. Like you, you can't compete. You just naturopathic doctor, you advertising no intravenous vitamin C to treat cancer. And you see how long it is before you get shut down either by your college at the direction of Health Canada or Health Canada. Like you cannot share a truthful health information to compete on serious health conditions. But if, you know, if you're a Pfizer, why would you go through this billion dollar process for a moderate health condition where there's all these natural health products competing with you. And so Health Canada is in the process of shutting us down. They see the problem. Wait a second. We're not protecting intellectual property rights. So they're imposing what's called the self-care framework where they're going to harmonize us exactly the same as the chemical drugs, right down to having to run double blind clinical trials to prove efficacy, which you can't do because you can't afford it. You'll never, you don't have a monopoly. So you can't ever recover the cost. So as long as we're in this model where we play this game, oh, let's, you know, double blind clinical trials are the gold standard. Well, I'm sorry. We've been using ginger tea to treat nausea for 3000 years. Do we need to run trials to show it's safe? Do we need to run clinical trials to show it's effective? Because if the answer is yes, then it means the only legal treatments for us are novel chemicals. And that's an affront on two levels. A, we know that that's not how you get good health outcomes. That's just madness. And, and literally, I think it's criminal negligence that our government and bureaucracies put us in this position, except that, you know, it's pleasing to the King. So, you know, nothing's ever going to happen. And then, you know, the idea that we, we don't have the right, because again, the right, isn't something that the government grants you. Like the big problem here is, you know, here, I mean, I'm part of the natural product protection association. We're running this campaign to make this an election issue. You know, as soon as the election's over, we'll be pressing the newly elected MPs, like grant us the right to make our own health decisions. Well, I hope we succeed, but isn't it, isn't it sad that, you know, even using the word right as a lie, grant us the privilege, grant us the privilege, because we don't have rights in our system. That's, that's the, I guess, the biggest wake up call for me with this COVID thing and just this long battle over natural products is we don't, what area in our lives do we actually have rights that the government can't take away? Well, as has been demonstrated in the last five years, there aren't any, but once again, just, just to summarize for the viewers, because you keep saying things that are really, really important. And I just want to make sure the viewers are catching this because you were talking about, for example, ginger tea and why do we need to do studies, double blind studies on ginger tea when we've been using it for 3000 years. And a lot of people are going to hear that and say, well, that doesn't make any sense at all. Of course, you know, of course we shouldn't, but that's only if you're viewing it from the perspective of healthcare for us. And that's not what the drug model is for. The drug model came in because the pharmaceutical companies lobbied the governments to get that kind of protection for their profits. And now, as you've described, okay, as you said, these aren't critical issues that these natural products are addressing. So it's not profitable for them to go after it right now because there's all these other natural alternatives. And so now what they're doing is lobbying the governments to get rid of the natural alternatives. So now they can open up a whole new market of creating billion dollar drugs for minor conditions. And from that perspective, it makes perfect sense. (19:37 - 25:02) Oh, if you understand the goal is to protect intellectual property rights, it absolutely makes sense. And then everything Health Canada does make sense because, you know, one thing that frustrates me is, is they're always saying, well, risk, risk, risk. We need to actually protect Canadians from natural health products. Well, you know, Will, I've been at this for 30 years and I started acting for Health Canada. I was their legal counsel. That's how I got into the regulation of drugs. I've never seen a credible report of a death caused by a natural health product. Now, let's say there are credible reports out there and just Health Canada actually can't show them. Like Health Canada comes up with scary figures, like even, you know, last year in front of the Standing Committee of Health, they're throwing, you know, big hundreds of numbers around, but they won't provide the Standing Committee or anyone else with the raw data. Okay. Show us these reports. Then you're giving us numbers, show us the reports. Well, they won't. Right. Right. And you know why they won't, but, you know, when you're going to, so, but even if like everything poses a risk, do you know that some Canadians die each year from drinking too much water? It's the long distance runners. They have it in their head. They have to be hydrated, especially on hot days. And they overdo it while their body's being stressed. They throw out, you know, their chemical balance and they actually die. Like, so every year, water kills people in Canada. Lightning kills more people than in one year in Canada, than, you know, decades of natural health products, if we can even point to a death. So it doesn't mean there's not a risk, but everything's relative. Right. And in risk analysis, there's a de minimis line. If, if something isn't causing more than one death per million of the population per year, don't even think about regulating that because the safety signals too low, like, A, why would you, why would you bother? Right. And B, you couldn't even measure whether you were making any difference because the safety signals too low, but, and we're well below that as an industry. And yet we're being told, well, you we need this for our safety. But the problem is, is if, if you're saying, telling us, wait a second, we need stricter regulations to protect us from things like ginger tea. Well, what's the risk of taking that away? What is the risk of taking that away? And I just realized, you know, ginger tea is the perfect product to use because ginger tea is used to prevent nausea, including in pregnant women. What's the worst drug example we've ever had in Canada, other than the COVID-19 vaccine. Thalidomide. Yes. Used to treat nausea during pregnancy. And we have these babies born without limbs. And in fact, you know, it, it, it brought about our adverse reaction reporting system and the whole thing to try and prevent that in the future. Well, what's the danger of not allowing people to access natural products? You know, like 80% of Canadians actually regularly use them. And, you know, I can't lecture anywhere without after the lecture, people come in up to me and saying, you know, um, I, the serious health condition, all the chemical drugs didn't work. And either I'm only alive today, or I only have any quality of life today because I'm on a natural product. Well, if you take those away, there's a health consequence. So don't tell me or any other Canadian, we need to be protected. Oh, there's a risk because, you know, maybe one of us every five years might die from one of these. Well, how many of us are going to die if you take them away? And even increasing the cost with more regulation takes them away from lower income Canadians. And it's worse than that. It's not just taking away the natural health products and the health consequences that might come from that for some people. It's that when you take those away, well, what are they going to do? They're going to turn to pharmaceuticals, which we know kill people. In droves every year. You're making a great point. Like my understanding is, is three of the top five causes of death in Canada and every other Western nation are connected to chemical pharmaceutical drugs. Yes. So wouldn't good health policy be, is actually making it law that you can't access a chemical drug because they're in such a high risk profile, unless you've exhausted natural remedies first. Like if we actually wanted to have good health outcomes instead of removing natural health products, regardless of what risk they may or may not have, wouldn't we get better health outcomes if you had to try them first and you could only then go to the chemical drugs. You've just, you know, given me a, I've just, my mind's going, you've given me a good argument for when next time I have to stand in front of standing committee. And there's more to that, I mean, first of all, they're throwing out all these scary numbers at health Canada about natural health products, but they won't give us the data because they know the data won't back up their scary numbers. Now, you know, they're trying to take those away because of the lobbying from the pharmaceutical companies. That's going to push people into pharmaceuticals, which are going to kill them in droves. And yet when people get drugs today, how often does your doctor or your pharmacist provide you with a full honest list of the known risks of that drug? You know, the few times in my life when I needed a drug, I've gotten a, well, you know, it might do this, it might do this. (25:03 - 28:16) You'll look it up and you find out it's killed 20 people in the last year, but there's no regulations about them having to warn you about that. Well, just, you know, just so you understand, I mean, acetaminophen, the brand named Tylenol, but it's, you know, off patent. So everyone makes acetaminophen and they put it in things like cough syrups and stuff like that. Like it's, it shows up in a lot of things. My understanding is, is that kills, you know, one person per million per year. So 40 deaths in Canada a year. So one, one year of acetaminophen and it sneaks up on you. My understanding is shut your liver down and you don't know what's happening until you're in trouble. Right? So one over-the-counter chemical drug will, you know, causes more deaths in a year than, you know, the entire natural product industry likely in my, in the last 60 years or a hundred years. One more point from something that I happen to know. I have griped for years about the negligence of Health Canada and the total illogic of the things that they stop you from having and the things that are actually freely available. And I happen to know one example, there's a supplement you can buy. You can go to Walmart, you can go to any drug store, you can buy, it's called 5-HTP. And what it's supposed to do is it elevates your serotonin level. So if you're suffering from depression or malaise or whatever, it's supposed to help with that. But this is a case of a natural product that actually is dangerous, but they don't warn anyone because if you are on SSRIs, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, a pharmaceutical, and you take 5-HTP on top of that, within about three weeks, you will slip into what's called a serotonin coma and you will die. And people have died from this, but there's no warnings. There's nothing. Now that's a very, very odd, you know, strange example. And most, as you say, most natural health products are completely harmless. And this one's only potentially harmful if you combine it with a pharmaceutical. But does Health Canada warn people of that? No, of course not. Yeah. I mean, we have a big problem with the chemical drugs because the risk profile is so high because, you know, you're using that as an example on the natural product, but it's not a problem for anyone who isn't on a novel chemical SSRI, right? And the SSRIs, I mean, you're talking about taking it for a couple of weeks. Well, almost all of the SSRIs and other mental health drugs are only approved for use for a couple of weeks at a time. So if you actually look at the Health Canada approval, when they do their big double-blind clinical trials to get approval, it's only for a short period of time. Now, the doctors will have you on them for years and years, but they're not approved for long-term use. They're only approved by Health Canada for short-term use. And, you know, and that approval is an absolute fraud. You know, I had a psychiatrist on the stand. He was a hired gun from Health Canada. And this guy ran a company that would get psychiatric drugs through this new drug approval process. And, you know, I'm cross-examining him for days. (28:16 - 31:25) Like this was, and at one point he's frustrated. He's under oath and he starts complaining to me under oath about how hard it is to get a new antidepressant approved. And he says, you know, I got to give Health Canada two sizeable double-blind clinical trials showing the drug works. And what he means by that is, is that there's a statistical separation between the drug and the sugar pill that we all pretend in the drug approval world means the drug actually worked. But he says, I got to give Health Canada two, but right out of the gate, I'll run eight. Because I've got to run at least eight double-blind clinical trials to get two that I show Health Canada showing this statistical separation between the sugar pill and the drug. Now, will you tell me that's not an absolute fraud on the Canadian public? Like, what do you mean a drug works? This is like the whole, you know, when you live in this world, the whole thing is a fraud. I have trouble even saying the word Health Canada, because it's so Orwellian. It's like ministry of truth, you know, because I'm convinced to my soul that if we abolished Health Canada, we'd have fewer deaths and better health outcomes. Yes. And that's, that's demonstrated by the fact that every time there has been a doctors or nurses strike in this country, the death rate goes down. Until the strike ends, then it goes back up. Then it goes back up. Exactly. So you're absolutely right, Sean. Now we've got an election coming up. And as you and I have discussed in the past, we've talked about natural health products. While that, that attack, I mean, you've been fighting this war since the nineties. It's not just Trudeau's government that's been doing this, but Trudeau's government has definitely escalated things, trying to shut it down. Now we've got the potential and the election seems to be very much a toss up as to which way it's going to come out. But Carney has been in alignment with Trudeau's policies on pretty much everything. So if he should be elected on Monday the 28th, I suspect the fight just continues to go on as bad as before. Well, you know, now this is, this is puzzling to me is, you know, so Health Canada is in the process of, you know, imposing this self-care framework, this harmonization with chemical drugs where we're going to lose most of our natural products. And it actually might start this year when they impose cost recovery. I can go into that in a minute. But, you know, this is coming from Health Canada. Yes, the self-care framework started under a Liberal government. It was a Liberal Minister of Health in 2017 that signed off on it. And here we are, you know, years later and it's still progressing. But why, why would the Liberals be against us having the right to choose to take natural products? It's like, do you know, in the United States, they're not drugs. Like, so we, we, in Canada, ginger tea is a drug, everything natural, anything you use therapeutics a drug. In the United States, they're classed by law as foods. Their, their Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act 1994, they're classed as foods. (31:25 - 33:09) Well, we class ours as drugs. In the United States, they're deemed by law to be safe. So their regulatory body, the FDA, can only take one off the market if they act, have actual evidence that that specific product poses a risk. So, you know, that odd time where there's actually a risk, they have the power to take it off the market and protect people. But the default is they're deemed by law to be safe and it's actually in the legislation. No, you have, you actually have to have evidence. You can't just be imagining this or you can't take it off the market. But ours are deemed to be unsafe. And before we can get one on the market, we have to prove it's safe. You know, Nature's Sunshine years ago couldn't prove to Health Canada that parsley was safe, just encapsulated parsley, because don't you know, they couldn't find a safety study showing that parsley is safe. So they couldn't get a license. Well, and the fact that you have to find safety studies or do safety studies or find data to show that ginger tea or parsley is safe just drives up the price. So when we started then, in the United States, you don't need government pre-approval to sell ginger tea to treat nausea. But in Canada, you do. You see, we didn't before. It's a recent thing. It started in 2004, and it probably took us about 15 years to kind of comply. So it's very recent that we find ourselves in this world. But, you know, here we've done the exact opposite thing. But back to the election. Why would the Liberals be opposed to just let's go back to the way we were not long ago and the way that our biggest trading partner is? Like, really? Like, we all agree. (33:10 - 33:41) You can't make you can't lie. We all agree. You can't put things in the product that are dangerous. You can't adulterate. We all agree that, you know, the label has to reflect what's in it. We all agree. Let's have good manufacturing practices that exceed food standards. So, you know, you can just grow parsley and sprinkle it with water and throw it in the produce thing. But, heck, let's test all of ours for heavy metals and microbes. Like, OK, fine. We can all agree. Let's have higher safety standards than the exact same product in the next aisle. (33:43 - 34:19) But to say we have to meet chemical drug standards, which are designed deliberately to be expensive, which don't make any difference at all to anyone, so that the effect is that we don't have the products. No. Why is that a political issue? Why are the Liberals and NDP supporting this and the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois not supporting this? Like, how is this a political issue? That's what I don't get, Will, is like, I don't see how, like, why the government party follows what Health Canada wants. (34:20 - 34:38) Well, I think the answer, Sean, is money. Let me give you another little story. Oh, that's right. Political donations. I'm sorry. Well, and not to mention the lobbying from Big Pharma. So, here's another little story. My family and I lived in Mexico for a while. And in Mexico, there's a pharmacy on every corner. (34:39 - 35:00) They're like, they're like convenience stores here. And no prescriptions. No, it's puzzled by this. Right. And I was puzzled by this. So, at one point in time, I asked one of my Mexican friends, what's up with this? Why all these pharmacies? And he explained it. He says, because we don't have drug regulation laws here. Everybody has to do their own homework. And that makes it a much more competitive market. (35:01 - 38:15) But the other thing that people don't understand or don't know, if they haven't lived in a country like that, is that when you go to a Mexican pharmacy to buy these drugs, they are dramatically cheaper than they are here. Why? Because the companies didn't have to go through all of that approval crap with the government to put it in front of their consumers. And so, if we could get our government, not just to respect our right to access natural health products, but I would go so far as to say, why do we need the regulation at all? I don't need a government to be behind anything. I'm going to do my own homework. If there's a drug out there that might treat something, well, we have the internet. Sit down, do your homework. Chances are good somebody's done some studies on it. So, why do I need the government to be my nanny? So, I'll give you almost a world exclusive. You'll be second because the NHPPA just put out a video interview I did with Del Bigtree, where he shared with me that they're having a dialogue with Kennedy and his top advisors as to whether or not the FDA should stop requiring proof of efficacy. I think Health Canada actually makes things worse because, oh, in theory, it's proven to be safe and effective. Well, you try suing them then. And then there's never a criminal investigation. They're basically shielded from civil and criminal liability because we've got this qualified bureaucracy that are the experts certifying that it's safe and effective. So, when we have example after example after example, or I'm sorry, in my legal opinion, my personal opinion, the pharmaceutical companies have committed homicide, let alone criminal negligence causing death or bodily harm. But you will never see them charged. What a different world it would be if every board member and Pfizer and every top officer was actually incarcerated for life and their family wealth was fined and taken away over these COVID vaccines. Well, wouldn't the pharmaceutical companies going forward, wouldn't those boards and officers maybe be making sure that products are safe if they know they're personally liable? But we shield them from liability. But plus, let's point out that once again, the hypocrisy of Health Canada, where they're requiring all of these studies and proof of efficacy and safety from all these drugs supposedly, oh, but as soon as there's a public health emergency, well, we'll just skip all of that. And we'll give an emergency approval, even though we know that they knew way back in 2021 that the pharmacy companies came right out and said, we can't prove safety or efficacy. But did they tell the Canadian public that? No. Well, yeah, no. So that's, you know, that's public messaging. So I would invite your audience, you know, the National Citizens Inquiry, the Quebec City hearings, I testified, I don't remember now if it was day two or day three, I did testify in English on the drug approval process. So that applied to the COVID-19 vaccine. (38:15 - 39:41) So what a lot of people don't understand is, is in our regular drug approval process, for serious health conditions, you have to prove safety, excuse me, and efficacy, and just go to the drug regulations. It's C.08.001. And that's where that process is there. And you'll see, you have to satisfy the minister, except for COVID-19 drugs, they've added us. So, but what happened is, is with COVID-19 drugs about a month before the first two filings to the minister, the minister of health issued an interim order saying, well, if you're for COVID-19 drugs, you can go through this new procedure in this order. Now you could still go through the old procedure and prove safety of efficacy. Oh, but nobody has even to today. You know, what are we like seven years later? So, oh, no, no, but you don't have to go improve safety and efficacy. You can go through this other process. Well, you know, the other process under the interim order, and it's still up online, like it's an official order of the minister. It's not, none of this is a secret. And in, in my testimony, or you can go to the NHPPA.org website and find my discussion paper on it. I link to the interim order. I link to the law. So this interim order, there's even a provision in there. Well, you don't have to submit your safety data to get a license for COVID-19 vaccine. (39:41 - 42:22) Can I say that again? You actually don't have to submit your safety data, license for a COVID-19 vaccine. You just have to explain how you'll get them the data. And, and the only, you're supposed to only get them the known data on safety. So not data to prove safety because the test doesn't even mention the word safety. And it doesn't mention the word efficacy. I probably get this word for word, but the test is for the COVID-19 drugs is that the minister has sufficient evidence to support the conclusion. I'll stop there of what follows. We're already now not in an objective test. We're in a subjective test because if it's objective and you have to prove to Health Canada of what follows it should read the minister has sufficient evidence to conclude. So the minister's conclusion, the minister's Health Canada. So it should be Health Canada has sufficient evidence to conclude of what follows, but no, it says the minister has sufficient evidence to support the conclusion. Well, I mean, whose conclusion are we even talking about? And now we're in a subjective test. So Pfizer just has to basically make an argument or just using them as an example. So Pfizer has to be able to argue. So the minister has sufficient evidence to support the conclusion that the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks having regard to the uncertainties concerning the benefits and risks and the urgent public health emergency presented by COVID-19. Yes. And this is a mandatory test. So Pfizer can make this argument Health Canada has to grant a license. There's no, so Health Canada, this is the irony health Canada could be of the opinion. The vaccine's not safe. Health Canada can be of the opinion. The vaccine is doesn't work. Health Canada can be of the opinion. This is the worst thing we could possibly do. We're going to kill a whole bunch of people for no benefit. And they have to, by law issue that license. If Pfizer can argue the benefits outweigh the risks having regard like legally health Canada has to have regard to the fact we don't know the benefits and risks because it says having regard to the uncertainties regarding the benefits and risks. Well, in the normal drug approval world, if you don't know the safety profile, you said the, you know, the risks, there's no approval. If there's any ambiguity you haven't proven clearly, like a lot of these drugs aren't safe, which is why we limit them by prescription or limit them only to certain groups. Like, you know, if you're in stage four breast cancer, you're, you're more willing to, it's more reasonable for you to have a high risk drug because you're going to die anyway. (42:22 - 46:26) So if you're in that certain percentile where it'll help, Hey, that makes sense, right? So, but you got to know that the risk profile and you have to know the benefit profile before you can do a risk benefit analysis. So in the regular drug approval world, you go back to this C.08.001. You only have to prove safety and efficacy. There isn't this risk benefit thing, but that's done anyway. So in the regular drug approval world, establish the safety profile, establish the, the risks or the benefit profile, and then they do do a balancing, do the risks outweigh the benefits because if they don't, they can be committing homicide or criminal negligence, you know, both with our national law and international criminal law. So you can't let a drug into the market for the general population where the risks outweigh the benefit. Like that's a criminal act on, on many levels. So even though that's not written in, it's done. And here we've got the COVID vaccines where you could get Windex approved. Like I know it was a political direction and your point was, but Health Canada messages, Oh, it's safe and effective. And, and yeah, that's political messaging. It's not true. Right. And I think that's a good point to transition to our second topic in this interview is while many people know that you are the founder director of the national health products, protection association, natural health products association, and have been doing that for many years. I'm sure a lot of people don't know that you're also the prime counsel for the NCI, the national citizens inquiry. And a lot of people also think, well, the NCI is over, but it's not because you held more hearings just last month in Edmonton. What new information came out of those hearings, Shawn? Oh, wow. Okay. So, so I'll just correct you. So yeah, I'm one of the founders of the National Ccitizens Inquiry. And, and my wife and I are the two people that kind of did the most work behind the scenes. And then I've been it's lead counsel. So, you know, first set of hearings, we had somebody else that, you know, had the title of administrator, but wasn't a member of the law society. And, and I did all the lead counsel work and called over half of the witnesses. And then I've, you know, been officially lead counsel ever since, except that I resigned, um, about a month ago. Well, just because, you know, I've been at it over full time for three years. And I think God is leading me on to different things, but we held hearings in Edmonton on, um, yeah, in last month in May and March 6th, 7th and 8th or March. I'm sorry. Yeah. May last month in Maine, here we are in April. So, oh boy. And it's still early in the morning. Things aren't looking good. So I think they were the most important set of hearings that we have ever had. Now we had, we had switched to the topic, are children safe in Canada? And, and we ran our first three days of hearings last October in Vancouver on that. And then, you know, last month we carried on, um, boy, anyone picks a full day, like, and just watch the day starting at the opening to the end, you will not be the same. You are going to be so troubled. It's crazy. But like witness after witness, it was all home runs. Like it was just, you know, Theo Fleury testified. Um, and I've, I've seen Theo Fleury live couple of times. I've watched this Ted talk, you know, I've watched some of his other videos, which I, you know, did cause I, you know, even just to prepare him so that I was prepared as counsel calling him as a witness. I've never seen a presentation like he did at the National Citizens Inquiry. It, it will blow your mind. And, you know, so those of you who don't know Theo's story, I mean, he basically a hockey coach, you know, had him go into, I think it was a triple A team to prepare him to get into the WHL and then the NHL. And he, that coach raped him 150 times. (46:28 - 51:57) And, you know, and so we all remember he was this great hockey player, you know, got a world juniors gold. He got Olympic gold was in Canada's Olympic team twice. He has a Stanley cup. I mean, I think he's 60th overall, all time NHL points. And he wasn't in the league very long. I mean, the guy who's super talented, but gets kicked out because of drug abuse. Well, he ends up writing this book, telling his story and, and he finds out like one in five boys. And I think one in three girls will be sexually, you know, have an unwanted sexual experience by the time they're 18. Like the amount of abuse is just crazy. And he finds himself pre COVID having become a total expert, you know, in abuse and sexual abuse. And he's, you know, speaking everywhere and helping people. And then COVID comes, it all shuts down. It ends. And he's, he's finding himself depressed. He's finding himself suicidal. He goes to a therapist and the therapist, therapist helps him understand. It's like, well, you're experiencing the same thing you experienced when you were abused. And he's like, the lights go on, the government's abusing me. And he actually outlines in this testimony, how during COVID what the government did was exactly the same as sexual predators do when they're abusing you. And, you know, he's like, we're all abused from COVID and we need some healing as a nation. It's just blow your mind. But witness after witness at these March hearings, like Del Bigtree, I've seen him present live. I've seen him present on video numerous times, bar none. This was the best presentation I've ever seen. And you could just say that about witness after witness after witness. And it was just, and for whatever reason, everyone, you know, like usually maybe half of our witnesses are close to half. They're virtually, you know, everyone wanted to be in person, like even Del Bigtree, you know, he's in, he's in Washington for Senate hearings. He asked to then on the Thursday, fly back to Austin and tape the high wire. And then he flies out on Friday to testify Saturday morning, and then he's got to leave right after. He could have testified by video. He could have told us to punt off, like the fact that he chose, no, I need to testify at the NCI, even if it was virtual, we would have went right on. Thank you for honoring us. But he chose to come in person. And I understand why, because it was the whole thing was a spiritual battle. The Holy Spirit was speaking through every single witness there, including Del, and you watch it, you've never seen, you've never seen him include God in anything the way he did. Same with Theo. Everyone has seen, they felt compelled to pray before they testified. It was crazy how powerful it was. Now, and you've said you've stepped away now after years of involvement with the NCI. But I still promote them because that testimony, I think what the NCI, the NCI did a huge service to Canada. You know, when, when we marched across, we started in March of 2023, 24 full days of hearings in eight different cities. And I mean, we'd start at nine in the morning and go to 10 at night. Like they were full long days, all witnesses under oath. Well, you know, people were afraid back then. I didn't want to go in front of the camera. I wasn't supposed to. And I had lawyers dropping out. And I remember, you know, my wife's so terrified, like, what, are we going to get arrested by the end of this? Are our bank accounts going to be frozen? It was the first winter we weren't locked down because of the truckers. I mean, you try to get people to donate to us before we have hearings going because everyone's afraid of having their bank accounts frozen. And we had witness after witness drop out because they were afraid of losing their job or afraid of, you know, their family alienating them again. Well, you know, you can't get that level of evidence now because we got it while they were afraid. If you called the same witnesses now, the ones that are still alive, because they're not all alive. If you called the same witnesses now, you wouldn't get the same testimony because we're not in this total fear thing about COVID like we were. And the NCI documented all of that while it was happening. And, you know, going forward, that's going to be the best source of evidence in the world on what happened with COVID bar none and all by volunteers. So what I wanted to ask you on is because you have been so heavily involved, because you were the counsel there, because you called many of the witnesses, you were there, you heard all of this over the years. And as you just said, and I think very accurately said, every Canadian has been abused by our government in recent years, trampling on our rights, causing a great deal of fear and stress and anxiety that absolutely was not necessary. What conclusions have you drawn from listening to those testimonies about that abuse by our government? And I have to say the future of our country, because there's every possibility that the liberals are going to get a fourth term under Mark Carney. And while I could not find any direct evidence that Carney spoke out in support of lockdowns or mandatory vaccines, he was in 2020, an economic advisor to Trudeau, and he certainly didn't speak out against it. So if the Canadians elect that liberal government on the 28th, well, we've got the same perpetrator still in office. (51:59 - 54:27) So, Will, let's appreciate who's in control here and what's happening. Because if one thing, before COVID, I wouldn't describe myself as a Christian or religious, even though now I went to church maybe once a month. But I wasn't about to change my life, and I wasn't serious about anything. And then COVID hits, and I found myself in this situation where I actually believe I'm seeing evil, like real evil. I mean, I'm sorry. Some of us actually believed and still believe that this was intentional. So basically, we're getting all this propaganda to drive us into taking a vaccine and not for our benefit. And I'm seeing us lose all our rights, and I'm seeing us be divided. Like, go back to the Commonwealth Games open ceremony during COVID. You have slaves with chains over their backs pulling out the golden calf, Baal. I mean, the Super Bowl. You find a public ceremony that isn't a satanic worship. Like, find me one opening of CERN, everything, opening of tunnels in Europe. Find me a big public event that is not a satanic ritual. And so I'm going, this is just my journey. It's like, okay, Satan's real. So that means Jesus is real. And I got all serious about it. And what happened with the National Citizens Inquiry, we're not a religious group. I don't even know what the beliefs are of most of the people that I worked with for those three years. And some of us worked together on a pre-project called the Citizens Hearing that was kind of, is this, would a bigger one be viable? I couldn't even tell you what their beliefs are. I'm not supposed to go in front of the camera. One of my roles, one of my many roles was, is making sure we had counsel in each city to prepare and do witnesses. Well, there are second set Toronto's coming up and I'm having lawyers drop out. So whereas the first day I don't have a single lawyer, the second day I have one lawyer and the third day I got two. And then it just kept repeating for the other here. And so it's like, okay, I'm going to Toronto and calling every witness on day one, at least half on day two, and at least a third on day three. (54:28 - 56:26) Well, we do opening statements. And so, you know, I'm, we're flying to Toronto and I'm still doing witness prep. And so I got to have this open statement and I, you know, prepare my notes for that. And I, you know, give that opening statement and call witnesses all day and I'm up late preparing the witnesses for the next day. And I'm still having them, you know, I'm dialoguing with my, you know, Winnipeg witnesses and all these others. It's probably like one in the morning before I could even turn my mind to, well, what the heck are we going to say in the opening statement this morning in seven, you know, eight hours. And it's like, I don't know if you ever just, Holy spirit talks to you. It's not like you hear an audible voice, but it was kind of like, I'll take the openings. I'll take the openings. And, um, I realized now I should have negotiated better before I said, okay, I should have said fine, but give me the outline the night before so I can sleep. I'm not up all night going, well, what the heck? You know, you had like, sometimes you have 40,000 people watching you live. I'd like to know what I'm going to say for half an hour during an opening before I show up. Like, that's just me, right? Because what if the whole thing crashed? But so it was only one night. I kind of, kind of got it before the way it would work is, is it would come to nothing would come to me until like maybe 15 minutes before we had to jump in the car to leave. Literally. I'd, you know, just sketch out just, you know, an outline. We jump in the car, go there and I deliver the things, you know, well, I've watched them because I, you know, somebody we're thinking internally of just publishing them as a book. Well, my gosh, I mean, some of them, it's like, did you have professional people write this? And did you practice for a week to deliver it? Like, it's just the Holy spirit just spoke. (56:26 - 57:31) And he, what he said to people, the messages were, if you watch this and it wasn't just the openings, they'd come out from witnesses throughout the day is you got to forgive each other. Like we're all divided. None of this. Like, no, we can't, we can't hold any grudges. We absolutely have to come together and love each other and let's stop being afraid. Like, you know, we've been there. We've done that. We've got the t-shirt. We can go through economic crises. We can have climate log. We can do it. We will get, we will get through it. And what I understand now, will this as he is moving. It's not like we have to pray. Oh God, come and move. He's here. He's moving. You know what the election I want, whoever he wants to win to win, you know, maybe Canadians need to be locked down, you know, for climate change or whatever. Like maybe we have to, you know, even lose our, you know, bold action three Oh threes, because my gosh, that's just crazy. You know, dangerous. Like I don't, whatever it is, like, maybe it just has to get worse. (57:31 - 58:46) You know, the, one of the most important witnesses at the NCI was Regina Gorman in Red Deer and Regina was part of the solidarity movement in Poland from day one. And after the leadership, you know, the main leaders got arrested and she's part of the group trying to keep the thing going on. And she gets arrested for handing out pamphlets that went against the government narrative. And she gets arrested and sentenced to three years by a military tribunal. And I think she served a year and a half before she was released because she was able to go to Canada as a political refugee. So there's a lady that spent time in a Polish jail as a freedom fighter. And she told us under under oath at the National Citizens Inquiry, you know, we're trying to cripple the economy to basically get out from under the police state. And the whole Polish population knows what they're doing, what we're doing. And they support us like it's wildly popular, but they don't take to the streets. They don't make it happen until the bread runs out until they succeeded in crippling the economy. And now the bread runs out. Now they're hungry. (58:46 - 59:49) And then and only then do they take to the streets and very quickly, they toppled a police state peacefully that had been there for 40 years. Well, you know, they could have toppled that police state any day in those 40 years. But they had to wait because it's human nature and Canadians are no different than Polish people. We have to wait until the bread runs out until it's so bad. That's the only way the majority is going to get involved is when they're actually hungry and they have no other choice. And so, you know, maybe the best thing for Canada will is for it to get worse. And it doesn't mean that it has to take that path, because I think things could go wonderfully regardless of what government we have. We're you know, we're having revelations south of the border. People are, you know, learning more and more here. We could literally be entering this golden age where we have an opportunity to reset things in a positive way. And get our institutions working for us again. So I, I'm actually find myself extremely positive. (59:49 - 1:00:40) So if I can attempt to summarize what you've just said in response to my question of what were your conclusions from all of these years being involved with the NCI, is that it's not about greedy corporations. It's not about power mad globalists. It's not about corrupt governments. It's about us. We have to stand up. And when we do, things will change. You said it beautifully. You know what it's about? It's about loving your neighbour like yourself, which means you don't tolerate lies from the government and institutions. You don't tolerate abuse. You don't tolerate policies that are going to harm your neighbour. Because the only thing that you need to worry about, you know, on your last night on earth is how much you loved those around you. That's the only thing you need to worry about. (1:00:40 - 1:00:54) It's not about you. It's about how much you can give. And as you've just stated, once again, to paraphrase what you just said, Sean, there's a difference between being good and being nice. (1:00:55 - 1:01:51) And so many people have equated nice with good. Oh, if I say something that might offend this person, that's not nice. So that's not good. But sometimes you have to not be nice to be good. You have to tell the truth. Well, you have to tell the truth. Like you just ask yourself, like if I'm being deceived about something, do I want to know the truth or not? Well, usually I want to know the truth, right? So, um, so the only question is, is, is like, what's the best, best thing? And I mean, you're not there to, you know, interfere with people's lives, but help me out here. Our institutions are not acting for our, our good. And we each have a personal responsibility to protect our neighbor and definitely a responsibility to protect our children. And we're not doing that. We're not doing that. We need accountability. (1:01:52 - 1:03:07) We need our institutions acting for us. And we've been complacent. I mean, it's just, we are too affluent. We were definitely totally conditioned to just accept. We didn't have to pay attention to what was going on. Well, we've learned that that leads to dangerous places. And that's not why we're here. We're actually here to, to have crisis, to have hardship and then decide who we're going to be. And I think, you know, you know, remember Churchill during the battle of Britain, you know, basically said, you know, when he's trying to, to rally the nation, something to the effect, you know, that basically, you know, if the British empire lasts for a thousand years, you know, that, that they'll look back and say this, this was our finest hour. We're there now. We get to choose what type of a nation we're going to have. Like we've never, the people have never had this power before in this opportunity before where we're so aware that we need to do things differently and take responsibility. This will could be our finest hour.