A quick note to celebrate that my album Foreverland turns three today! Originally released on Canada Day 2022, it remains my favourite collection of songs I’ve ever created.

I’m very thankful for the positive feedback I’ve received from so many of you over the last few years, and I’m thrilled every time somebody tells me one song or the other is their favourite.

For the record, “The Things We Take With Us” continues to top the personal favourite charts among my audience and supporters! Meanwhile, the trio of “Minutes”, “Midnight” and “Legacy” remain among the most emotional for me, personally.

I’m biased, but I really do love my music! I’m so glad so many of you do, too.

Celebrate this exciting day with me and enjoy Foreverland on Bandcamp, or wherever you listen to music. CDs are also available for those folks who like things the old fashioned way.

Thank you for your support over the last three years, and I can’t wait to share what I’m working on now. Stay tuned!

Foreverland is also available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music.

On May 27th, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the COVID-19 vaccine would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women in the United States.

The very next day, a story appeared simultaneously across all major Canadian news networks, including CTV News, the Toronto Star, and The Globe and Mail, insisting that “COVID-19 vaccination ‘remains safe and strongly recommended’ during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.”

Originating from The Canadian Press, the story was a coordinated effort to amplify a statement issued by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), an Ottawa-based not-for-profit organization. Citing “an age of growing misinformation and disinformation,” the SOGC declared that “[w]omen and health care providers should continue to rely on trusted science-based organizations like the SOGC for current and accurate guidance on vaccination during pregnancy.”

The Canadian Press article included added commentary from maternal fetal medicine specialist and SOGC member Darine El-Chaâr, who said “pregnant women remain a priority population for COVID vaccination in Canada.”

Given the timing of the SOGC’s position statement and accompanying media blast — and the explicit acknowledgement that it was put out “[i]n light of the recent change in the United States’ recommendation” — readers are surely intended to conclude that Canada’s regulatory authorities currently strongly recommend that pregnant women take the shot.

Here’s the problem: it’s not true.

COVID-19 vaccine regulation

For context, COVID-19 vaccines are a pharmaceutical product regulated by Health Canada. Originally authorized under an Interim Order, the vaccine products currently on the market have all received authorization for marketing and distribution under the Food and Drugs Act.

Once such approval is received, a separate federal body is tapped to develop recommendations for their use in Canada: the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI). These recommendations are then collected into guidelines and published in the Canadian Immunization Guide (CIG).

While the current CIG includes a general statement that “[w]omen and individuals who are pregnant or breastfeeding are recommended to be vaccinated,” it also provides a number of caveats.

“Pregnant women and pregnant individuals are not included in the list of higher risk individuals for whom two doses of COVID-19 vaccine per year are recommended,” it reads, noting that “pregnancy is an indication for an annual dose of COVID-19 vaccine” — the same general recommendation given for “most previously vaccinated individuals.”

Put simply, Canada’s current position is far from a strong recommendation, especially as compared to recommendations from years’ past. And pregnant women are distinctly not considered “a priority population” for COVID-19 vaccination, as Dr. El-Chaâr appears to incorrectly claim.

Notably, the CIG warns that “[p]regnant or breastfeeding individuals were excluded from COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials,” meaning the safety and efficacy of the novel genetic vaccine candidates was never tested before being deployed into that population.

Indeed, a study published in the journal Womens Health Issues found that of the 90 vaccine trials the researchers reviewed, “88 (97.8%) excluded pregnant individuals.” The authors warned that “[w]ithout evidence-based data, these individuals are forced to make medical decisions affecting both themselves and their fetus while lacking the clear recommendations that most of the population has.”

To fill these data gaps, the CIG encourages women who received a COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy “to enrol in a COVID-19 vaccine pregnancy registry.” In other words, using pregnant women as real-time guinea pigs, outside of the safeguards of a formal clinical trial.

Clarifying the new U.S. policy

And as it turns out, Secretary Kennedy’s “dangerous new COVID vaccine rules” actually appear to bring American policy closer in line with current Canadian recommendations.

PBS News reported late last week that the updated guidance on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s website removed pregnant women from “the routine recommendation made for other adults,” with an agency spokesperson clarifying that the vaccines are still available for any pregnant women who wants them via their healthcare provider.

Thus, a reasonable summation of the current state of public health guidance is that in both Canada and the United States, pregnant women who want a COVID-19 vaccine or booster can receive one by speaking with their doctor. The only real change is that federal public health authorities are no longer pushing pregnant women to take the experimental shot.

Not directly, anyway.

Federal funding to “promote acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines”

Equally problematic is that the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada failed to disclose the (greater than) $1 million it has received from the Government of Canada for the express purpose of selling vaccines to pregnant women — including COVID-19 vaccines.

In January 2017, the Society kicked off a multi-year project titled “Improving Immunization Rates Among Pregnant Women in Canada: Working with care providers and the public,” supported by a $733,091 grant from the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Immunization Partnership Fund (IPF).

The IPF grant was subsequently updated and repurposed to “promote acceptance and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines,” earning the Society a total of $1,052,726 for this project alone.

Importantly, the Society plays no formal role in Canada’s regulatory framework in regard to COVID-19 vaccines — something which is likely to be lost on the layperson reading one of the many articles resulting from its statement.

It has, however, served for many years as a mouthpiece for the government’s public health policies. A review of Canada’s public funding database reveals that the Society has directly received over $7.2 million in federal grants since 2015, with an additional $180.7 million for five projects on which the Society is listed as a partner.

Among these is nearly $1.5 million in “core funding” from Health Canada, spanning December 2018 through March 2022, plus an additional $2.6 million to help the government “maintain a strong and effective publicly funded health care system.” Additionally, the Public Health Agency of Canada has provided the Society over $800,000 across multiple grants to “contribute to the prevention, control and reduction of the spread of infectious disease among Canadians.”

Pfizer partnership and lack of transparency

Also notably absent from the Society’s statement was disclosure of its relationship with the companies behind the COVID-19 vaccine products.

Indeed, on August 14, 2020, the Society announced in a Facebook post that it had signed “a new partnership with Pfizer Canada,” through which the pharmaceutical giant would “help support and build resource materials and new educational initiatives for SOGC’s members and the public throughout the pandemic.”

Unfortunately, the Society has a documented history of lacking transparency around its financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The Toronto Star reported in 2015 that the Society refused to disclose how much money it had received from Duchesnay, after the Society advocated for the use of the company’s morning sickness drug, Diclectin.

This lack of transparency continues to this day, with no clear information on the Society’s website about its corporate sponsorships. The same goes for the Canadian Foundation for Women’s Health (CFWH), the Society’s sister organization through which it raises funds.

However, an archived version of the CFWH website reveal that it once proudly boasted corporate sponsorships from the likes of Pfizer, Janssen, Eli Lilly, Merck and Novartis.

In a time when Canadians and Americans alike are increasingly skeptical of the public health establishment, one wonders if the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada has just provided one more reason to be distrustful.

To kick off the year, I am very excited to announce the official launch event for not one, but two books which I had the pleasure of contributing to, and I want you to be there! To skip the details and jump straight to grabbing your tickets on Eventbrite, click here.

The event will take place on Thursday, January 23rd at the Frederic Wood Theatre on the University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver. Doors open at 5:30PM, and will kick off at 6:00PM with a screening of the groundbreaking documentary, COVID Collateral. This will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by Kid Carson, featuring some of my co-authors and guests. The lineup includes authors Steven Pelech, Christopher Shaw and York Hsiang, and our friends Bruce Hindmarsh and Jens Zimmerman of UBC’s Regent College.

The event is centred around the launch of two new books by the newly-renamed Canadian Citizens Care Alliance (CCCA). The first, Down the COVID-19 Rabbit Hole, was published in November 2024 by Skyhorse Publishing, and features a foreword by Children’s Health Defense president and general counsel, Mary Holland. The second, COVID-19 Pandemonium, was published the following month by Ekstasis Editions.

I had the pleasure of contributing bits to the first book, and am a named author on chapters 4 and 5 of the second, based on my research into conflicts of interest with Matthew Evans-Cockle and Deanna McLeod. Following the panel discussion, I will join my fellow authors in signing books!

For my friends unable to attend in-person but wanting to grab your own copies, the books can be purchased on Amazon and Ekstasis Editions, respectively.

General admission tickets for the January 23rd event are available for purchase on Eventbrite for $25. You can also purchase a VIP ticket which includes a copy of either one of the two books, and seating in the front section of the theatre. All proceeds go to support the ongoing work of the CCCA.

Click the button below to see the full event details and purchase your tickets, and I hope to see you on January 23rd!

Buy tickets

As societal tensions run high in the wake of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson,1 a Florida mother of three found herself behind bars last week for remarks made during a heated phone call with her health insurance agent.

According to a report from ABC News, 42-year old Briana Boston was told by a Blue Cross Blue Shield agent that her insurance claim was being denied. In response, Boston said, “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next.” Based on this “perceived threat,” police paid Boston a visit, during which she “apologized and said that she ‘used those words because it's what is in the news right now.’”2

In other words, it sounds like Boston was cooperative with police. From what we know, she didn’t give any indication that she intended to actually do any harm to the insurance agent — or anyone else, for that matter — and that she didn’t own any guns, anyway. She doesn’t appear to have a criminal history, or any history of violence.

Still, Boston told police that “the health care companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.”

On these grounds, Boston was slapped with handcuffs and charged with “threats to conduct a mass shooting or act of terrorism.” Her bail was set at a whopping $100,000.3 She was granted a pre-trial release, and is reported to be under house arrest with GPS monitoring as of December 16.4 A GoFundMe fundraiser in support of Boston’s legal defense has raised over $66,000.5

Delay, Deny, Depose, Defend…?

While it’s true that threatening violence towards a person is illegal, it’s not entirely clear that this is even what Boston did. Heck, even the ABC News article refers to her words as “apparent threats.”

The logic behind the charge seems to be that Ms. Boston’s use of the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” indicated her intention to commit the same act of murder as Luigi Mangione, Brian Thompson’s alleged assassin, because he left bullet shell casings at the scene bearing the same message.

Problem is, they weren’t the same words. The writing on the casings read “deny,” “defend” and “depose,” clearly intended to communicate a message of some sort to somebody (not to Mr. Thompson, of course). In turn, these words were close to, but not the same as, the title of a 2010 book, Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don't Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It.

Despite not having read the book myself, I find it hard to believe that author Jay Feinman included “extrajudicial execution” as one of the items on the “what you can do about it” list.

Per the Associated Press, the phrase “Delay, Deny, Defend” refers to “insurers delaying payment on claims, denying claims and defending their actions.”6 The AP further points out that the phrase has been around for awhile, and is a “common phrase” among insurance industry critics — the overwhelming majority of whom do not express their criticism through violence or murder.

In other words, the idea that Ms. Boston’s apparent invocation of a common phrase used in the context of criticizing systemic issues in the insurance industry constitutes evidence of intention to hurt or kill is ludicrous at best, and baseless at worst.

The second half of her “apparent threat” — “You people are next” — doesn’t move the needle, either, and this is even more true given the context of the media environment around Brian Thompson’s assassination. Yes, it’s possible that Boston meant “you people are next” to be murdered. On the other hand, it’s just as reasonable to infer that she meant “you people are next” to face intense public scrutiny over your well-established role in a systemic issue wreaking havoc on the health and wellbeing of society at large. Or “you people are next” to lose me as a customer because you freaking suck.

This isn’t a matter of nitpicking, and it is a big deal. There are so many leaps here which, if applied mutatis mutandis to any given “hot take” on the internet, could provide justification to lock anybody up with absolutely no actual evidence of a crime committed.

“Honk Honk”

Take, for instance, Canada’s Freedom Convoy, which traveled to Ottawa, Ontario in early 2022 to loudly protest the government’s increasingly-restrictive “pandemic response” measures. Led primarily by the nation’s truckers, the protest was initially a cacophony of honking horns, until a court injunction forced them to quiet down.7 “Honk honk” nonetheless became an unofficial slogan, uttered by spoken and written word rather than by truck horn.8

Shortly after the protest was violently evicted by federal police, a Liberal Member of Parliament named Ya’ara Saks declared out of nowhere that “honk honk” actually meant “Heil Hitler.”9 The logic? According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, both terms contain two words that begin with the letter H, and has thus been used by “a movement of extremely online young neo-Nazis” to avoid triggering censorship.10

Now I know that next time somebody tells me “Happy Holidays,” I should loudly scold their antisemitism!

Simply put, just because somebody at some point has used a word or term as a euphemism for something, does not mean everyone else who subsequently uses that word or term is using it the same way. To infer otherwise, without any evidence to back it up, is to risk framing someone of a crime they didn’t commit.

Given that antisemitism and “hate speech” are punishable with jail time here in Canada, the risk is very serious indeed.11

True Threat, or Dumb Comment?

Unlike us Canucks, Americans’ right to freedom of expression is protected by the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution, intended to prevent the government from limiting your ability to speak.

Not all speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. As previously mentioned, it is illegal to threaten physical harm to a person. But there are important criteria establishing what qualifies as a “true threat” versus, for example “political hyperbole.”12

As helpfully summarized by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee:13

The U.S. Supreme Court defined true threats in Virginia v. Black (2003) as “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” According to the Supreme Court, true threats include when a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.

So, the key question is: did Briana Boston utter a true threat?

Turns out, I’m not the only one with a case of skepticism. Christopher Day, a self-published author and activist, explored this very dilemma on his blog, Stenonymous. “Does a reasonable person believe ‘you people are next’ from a mom that’s angry about her claim being denied really mean she’s going to commit unlawful violence against them?”14 Day points out that “there are much more ‘violent’ statements that the police would never arrest anyone for,” and posits that authorities acted with a heavy hand in Boston’s case to make “people afraid of what the law might do to them if they step out of line.”

Day’s theory echoes comments by former federal prosecutor Shanlon Wu, who told Newsweek that Boston’s $100,000 bond “seems high ‘for someone with her lack of a criminal history,’ but that it may be a warning to other potential copycats in the wake of the highly visible New York case.”15

But conflating Brian Thompson’s assassination with Boston’s “apparent threat” can only go so far. No reasonable person would think the full force of the law wouldn’t come after them if they were to commit such a heinous act as murder, whether or not they can morally justify it in their own mind. This leads one to wonder if Day and Wu are on to something, and the overreaction to Boston’s comments is intentional.

Still, an overreaction does not criminal speech make.

“What did Boston do, exactly? She was rude to a customer service representative,” wrote Arwa Mahdawi in her column for The Guardian.16 Meanwhile, there are many, many others saying far, far worse things about the assassination, including examples that probably do constitute true threats.1718 Why Ms. Boston and not them?

The right to say dumb sh*t

Let’s be clear: what Ms. Boston said to the insurance agent was highly ill-advised under the best of circumstances. But freedom of speech also protects the right to say dumb sh*t. That also means bearing the consequences of saying that dumb sh*t. But the line between dumb sh*t and criminal speech is stark, and is vital for people to know and understand.

“It’s more a crime of stupidity than any actual terrorism,” Day concludes. “Then again, we live in a country where people who post legal annotations online have been called terrorist. Maybe I’m a terrorist too?”

No, Chris, you’re not. And absent new evidence, neither, it appears, is Briana Boston.

I just wrapped up an excellent round table discussion with my colleagues and friends and titled MAHA and the Military. Thank you to everyone who tuned in live, and I’m excited to share it with you all now.

The discussion came about after both Gabe and Michael described to me (independently of each other) their theory about the role of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement in military readiness.

As you’ll hear, Michael takes us through how he sees Elon Musk using MAHA as a vehicle to expedite and bolster his aspirations to take man to Mars. On the other hand, Gabe highlights the geopolitical realities that may be driving the powers-that-be to prepare for armed conflict, identifying numerous ways in which the United States government has been signalling their intention to prepare Americans for combat.

Ultimately, it was an excellent talk between friends with open minds, and I hope you find it as compelling as I did.

Learn more about Michael’s work at Teachers for Choice and Gabe’s work at Libre Solutions Network!

Video links

Watch the video above or click the links below to watch the discussion on your platform of choice:

• Rumble

• X

• YouTube

These are the words of John L. Petersen, founder of a little-known West Virginia think tank called The Arlington Institute.1 He was speaking with filmmaker James Patrick, whose film Planet Lockdown would premiere one month later at the Coolfont Resort in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, in November 2021. There would be wine, cheese, and much discussion to be had between Patrick, the stars of the film, and “other like-minded folks who are really quite interested in this big issue.”

Among those interviewed for Planet Lockdown were Catherine Austin Fitts, founder of The Solari Report;2 Reiner Fuellmich, a German lawyer leading the Corona Investigative Committee (CIC);3 Wolfgang Wodarg, former member of German parliament and CIC co-host;4 Michael Yeadon, a former Pfizer executive;5 and David E. Martin, a patent specialist.6 Each of these individuals, and many of the others who appeared in the interview series, played a significant role in shaping aspects of the “counter-narrative” around COVID-19.7

While one might assume that the Arlington Institute chose to host the premiere of this decisively dissident film because it is itself a dissident organization, the reality is far more complicated. Unlike groups such as Children’s Health Defense, the Brownstone Institute, or the Informed Consent Action Network (for example), the Arlington Institute doesn’t engage in advocacy or legal efforts around bodily autonomy, self-determination, or informed consent. Rather than opposing COVID-19-era policies as intense government overreach, Petersen described “this whole COVID thing” as “the key opportunity”—language much more in line with opportunists like Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum than someone trying to fend off disaster.

The public face of the Arlington Institute is suggestive of a place where open minds can gather. For decades, the Arlington Institute has held space for the “wackiest” ideas to thrive and be exchanged. UFOs, remote viewing, psychedelics, alternative medicine, reincarnation, telepathy, forbidden history, and all manner of spiritualism—month after month, these are the topics of discussion at the Arlington Institute’s Transition Talks, of which Planet Lockdown was one. In a given month, members of the institute are treated to a presentation on future warfare from top military brass; the following month, a masterclass on alternative medicine and regenerative agriculture.

A review of TAI’s list of past speakers reveals an odd mixture of people with long and respected backgrounds in alternative health and spirituality communities, as well as a number who come from the more esoteric corners of the military and intelligence world. 

Examples from the first group include author Charles Eisenstein, campaign advisor for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Sally Fallon Morell, founder of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a major advocate for clean food, regenerative agriculture and the healing arts. 

From the second group, examples include Dennis Bushnell, long-time chief scientist and “future warfare” specialist at NASA Langley Research Center;8 Robert David Steele, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who “reportedly died” of COVID-19 in August 2021;9 and Joseph McMoneagle, Paul H. Smith and Harold Puthoff, leading participants in MKUltra-adjacent10 remote viewing experiments through the Stargate Project.11

Per its website, TAI offers several membership tiers, each with escalating perks.12 For $25/month, members gain access to “premium content” in the form of pre-recorded round table discussions, monthly Q&As with founder John Petersen, and opportunities to join the studio audience during taped recordings. The $250/year premium tier offers all of the above, plus discounts on live events such as the Planet Lockdown premiere.

But the real perk is the larger community one can join. According to TAI Research Fellow Joel Snell,13 the institute’s membership over the years has included David Gergen, counselor to President Bill Clinton; Arkady Shevchenko, Soviet defector and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations;14 Elmo Zumwalt, former Chief of Naval Operations;15 and even former CIA Director William Colby.

Some may glance over this and applaud TAI’s diversity of community, fostering a space where no idea is too “out there.” TAI seems to have served as a melting pot of ideas, bringing together thinkers and doers from across the spectrum (every spectrum). But a critical review of its history, leadership, and trajectory suggests there may be more going on than meets the eye.

A New National Security

John L. Petersen, the institute’s founder, is a Navy veteran and self described “futurist.”16 He was a flight officer in the United States Navy and the Navy Reserve, and describes himself as “a decorated veteran of both the Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars.” His “government and political experience include stints at the National War College, the Institute for National Security Studies, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council staff at the White House.”17

Notably, Petersen claims to have twice been the “runner-up candidate to be Secretary of the Navy.” He also “served in senior positions for a number of presidential political campaigns.”18

Petersen was an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1984 during the presidential race between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.19 According to Petersen, he grew concerned that national security issues would not play a major role in any campaign in the next presidential race in 1988.

So, in 1986, he approached several colleagues in the national security space to create and co-lead an “ad-hoc group of national security experts” called the National Security Group.20 The mandate of the privately funded, bipartisan group over its 18-month lifespan was “to explore and map the security environment that the successful candidate would have to operate within after the 1988 presidential campaign.”

Petersen authored the final report for the group, titled The Diffusion of Power: An Era of Realignment, published in 1988, “which became a strategy document used at the highest levels of the Department of Defense.”21 The report was sponsored by the National Strategy Forum, who also sponsored an event in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing room on October 31, 1988, where Petersen and others presented their findings.2223 In short, the report stated that the United States had entered “a new era” of national security. President George H.W. Bush was the beneficiary of the National Security Group’s research, having beaten Michael Dukakis in November 1988.

At the end of this first phase of his career, Petersen had built the resumé of a classic Washington insider on the national security/defense side of the street.

Founding the Arlington Institute

Following his work with the National Security Group, Petersen launched The Arlington Institute for National Strategy “to help redefine the concept of national security in much larger, comprehensive terms by introducing the rapidly evolving global trends of population growth, environmental degradation, scientific/technological explosion, and social value shifts into the traditional national defense equation that had focused on ‘killing people and breaking things.’”24 TAI “specialize[d] in helping U.S. Military leaders develop forward-thinking images of a positive future.” Petersen envisioned “a ‘New Military’ that is proactive, preventative, and active in a number of unconventional areas.”25

On May 6, 1992, the think tank shortened its name to The Arlington Institute.26 Over the years to come, the institute appears to have offered its services to a range of clients from the military-industrial complex, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as well as the United States Coast Guard, Marines Corps, and Navy.272829

Military Leadership

In its early days, the Arlington Institute boasted a board of directors chock-full of military and intelligence leadership figures, and a robust support staff to back them up. Through its peak in the 1990s, TAI’s board included then-current and former officials from the CIA, the United States Army and Navy, the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Executive Office of the President of the United States, and multiple Presidential Commissions.

James Woolsey

Most notable among these is R. James Woolsey, who served as director of the CIA from 1993-1995 under President Bill Clinton. He officially joined the Arlington Institute as a director in 1992 while also serving as Chairman of a Special Task Force for the Director of Central Intelligence, less than one year prior to taking control of the most powerful intelligence agency in the world.30 Corporate filings confirm he remained as director until 2005.31

Woolsey’s participation on TAI’s board is significant, given his CIA directorship and other activities around this time. He was a member of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC),32 and was a signatory to its January 26, 1998 letter to President Clinton that called for regime change in Iraq.33 He had also served in high-level positions in the Navy; he was Under Secretary of the Navy from 1977-1979, then joined the Chief of Naval Operations Executive Panel in 1980 as a permanent member.34

In June 2001, Woolsey participated in Operation Dark Winter,35 an infamous pandemic preparedness exercise that was “eerily prescient” in its similarities to the subsequent October 2001 anthrax attacks36 — which, coincidentally, were initially blamed on Iraq, helping the United States Government construct a narrative that Saddam Hussein was covertly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.3738 David Gergen, previously identified as a TAI member, also participated in the exercise.

Jack DuVall

Board member Jack DuVall also has a history of influencing U.S. foreign policy with Iraq. DuVall, an Air Force veteran who served in the Executive Office of the President of the United States and worked as a speechwriter for multiple presidential candidates, served as the founding director of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC).39

In fall 2003, DuVall published an article in Sojourners Magazine alongside his co-founder, Peter Ackerman, in which the pair advocated for “civilian-based, nonviolent resistance by the Iraqi people, developed and applied in accordance with a strategy to undermine Saddam [Hussein]’s basis of power.”40 This, argued Stephen Gowans in an August 6, 2009 blog post, reveals DuVall’s role among “a faction within the U.S. ruling class that pushes for a nonmilitary means of achieving… regime change in countries that resist integration into the U.S. imperial orbit.”41 Gowan’s article describes this as one example of “Peter Ackerman’s quest to do what the CIA used to do, and make it seem progressive.”

And while ICNC claims to be entirely independent of government, it has reportedly received substantial funding from CIA “pass through” organizations.42 Ackerman also served on the board of the Albert Einstein Institution (AEI), with which ICNC has worked closely, and which has benefited from the generous sponsorship of these same intelligence-linked entities such as the Ford Foundation, the International Republican Institute, and the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as the Department of Defense itself.43

In June 2022, Ackerman was accused by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili of being “the sponsor and ideologist” of an attempted colour revolution in the Eastern European nation.44

DuVall has been accused of being “a fraud and possibly some kind of spook… whose aim is to divide the antiwar movement.”45 As pointed out by liberal antiwar activists Jacob Levich, Michael Barker, and David Quarter, DuVall’s role as a director of the military-intelligence-led Arlington Institute is impossible to square with his ostensible aversion to violent conflict, and that his “weird career details” suggested an ulterior agenda.4647 “What kind of pacifist sits on the board of directors of a company that does consulting work for the Department of Defense and four branches of the US Military?” asks Quarter.48

These military connections are ubiquitous across the early leadership team at the Arlington Institute. George Kuper previously worked within the Office of the Secretary of Defense as chairman of its Working Group on Dual Use Technology policy.49 Colin Crook served as an advisor to the Department of Defense.50 Robert Morse was a lieutenant in the United States Navy from 1967-1970.51 Betty Sue Flowers served as a visiting advisor to the Secretary of the Navy.52 Major General Neal Creighton led a squadron of the Army’s 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment during the 1968 Tet Offensive of the war in Vietnam, and subsequently held positions in the Offices of the Secretary of the Army and the Assistant Secretary of Defense.5354

Wild Cards

As described on the Arlington Institute’s website, the early 1990’s saw Petersen working for the Department of Defense on various projects “to build a systematic understanding of the major approaches that were then being used to study and anticipate futures.”55 One such project saw him embark on a worldwide trip on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, “visiting the foremost practitioners of futures research to assess each methodology and attempt to develop a new, synthetic approach that drew from the best of the then current processes.” 

This would eventually lead to the publication of several books, including Out of the Blue: Wild Cards and Other Big Future Surprises.56 Published in 1997, the book focuses on “Wild Cards,” described as “major surprises… high-impact events which come out of the blue.”57 (Emphasis is from the book.) Wild Cards are contrasted with trends, defined as “a general current of change—typically gradual and long-term change—that becomes a directing force for the future.”

Petersen warned that “Wild Cards can radically change our outlook, and indeed our lives. Some do so, almost overnight.” Some of the Wild Cards Petersen suggests as possible include a worldwide epidemic; the discovery of long-term side effects from a medication; the arrival of human genetic engineering; the failure of the U.S. economy; a second American Civil War; a worldwide no-carbon economy; the development of self-aware machine intelligence; biological terrorism; rapid climate change; and a global financial revolution using “E-Cash.”58

As far as predictions go, that ain’t bad for 1997.

Thanks for reading! This is Part I in my investigative series on The Arlington Institute. Subscribe for free or become a paid supporter to be the first to receive Part II, which will dive deeper into the history of scenario planning, and some eerily specific predictions which may be shaping our world today.

Join us live on Rumble, YouTube and X, where we’ll be tackling the question many in the Medical Freedom Movement are struggling with: should the movement support Donald Trump and his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition?

After suspended his independent campaign for president and endorsed Donald Trump, many in the movement that Kennedy helps lead have been searching for a path forward. Many of those who formally or informally supported Kennedy have legitimate concerns over whether the issues on which he based his platform will fall by the wayside.

Will Donald Trump keep his promises to empower Kennedy to address America’s chronic disease epidemic? Will he acknowledge his role in the COVID-19 crisis and begin to take corrective action? Will he finally “drain the swamp” and clean house of undue corporate influence over public health and other government systems?

Michael, Dr. Bowden and John have each played a key role in defending individual rights during the COVID-19 era, including bodily autonomy, freedom of expression, and peacefully resisting encroachments on civil liberties.

I anticipate this will be a hearty discussion, and one that may include disagreements along the way. As such, I have no doubt it will be both productive and enlightening, and I look forward to sharing it with you all.

See you tomorrow at 9:00AM Pacific / 12:00PM Eastern time!

On September 2nd, 2013, I picked up my camera and began a conversation through time. Donning the persona of "Past Liam", I documented every other day of my life, speaking to myself one year in the future. Once that year ended, on September 3, 2014, Future Liam took over, filling in his replies on the off days. Past Liam/Future Liam was born.

To celebrate the eleventh anniversary of PL/FL, I will be re-uploading each episode daily to Rumble, Odysee, and other video platforms to help bridge who I was then with who I am now. Get to know me through the lens of my first steps into adulthood, with little idea of the trials and tribulations to come at the end of the decade.

Watch the first ever Past Liam episode titled “A Stupid Idea” here on Substack, or on Rumble.

Here’s a link to the official PL/FL playlist, where each new video will appear daily: https://rumble.com/playlists/MD2p3soRsqA

And once you’re done with the above inaugural reintroduction to Past Liam, jump ahead one year to meet Future Liam in Episode 2: “Practicum”!

Episode 2 is also available on Rumble.

Thanks so much everyone, and I look forward to sharing this journey with you!

As the United States and the world reel from the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump a week and a half ago, we continue to ask: Who is Thomas Matthew Crooks? What led him to decide to take a life and risk many more? Was he the only shooter, or was there a larger plot at work?

No matter where the facts land, Crooks is but a symptom of a larger problem we have not yet fully faced: a deeply entrenched depression within ourselves and society at large.

According to a May 2023 Gallup poll, the number of adults diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives reached a record 29%. Meanwhile, 42.3% of high school students reported feeling sad or hopeless for periods of up to a week at a time in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then there’s the election itself, which, as highlighted by USA Today, is exacerbating anxiety and stress among young adults, who are tired of “the ‘vitriolic’ language of the campaigns and the stakes for issues like the economy, reproductive rights and immigration.”

Despite this mental health epidemic, both major party candidates have failed to address the crisis beyond throwing more money at a broken healthcare system. This, along with his personal experience battling addiction, led to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to “build free healing centers in depressed communities across the nation” for those struggling with depression, as covered in Newsweek.

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Hallmarks of a presidential assassin

The day after the July 13 shooting, the Federal Bureau of Investigation named 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident Thomas Matthew Crooks as the suspected shooter. And, like the presidential assassins of history that Crooks apparently sought to emulate, authorities have stated that he “appears to have acted alone,” as reported by the Washington Post.

Of course, history has revealed that such early proclamations by law enforcement weren’t always as well-founded as initially insisted.

The Kennedy Beacon

The New York Times’ Kennedy Problem, and Other Inconvenient Truths

In the weeks leading up to the 60th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy last November, Mark Gorton, co-chair of American Values 2024 and executive producer of the new documentary series Four Died Trying, purchased an advertisement slot in…

Read more

2 years ago · 78 likes · 15 comments · Liam Sturgess

But per reporting by CNN and ABC News, there appears to be little doubt that Crooks, acting alone or not, participated in this shocking act. What isn’t clear, however, is the why.

When the FBI, with the help of Israeli intelligence firm, Cellebrite, initially broke into Crooks’s phone (as reported by the Times of Israel), they reportedly didn’t find any direct evidence of a plot to assassinate the former president, either alone or with others. However, on July 17, the New York Times reported that members of Congress had been briefed on a series of internet searches Crooks allegedly made that seem to shed light on his mental state leading up to the shooting. One search query in particular stands out: “major depressive disorder.”

This search is not proof of anything on its own; Crooks worked at the Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, and his parents are both licensed social workers, according to records published by Newsweek. Others are more vocal in their assessment that Crooks was mentally ill. Newsweek cites George Washington University’s Matt Dalek who identifies similarities between Crooks and other presidential assassins, while the Boston Herald’s editorial staff drew comparisons to numerous infamous school shootings. Frances Scott has previously explored the controversial question of the role of antidepressant medications in school shootings, particularly SSRIs, in The Kennedy Beacon.

COVID-era aftershocks

But other subtle details have emerged that are consistent with the notion that Crooks was under psychological duress leading up to the attack. According to Jason Kohler, a high school classmate quoted by Voice of America, Crooks continued to wear a surgical face mask “after COVID mask mandates ended.” There is a widely-observed but under-discussed psychological impact of mask-wearing, as highlighted in a January 2021 report by the BBC. People suffering from social anxiety experience a reprieve behind the safety of a barrier, rendering mask-wearing an effective yet harmful coping mechanism. This therapeutic experience of hiding behind a mask is explored further in a September 2020 story titled COVID-19: My Psychological Safety Mask, and many other such stories can be heard online and from our own friends and family.

In fact, many of us can relate to Crooks more directly than we know. He was in the middle of high school when the State of Pennsylvania ordered its first COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, closing schools and “non-essential” businesses. In his most formative years, Crooks was put in functional house arrest, told that he and everyone he knew was at risk of dying, and promised that his old life was over in exchange for an ambiguous “New Normal.” 

Of course, both the Democratic and Republican Parties had their hand in kneecapping the development, learning, and future prospects for America’s youth, and Crooks may well have understood this. His thin political history reveals that he gave a $15 donation to the Progressive Turnout Project (a Democratic Party-aligned PAC) on the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated in January 2021, yet he was registered as a Republican at the time of his attack on Trump and his supporters. 

We can’t know for sure what led Crooks to participate in such a country-shattering act as attempting to assassinate the former president and major candidate. But as highlighted by RFK Jr., the first step towards resolving this crisis is to unite in prayer for the victims of the attack, including President Trump and Corey Comperatore, who, his family reports, died blocking his wife and daughter from the oncoming bullets. To prevent the next, we need to “step back from the division” and “renounce all violence” in the name of political differences.

Crooks is solely responsible for his own actions. The larger gap between everyday Americans, however, is up to each individual to bridge.

Note: this article was originally written for publication by , paid for by American Values 2024. However, it was set aside as the story of Thomas Matthew Crooks quickly evolved and the Beacon correctly refocused on other important issues. With permission from my editor, I’ve decided to publish the article independently as a Microjourney.

Please subscribe to The Kennedy Beacon for more excellent coverage of the 2024 United States presidential election and ’s independent campaign!

A music video for my song “The Things We Leave Behind,” set to footage from an early rehearsal for the song. Huge thanks to Kristian Goze on keyboard, Mark Daudlin on bass, Brayden Wilkinson on drums and the unseen Alex Balanko on electric guitar.

This track was originally released back in 2018 on my third album, Café des Rêves, available on Bandcamp:

Enjoy this blast from the past, and stay tuned for more new music coming your way soon!

While 2023 had its share of ups and downs, I feel it was primarily defined by a process of planting seeds that will come to fruition this year. Many hard fought battles will reach their conclusion—some ending in success, and others calling for new approaches. Speaking for myself, the process has made me stronger and I feel more prepared than ever to tackle whatever comes my way. I hope you feel the same, no matter your circumstances.

To celebrate the passage of one year into the next, I wanted to share with you some highlights of my past year and invite you to do the same in the comments.

January 2023

For the first half of 2023, I was continuing my ongoing work with as co-host of the Rounding the Earth podcast. This period of time saw us doing some of our best work together, including a weekly round table discussion, one-on-one interviews and my Friday “Rounding the News” show.

February 2023

Then, in February, the “PfizerGate” story broke from Project Veritas. While many of our colleagues argued over Jordon Trishton Walker and Pfizer’s “directed evolution” narrative, I took interest in a different part of the story: Walker’s superior, Shuang Sarah Wu, and her connection to a very interesting biotech company called Selectas Biosciences.

And then, BOOM: Rounding the Earth was banished from YouTube. Of all of the topics we had covered on RTE, apparently we crossed a line by disagreeing with both the mainstream narrative, and the dissident narrative. Go figure.

Rounding the Earth Newsletter

Handling YouTube Censorship

Find out more about the Information Wars here. I wanted to start this article off with a good joke about censorship, but [REDACTED]. The easiest way not to be surprised is to not be surprised. That means taking the time to read the room, take notes, and meditate on the totality of simple observations. And by "simple observations" I mean things like "YouTu…

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3 years ago · 221 likes · 106 comments · Mathew Crawford

Nevertheless, our good work persevered. I continued to cover the craziness of the year as it unfolded, including the disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the impending implosion of Project Veritas.

March 2023

At the beginning of March, Canada temporarily exploded into political controversy when several of my friends hosted a meal between Member of European Parliament Christine Andersen and Canadian MPs Colin Carrie, Dean Allison and Leslyn Lewis. I admit that I lost my cool over how my elected representatives handled this one, though my confidence in Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre remains shaken to this day.

Still, much good came out of this month. For one, I got to enjoy the first in a trio of scientific discussions with my friends Mathew, , , and Jonathan Couey!

April 2023

I kicked off April with my first one-on-one discussion with of , with whom I have continued to develop a strong and fulfilling friendship.

May 2023

As spring turned to summer, I had the chance to briefly step into the limelight and testify before the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI). I was able to once again bring attention to the enormous suffering experienced by the dozens of Canadians I met and heard from during A Citizens’ Hearing the year prior, and submit a copy of the official report for the NCI record.

Then, on May 23, I announced that I would be departing Rounding the Earth after almost a year with the project. Hard as this was, it was time to refocus on my personal growth and long-term goal of hitting the stage as a musician once again.

But my work on COVID-19 and related issues of liberty was far from done. I launched my new investigative project that very week, called Microjourneys!

June 2023

One of the very first Microjourneys I embarked upon came following a suggestion from my friend Kristin that I look into New York’s “Excelsior Pass”. This led me to one of the most important reports of my life, as I learned of the extent to which a global digital vaccine passport system had already been established worldwide without anyone understanding the full extent of the problem.

As I was writing this series, I admit that I was doing so with a silent pleading that my family would read it and understand how badly we need each other moving forward. I’m happy to report that I think it worked!

This investigation also provides me an opportunity to remind folks that Wikipedia isn’t a completely useless tool, and still holds promise as a way to inform and educate the world. Based on my research into the global digital ID and vaccine passport enterprise, I was able to create the official Wikipedia page for the highly-problematic SMART Health Card framework, which just passed administrative review!

July 2023

With the combined experience of my work with Rounding the Earth and Microjourneys, and my continued work with the Canadian Covid Care Alliance, I found myself well-prepared for a whole new world of opportunity: ’s run for President of the United States.

Supported by a good word from (to whom I am deeply thankful), I was hired to help build , the official Substack series of the American Values 2024 super PAC. After a few weeks of backend work and replying to comments, I was given the chance to put on my investigative reporter hat and write my most successful piece of all time.

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s Behind “BAN RFK Jr”?

Over the weekend, Democrats across the country received a text message “begging” them to sign a petition to “BAN Robert F. Kennedy from the ballot.” Signed “PTP,” the hyperlink leads recipients to the website for the Progressive Turnout Project, where a survey asks a series of politically-charged questions…

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3 years ago · 240 likes · 97 comments · Liam Sturgess

The article, titled “Who’s Behind ‘BAN RFK Jr?”, went viral, with republications and shares by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey; the Centre for Research on Globalization; anti-war activist Lew Rockwell; Jeffrey Tucker at the Brownstone Institute; and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. himself. This first entry into what would become a “Who’s Behind” series closed out the year as the second most popular article on The Kennedy Beacon.

I also got the chance to join my friend Gabriel of for our first entry of “Digital Autonomy and the Arts”!

Libre Solutions Network

Digital Autonomy and the Arts

This conversation is a follow-up to a piece written last year Art is the expression of the human soul, with it’s value being largely in the eye of the beholder. Corporations and governments can imita…

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3 years ago · 10 likes · Gabriel and Liam Sturgess

August 2023

My work with The Kennedy Beacon continued, allowing me the chance to dive deep into topics I had not previously turned my attention to—while also providing a platform for me to highlight the issues that affect everyday people around the world, stemming from COVID-19 and its ongoing consequences.

The Kennedy Beacon

Why No Secret Service Protection?

Is the Biden Administration behind not granting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Secret Service protection? Why? And why had presidential candidate Barack Obama, for example, gotten it early and now not Kennedy? Last week, Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, denied Kennedy’s request for U.S. Secret Service (USSS) protection, breaking protocol and cast…

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3 years ago · 75 likes · 31 comments · Liam Sturgess

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s Behind Media Matters?

On Monday, an organization called Media Matters for America published an article entitled, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s super PAC is paying thousands of dollars to a fringe outlet that posts anti-Black, anti-LGBTQ, and election denial content.” Written by Senior Investigative Reporter…

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3 years ago · 92 likes · 42 comments · Liam Sturgess

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s Behind the Progressive Turnout Project?

Late last month, The Kennedy Beacon published an investigation into the super PAC behind the campaign to ban Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from appearing on the ballot in his run for president. In particular, we dove into the background and agendas of Dustin Moskovitz, the single largest donor to the PAC…

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3 years ago · 89 likes · 47 comments · Liam Sturgess

I even had the chance to follow up on my vaccine passport research through my coverage of Kennedy’s free passport card plan:

The Kennedy Beacon

The Genius of Kennedy’s Passport Plan

On August 26, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced what may be his most enlightened policy proposal yet: free federal passport cards to every American citizen who wants one…

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3 years ago · 81 likes · 50 comments · Liam Sturgess

Meanwhile, I turned my attention to a thread close to home: the possibility that solutions were being executed that exacerbated problems rather than solving them. This started with a look at an organization called Pure Blood Registry and its partner, MyID…

September 2023

…which led me to taking a closer look at the related Predictive Technology Group, and Operation Underground Railroad.

I also appeared for the second instalment on Digital Autonomy and the Arts with Gabriel and :

Libre Solutions Network

Digital Autonomy & The Arts: Part 2

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3 years ago · 16 likes · 23 comments · Gabriel, Liam Sturgess, and Visceral Adventure

…and continued my work with The Kennedy Beacon!

The Kennedy Beacon

New Study Finds Exposure to Glyphosate Leads to Depression, Chronic Disease

By Liam Sturgess, The Kennedy Beacon In early August, the journal Environmental Research published a new study that revealed more ways than previously known in which the toxic chemical, glyphosate, has contributed to America’s increasing chronic disease problem…

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3 years ago · 81 likes · 11 comments · Liam Sturgess

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s Behind “Indivisible”?

Last Tuesday, a progressive activist group called Indivisible Action announced its endorsement of incumbent Joe Biden in his bid for re-election in 2024. As covered by The Hill, the organization held an internal vote that found 97% of its leaders and membership in favor of supporting Biden’s re-election effort. It has not been revealed which candidate g…

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3 years ago · 78 likes · 23 comments · Liam Sturgess

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s Funding the DNC?

By now, most engaged Americans are familiar with some of the tactics of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). They used them against Bernie Sanders in 2016, and they’re using them again against Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Those tactics are empowered by a diverse roster of democratic elites, whose money seems to be strategically channeled to influence voti…

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3 years ago · 100 likes · 31 comments · Liam Sturgess

October 2023

Behind the scenes, I continued my years-long efforts with the Canadian Covid Care Alliance to gather information through Freedom of Information (FOI) and Access to Information (ATI) requests.

And then, on October 18, I announced that I had thrown my hat in the ring for Music BC’s board of directors. Sadly, I did not win, but I was overwhelmed with support from friends and family, and wound up earning 3% of the overall vote. Not bad for a first timer!

The Kennedy Beacon

“The News” – Brought to you by PhRMA

On September 20, Politico published an article titled Biden administration vs. the anti-vax movement. As highlighted in our news roundup, the piece presents a favorable view of the administration’s efforts to address “misinformation” about COVID-19 vaccines by coordinating with social media companies to “crack down on anti-vaccine posts.” Ultimately, th…

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3 years ago · 99 likes · 24 comments · Liam Sturgess

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s Behind “OptOut Media”?

On October 19, Rolling Stone published an article entitled “America’s Biggest Charities Bankrolled RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vax Outfit,” dramatically asserting that “Children’s Health Defense and other groups promoting vaccine misinformation discreetly raked in money from anonymous donors through some of the largest charities in the country…

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2 years ago · 43 likes · 11 comments · Liam Sturgess

November 2023

On November 22, my friend Kristin published the results of a months-long investigation that I assisted with behind the scenes. The article, focused on The Wellness Company, explored the many concerning figures behind the company, and has led to elevated public scrutiny of its activities.

Beyond the Maze

The Wellness Company

With research and archival support from Liam Sturgess. The Wellness Company (TWC) is a one-and-a-half-year-old healthcare venture founded by a Canadian businessman named Foster Coulson. It offers a number of different services and products, ranging from…

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2 years ago · 134 likes · 120 comments · Kristin Elizabeth

The article also provided the perfect opportunity to rejoin Mathew, who invited Kristin and I on Rounding the Earth for a round table discussion about the article, The Wellness Company, and the many interesting threads that stemmed from it!

But then, the big shoe dropped: I announced that I had filed a lawsuit against the Government of Canada. This, I know for sure, will be a defining challenge of 2024 for me.

December 2023

Another long-term project which finally came to fruition was the Conflicts of Interest Taskforce of the Canadian Covid Care Alliance, of which I am a member. Alongside Deanna McLeod and Matthew Evans-Cockle, we published our first trio of articles, and announced that our work was to be featured in at least one chapter in the upcoming book titled Down the COVID-19 Rabbit Hole, scheduled for publication by Skyhorse Publishing in the summer of this year.

The Kennedy Beacon

Who’s behind the Associated Press? (Part 3 of 3)

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2 years ago · 48 likes · 28 comments · Liam Sturgess

I also appeared for the third time on ’s Digital Autonomy & the Arts series with my good friends and !

Libre Solutions Network

Digital Autonomy & The Arts with Margaret Anna Alice, Visceral Adventure & Liam Sturgess

In what has become my most ambitious media project yet, I had the pleasure of hosting a conversation with people I look up to as among my personal heroes. These kindhearted souls are lights of hope i…

Listen now

2 years ago · 19 likes · 10 comments · Gabriel, Liam Sturgess, Visceral Adventure, and Margaret Anna Alice

Finally, to cap off the year, I was given the honour of curating The Kennedy Beacon’s “best of 2023” list.

The Kennedy Beacon

Best of The Kennedy Beacon

By Liam Sturgess, The Kennedy Beacon To say that 2023 has been a wild year is an understatement. Since launching in July 2023, The Kennedy Beacon (TKB) has published over 370 articles, covering the full range of issues that Americans face every day. We’ve followed Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign for the presidency through its twists and turns, and we’re …

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2 years ago · 22 likes · 2 comments · Liam Sturgess

Conclusion

And there you have it, folks. I know for sure I’ve missed a lot, and if I realize I forgot something big, I’ll add it in. But for now, thank you all so much for following me this year, and supporting my efforts through thick and thin.

Have a wonderful New Year’s Day, and I look forward to everything we’ll accomplish together in 2024!

It is a dark and upsetting reality that with each passing day, more and more Canadians are succumbing to new or worsening illnesses and injuries for which they have no reasonable explanation. Of course, correlation is not causation. However, because millions of Canadians received an experimental medicine with known safety risks following a highly problematic clinical trial, it is increasingly necessary to look closely and swiftly at any such unexpected malady as a possible adverse event.

Unfortunately, Health Canada made the adverse event reporting process unacceptably difficult between December 2020 and February 2023. We at the Canadian Covid Care Alliance felt it was time that somebody made clear to the general public that you can, indeed, tell Health Canada about your potential adverse event following receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine,1 and you are not expected or required to go through your doctor.

I’m proud to share that I narrated the video, which was edited by the same video production team behind the CCCA’s “More Harm than Good” video, which currently stands at 3.75 million views since its release in late 2021.

Since that initial analysis of Pfizer’s own Phase III clinical trial data (which revealed that, well, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine products cause far more harm than good), my team and I have learned a great deal about how Canada’s pharmacovigilance systems work—or, rather, how they appear to have been designed to fail. For a deep dive on this topic, and for an in-depth explanation of the adverse event reporting system highlighted in our newly-published video guide, I highly recommend reading my previous article titled “Government of Canada Misled Canadians on COVID-19 Adverse Event Reporting”.

While we have a daunting amount of healing to do as individuals and as a country, the process begins by extending a hand of help. If you know somebody who may want to let Health Canada know about their potential adverse event, please send this video to them.

Hello, friends!

The Canadian Covid Care Alliance has just published a trio of articles authored by me and two very good friends of mine, Deanna McLeod and Matthew Evans-Cockle. As of yesterday, we are officially known as the CCCA Conflict of Interest Task Force!

We’ve been working as a trio for well over a year now, focused on researching and analyzing conflicts of interest throughout the national and international response to the declared COVID-19 pandemic. This first set of articles is just the beginning of our output, with further pieces to come examining other agencies in the United States and beyond.

That’s not all: as we were in the final stages of editing these articles, we were given the opportunity to submit them for inclusion in the Canadian Covid Care Alliance’s upcoming book, titled Down the COVID-19 Rabbit Hole: Independent Scientists and Physicians Unmask the Pandemic, scheduled for publication on August 6, 2024 by Skyhorse Publishing and Children’s Health Defense.

Drs. Steven Pelech and Christopher Shaw did a fantastic job editing together over a dozen chapters from some two dozen contributors, and I can’t wait to see the end result. I am positively thrilled, and I hope you are just as excited! It’s a ways off, but you can preorder the book on Amazon.

In the meantime, without further ado, I’d like to share with you (in full) the second article in this new trio, titled “Conflicts of Interest: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration”. The full PDF is available for download at the end of this post. Enjoy!

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is an agency of the United States government sitting within the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It is responsible for regulating the “safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices” and “ensuring the safety of [the United States’] food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.”1

The FDA was officially founded in 1906 when U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drugs Act into law. The bill is described as the “culmination of about 100 bills over a quarter-century that aimed to rein in long-standing, serious abuses in the consumer product marketplace.”2 A primary motivation behind the creation of the FDA was to “prohibit the adulteration and misbranding of food and drugs.”3 Today, it also “regulates clinical investigations of products under its jurisdiction, such as drugs, biological products, and medical devices.”4 The FDA does this work by receiving a dossier of evidence submitted by companies in these regulated industries, and evaluating whether the product meets established standards for safety and efficacy. If the agency decides these standards have been met, the product is approved for distribution.

The current Commissioner of the FDA is Dr. Robert M. Califf, who was promoted to the position on February 17, 2022.5

Budget and Funding

As a federal agency, the FDA is allocated public funding on an annual basis by the United States Congress. In 1992, however, Congress enacted the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) which made it legal for the FDA to receive “user fees” from pharmaceutical companies for each new drug submitted for review.6 This allowed the agency to dramatically increase the rate at which new drugs were approved by expanding their staff, leading to record-breaking numbers of new drug approvals by 1996. To expedite the process still further, the FDA introduced a new “priority application” service that allowed drugs to be approved in half the time that “standard applications” previously required.7 In 1993, 27% of the portion of the FDA’s budget specifically earmarked for reviewing new drugs was paid for by the pharmaceutical industry. This figure increased to over 50% by 2006,8 and 75% by 2017.9 From 2019-2021, the FDA’s overall budget increased from $5.7 billion to $6.1 billion, of which 45-46% came from the pharmaceutical industry through the above-described “user fees.”101112

At its inception, the Food and Drug Administration was funded almost exclusively by the public it was meant to protect. Over the course of the past century, however, the FDA has become increasingly funded by the private industries it was meant to regulate. It is hard to imagine how this organization can maintain the unbiased objectivity necessary to its regulatory function if its ability to operate is dependent on industry funding. On the one hand, if the FDA's dependence upon pharmaceutical industry funding did not compromise but actually reinforced the rigorous application of a high standard of safety testing, then the industry subsidized bolstering of FDA funding would represent a tremendous win for both industry and the public. On the other hand, if this funding dependence had the regrettable effect of speeding up the drug approval process while also lowering safety standards, then this would constitute a very serious threat to public welfare.

Leading into the COVID-19 crisis, just under half of the entire operating budget of the FDA was paid for by the companies that the agency was mandated to regulate. Indeed, a significant portion of 2021’s budgetary increase came from a $2.8 million application fee, paid by Pfizer to the FDA in May 2021, for an expedited review of their submission for Emergency Use Authorization of their COVID-19 mRNA genetic vaccine product, BNT162b2.13

Speeding up the development of life-saving new drugs has the potential to do great good, particularly in the case of new technological advances. At the same time, if this were to result in cutting corners on necessary protections and on crucial stages of the regulatory process, then this would go against the primary aim and function of the FDA and puts consumers at risk. In the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 genetic vaccine (officially called BNT162b2), the exchange of fees for the expedited approval of a novel gene therapy for use in healthy Americans is certainly concerning – particularly given that less than 2 months of safety data was available for the FDA to review at the time of its conditional approval.14 The Pfizer-BioNTech product is, by definition, a gene therapy, a category of product that can require up to 15 years of testing to satisfy the FDA’s requirements.15 However, by allowing the mRNA products to be reviewed as a vaccine candidate, it was subject to much lower safety standards.

User fees are not the only way in which the FDA is at risk of financial influence by the pharmaceutical industry. There are, additionally, a number of so-called “non-profit” organizations, such as the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA and the Alliance for a Stronger FDA, whose primary focus is “improving” the processes of the FDA, while also lobbying the United States government to further increase the agency’s yearly budget.

Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA

The Reagan-Udall Foundation for the Food and Drug Administration,
often referred to as the FDA Foundation, is a non-profit organization established by the U.S. Congress in 2007.

Officially, this foundation operates independently of the FDA and is intended “to help support and promote FDA's regulatory science priorities.”16 It fulfills this mission by collaborating with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies on research programs, evidence generation and data gathering, as well as by analyzing and creating reports on the operations of the FDA.17 As there is clear continuity and even fundamental interdependence between the FDA and the Reagan-Udall Foundation, it might be more accurate to say that the Foundation functions as an arm of the FDA. Unlike the main body of the FDA, this Reagan-Udall arm is free to pursue industry partnerships as it is not restricted in its operations by the latter’s original mandate and regulatory limits.

Funding

Funding for the Reagan-Udall Foundation is made up of an annual $1.25 million budget provided by the FDA, with the remainder coming from grants, donations, research contracts, fundraising events and investment income. The Reagan-Udall Foundation’s annual budget nearly doubled over the COVID-19 period. In 2019, the Foundation’s reported revenue was just over $2.7 million.18 This jumped to $4.9 million in 2020,19 and to $5.5 million in 2021.20 Thus, as of 2021, 77.3% of the Foundation’s grants came from industry or private philanthropic entities that have strong ties to industry.21

Among the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s financial supporters are companies and organizations that have developed and profited handsomely from therapeutics and medical interventions deployed in response to COVID-19 including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Janssen (along with parent company Johnson & Johnson), and Flagship Pioneering, the venture capital firm that launched Moderna.22

Even more pharmaceutical industry-specific funding comes from industry associations, including the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). These organizations serve as lobbying groups representing the major pharmaceutical companies just mentioned, as well as a host of other companies involved in the research, development, and marketing of pharmaceutical products.232425

Finally, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are both substantial donors to the Reagan-Udall Foundation. These private and incredibly influential philanthropic foundations are themselves extensions of powerful corporate entities that have developed substantial portfolios of pharmaceutical investments both in the private and public sector, and have thus stood to profit heavily from the FDA’s favourable recommendations of patented pharmaceutical products (as opposed to non-pharmaceutical or generic products) for the treatment of COVID-19.

These non-governmental organizations are recognized for pioneering and then institutionalizing global “philanthrocapitalism.”26 Successful philanthrocapitalist foundations make use of ostensibly charitable donations to further corporate ventures. Their stated intentions are always along the lines of advancing global health, welfare, and other humanitarian initiatives, but the true result of their generosity is identified in their increased profit margins. Particularly notable in this case are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s investments in Pfizer,27 Moderna,28 Janssen,29 AstraZeneca,30 and BioNTech,31 whose COVID-19 vaccine products were the first to be authorized for use in Canada and the United States. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is also a primary funder of the world’s largest non-profit organizations focused on vaccines, including Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance,32 the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI),33 and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.34 These organizations are tasked with funding and delivering vaccines across countries around the world, developed by companies in which the Gates Foundation has a financial stake.35 Therefore, the Gates Foundation represents both sides of the decision making process—an arrangement that Bill Gates himself claimed in 2019 has led to “a 20-to-1 return” on investment over the years.36 As such, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s funding of the Reagan-Udall Foundation presents the concerning possibility that it may also be able to incentivize favourable regulatory outcomes for the vaccines in which it has invested.

The Reagan-Udall Foundation identifies itself as a public-private partnership. In this supporting role, it becomes possible for the Foundation to influence FDA activities by a coordinated network of interested parties, including major pharmaceutical companies, their lobbying associations, global philanthrocapitalist foundations and other non-governmental organizations. The foundation’s enabling of corporate collaboration allows private interests to influence the regulatory environment in which they pursue their corporate agendas. In other words, the legally distinct Food and Drug Administration and the Reagan-Udall Foundation could be seen as operating as two branches of a functionally single FDA enterprise. Grafting the Reagan-Udall Foundation to the Food and Drug Administration appears to risk circumventing the vital restrictions placed upon the regulatory agency in its original mandate.

COVID-19 Vaccine Confidence Project

As previously described, the FDA is not intended to promote medical products. The agency’s intended role and mandate is strictly regulatory—to ensure that only safe and effective products reach the market; these same restrictions, however, do not apply to the Reagan-Udall Foundation.

In the first few months of the COVID-19 crisis in early 2020, the National Science Foundation, an agency of the United States government, funded an initiative at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (JHCFS) called the Working Group on Readying Populations for COVID-19 Vaccine.37 The Center for Health Security is an institution within Johns Hopkins University that has been involved in pandemic preparedness and “biosecurity” since its inception in 1998.38 It has hosted a number of tabletop exercises simulating the outbreak of viral pandemics, among which are simulations of global coronavirus pandemics such as Event 201 (2019)39 and the earlier SPARS (2017).40 Notably, the membership of the Center for Health Security’s Working Group included representatives of In-Q-Tel, the venture capital branch of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.4142 The JHCHS Working Group proposed a “social and behavioral research agenda to facilitate COVID-19 vaccine uptake.”43 In its report, the Working Group makes specific recommendations for the FDA and other institutions (emphasis added):

“In advance of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine rollout, federal health agencies should develop a coordinated national strategy to promote vaccination, employing human-centered design to develop interventions that help a broad network of champions communicate effectively with the public about risks, benefits, allocation and targeting, and availability. The National Vaccine Program Office at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can coordinate the CDC, the FDA, and the NIH in developing a COVID-19 vaccine promotion campaign. Specifically, the Office of Minority Health at HHS, the Office of Minority Health and Health Equity at CDC, the Indian Health Service, and the Office of Minority Health and Health Equity at FDA should be involved. To assure the effectiveness of all SARS-CoV-2 vaccine communication (Recommendation #4), serial (ie, repeated) surveys of the public, including subgroups, as well as targeted qualitative research among essential, hesitant, and underserved groups will be necessary to know what people are thinking, how this evolves over time, and if communication messages need to be adapted. While the federal health agencies may lead this national effort, it will be critical to enlist non government actors such as employers, human rights groups, minority interest groups, and other stakeholders in whom diverse segments of the US public may place more trust.”

As a direct result of these recommendations, the FDA recruited the Reagan-Udall Foundation to run a $209,094 “COVID-19 vaccine confidence project” in the fall of 2020.44 Specifically, the project involved identifying causes of so-called “vaccine hesitancy” in various target populations and developing “a set of messages that responded to their concerns.” These messages were then “delivered to FDA for use in their messaging.”

This project—to develop preemptive messaging that encourages vaccine confidence—represents a significant investment of resources from the federal government to maximize uptake of the novel COVID-19 vaccine candidates before they had been proven safe and effective. Furthermore, the phrasing in the JHCHS Working Group recommendations makes clear that these “serial... surveys of the public” were not to be carried out as good faith consultation to properly identify and respond to the public interest, but rather as a strategically designed surveillance campaign for the purpose of ensuring compliance. This results in the overriding of the process of informed consent.

Notably, the JHCHS and Johns Hopkins University have also received substantial funding over the years from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation.454647 Its sister organizations, the Johns Hopkins Center for Immunization Research and Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, also participated as sites for the Phase III clinical trial for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine product candidate.48 The Center for Immunization Research additionally served as a trial site for the AstraZeneca adenovirus vector vaccine product.49

Furthermore, in April 2019, the JHCHS published a report titled Vaccine Platforms: State of the Field and Looming Challenges, generated following consultations with Moderna and other companies developing mRNA vaccine products.50 It described the way in which regulatory agencies like the FDA could, in the near future, expedite the approval process of novel vaccine “platforms”—exactly as was done with the COVID-19 mRNA-based vaccines and their subsequent “bivalent” replacements. The report even forecasts that “an mRNA-based vaccine platform technique appears particularly promising” for pandemic preparedness and that “their proliferation appears imminent,” dependent on “clinical safety and efficacy trials and regulatory agency compliance.”

The FDA has a fiduciary responsibility to objectively evaluate the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 genetic products. Instead of acquitting itself of this responsibility, however, the FDA, under the direction of the National Vaccine Program Office at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and under advisement of the JHCHS working group, engaged in pre-marketing activities for these same products, thereby demonstrating its lack of objectivity and independence. It bears repeating: the FDA explicitly prioritized the implementation of a pre-marketing campaign for experimental products they had not yet evaluated.

COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator

Another noteworthy project within the Reagan-Udall Foundation’s purview was the COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator.51 This initiative was undertaken in collaboration with a lobbying organization called the Friends of Cancer Research, and had a budget of $1,219,555 across 2020 and 2021.

One of the studies produced by the COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator was a meta-analysis evaluating the role of hydroxychloroquine and an antibiotic called azithromycin, both alone and in combination, as treatment for COVID-19.52 This particular early treatment combination had already been used extensively by front-line physicians to successfully treat the early phase of COVID-19.535455

A favourable study outcome would mean that this inexpensive and readily available regimen could be immediately administered to millions of Americans with the potential to save millions of lives. Considering the established use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as an early treatment protocol, one might reasonably expect the meta-analysis to examine their efficacy in the early phase of illness. Curiously, however, the study by the COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator examined the use of these treatments in late stage disease. Not surprisingly, the combination showed little to no benefit in treating late-stage COVID-19. Based on the results of this study, the authors concluded that this long-standing safe, effective and inexpensive regimen had little benefit at any stage of treatment of COVID-19, opening up the opportunity for multiple pharmaceutical companies to seek Emergency Use Authorization for a range of branded antivirals and antibody therapies.

One can’t help but wonder whether the pharmaceutical industry’s subsidization of the Reagan-Udall Foundation, as well as the competing financial ties among the authors to the very companies seeking Emergency Use Authorizations for their novel and expensive products (such as Gilead,56 Merck,57 Amgen,58 and Roche59), might have negatively influenced the design and interpretation of this study. Particularly notable is that two of the study’s authors were paid employees of Gilead Sciences, whose experimental antiviral remdesivir was simultaneously being considered for Emergency Use Authorization by the FDA.60

Alliance for a Stronger FDA

In addition to direct pharmaceutical contributions, the FDA’s
government funding is further bolstered through the efforts of a lobbying group called the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.

The Alliance is an industry association that represents the voice of the pharmaceutical industry, both to the government and general public. As such, its priority is in minimizing cost of development and maximizing the return on investment of their members’ products. One way this can be done is by reducing the amount of time pharmaceutical products take to get to market.

One of the Alliance’s primary activities is lobbying the U.S. Congress to increase the annual budget for the FDA. Between 2019-2021, the Alliance spent some $855,000 on its lobbying activities.61

The Alliance for a Stronger FDA’s membership consists of pharmaceutical companies and other industry coalitions. One of its founding companies was AstraZeneca (developer of a COVID-19 vaccine),62 and current members include both Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.63

Non-profit organizations and industry associations that are also members of the Alliance include the Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), Alliance for Aging Research, Alliance for Patient Access, Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), International Society for Stem Cell Research, Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC), Pharma and Biopharma Outsourcing Association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), and Research!America. These purpose-built organizations and associations directly engage both government and the general public in order to promote the interests of their corporate membership.

The manner in which these associations fit together and coordinate their activities is remarkable both for its intricacy and effectiveness. To illustrate, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) is a member of the Personalized Medicine Coalition,64 which is itself a member of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA. PhRMA is, as its title suggests, a collective lobbying group comprising many of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical corporations.65 The Personalized Medicine Coalition is an association—drawing together a network of pharmaceutical companies, healthcare facilities, and providers—that promotes commercial diagnostic tests and the medical treatments that can be prescribed on the basis of these tests. The diagnostic equipment and medical treatments in question are developed, marketed, and administered by the members of PMC. It may be somewhat counterintuitive for the uninitiated, but it is essential to recognize that PhRMA, PMC, and the Alliance For a Stronger FDA work in different ways to promote the interests of the same pharmaceutical corporations. Behind the not-for-profit facade of these non-profit lobbying groups, we see a network of powerful pharmaceutical interests working to orchestrate preferential outcomes, while benefiting from the general public’s lack of corporate literacy to conceal the extent and magnitude of their influence.

In summary

The FDA was designed to be an independent regulatory body. In recent decades, however, it has developed extensive ties to industry, both directly through user fees, and indirectly through its symbiotic relationships with non-profit organizations and lobbying groups. The financial dependence it has developed upon the pharmaceutical industry poses a very real threat to its ability to maintain effective regulatory independence. At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, essentially half of the FDA’s budget was paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, making the agency beholden to the very corporations it is meant to regulate.

Before any data was available on the safety or efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, the FDA worked with the Reagan-Udall Foundation to develop a pre-marketing campaign to increase confidence in and overall uptake of the forthcoming COVID-19 genetic vaccines.

The Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA—a Congressionally-created non-profit organization established to support the operations and improvement of the FDA—is heavily funded by pharmaceutical companies, as well as by associations that represent pharmaceutical interests. A key project led by the Foundation, the COVID-19 Evidence Accelerator, sponsored a deeply flawed meta-analysis that had the effect of undermining claims—based upon abundant real-world evidence from treating physicians—for the safety and efficacy of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin when used in combination to treat the early phase of COVID-19. The apparent invalidation of this treatment option ultimately enabled the Foundation’s pharmaceutical funders to successfully pursue Emergency Use Authorizations for their more expensive experimental products.

The Alliance for a Stronger FDA is an association that represents the voice of the pharmaceutical industry to government and the public. Its membership consists of pharmaceutical companies as well as other organizations and coalitions that are not mandated to serve the public interest, but are, on the contrary, purpose-built to promote private corporate interests.

As thoroughly demonstrated above, the FDA is financially dependent on pharmaceutical companies. Through the Reagan-Udall Foundation, it engaged in pre-marketing activities to promote the COVID-19 vaccines before these products were deemed safe, and played a role in undermining an established treatment protocol that would have blocked access to EUA by its pharmaceutical industry sponsors. These facts call into question the FDA’s ability to fulfill its regulatory mandate and objectively evaluate the various COVID-19-related pharmaceutical products.

Conflicts Of Interest: The Food And Drug Administration

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Full PDF as published by the Canadian Covid Care Alliance here: https://www.canadiancovidcarealliance.org/all/conflict-of-interest-series-2-the-us-food-and-drug-administration/

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This is going to be a bit of a different piece today, in that it focuses on my personal experience undergoing hardship related to the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 policies. Part of me hesitates to discuss this publicly as there are many others suffering far more than I could ever claim to, and the last thing I’d ever want is to feign victimhood, at risk of diverting attention from those who need support more urgently.

However, I believe my story is important in that it highlights a failure of the Canadian government that affects far more people than just me. I was discriminated against because of a disability. But the standard applied in my case is so broad that it could be used to justify discrimination by the government against anybody, at any time, for any reason—especially those with an identifiable characteristic that is supposed to be protected from discrimination, like disability, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, and so on.

Let me take you through my case, and explain why I’m taking the Government of Canada to federal court. This story will span multiple articles, but I believe it will be well worth the read.

What happened?

On August 15, 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a federal election would take place on September 20, 2021.1

I decided to apply to work at the polls, giving me a chance to engage in our electoral system and gain valuable experience in how Canadian democracy functions on the ground. On September 3, 2021, I received a call from a recruitment officer working for Elections Canada, who offered me a job as Deputy Returning Officer (DRO). It would involve work on election day itself as well as some preparatory work in the days leading up. I happily accepted the job offer.

I proactively informed the recruitment officer that I was unable to wear a mask for medical reasons, and she asked me to provide a doctor’s note. I explained that the public health order in effect at the time did not require me to provide a doctor’s note for me to be exempt from the province’s mandatory mask policy, nor did any other law or guideline impose such a requirement in order to have my disability accommodated by Elections Canada. She replied that this would not be a problem, and we proceeded to discuss training and other next steps.

In no uncertain terms, I was still employed as of the end of that phone call. I even received further emails asking me to register for specific training dates.

However, on September 7, 2021, I received a followup email informing me that my offer of employment had been withdrawn:

The language here is unambiguous: I was being denied employment based on the fact that I “have a medical mask exemption.” And because Elections Canada had “determined that a requirement of the position will be to wear a mask,” no accommodations would be considered. Simply put, Elections Canada did not hire me solely on the ground that I had a disability.

My disability

I have previously spoken publicly about my journey with mental health challenges. For those that are interested, I recommend listening to this excellent discussion I had with and on Rounding the Earth back on March 14 of this year.

We go into some length about mental health in general, but also our individual experiences navigating the pharmaceutical solutions offered for psychological challenges, including the heartbreaking loss of Kim’s husband Woody.

As for myself, I was diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder in 2013, along with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and “obsessive-compulsive tendencies.” I have been on various medications over the course of ten years as part of my treatment process, which have helped to varying degrees. I’ve benefited from local youth mental health services, as well as telemedicine when COVID-19 kicked off in 2020.

In the end, the real healing has come out of the normal process of growing into an adult. At this point in time, I can confidently say that these mental health challenges don’t define my quality of life, nor do they define who I am as a person.

But as I’m sure anybody who has worked through similar mental health challenges can relate to, a big part of this growth involves setting healthy boundaries and learning how to navigate the limitations of my own body and mind. For example, I grew up with an abnormal sensitivity to physical touch; as an adult, this has required me to consciously recalibrate my sense of physical self so as to be able to interact with others in a healthy way.

Similarly, I grew up with coping mechanisms to mask and dampen my anxiety. One of these lingers to this day: in person or on video, you may from time to time catch me covering my mouth with my hand or shirt. This isn’t something unique to me, or even to people suffering from mental health issues; covering the mouth is a well-documented sign that somebody is nervous or anxious. But in my case, it is a chronic issue attached to a long-term mental health challenge. It is tied to intense psychological distress, the nature of which is fundamentally tied to my mental and physical health.

I am proud that I have grown to a place where I can manage this in a healthy way, such that I don’t live in a state of suffering on a daily basis. In other words, I’m not complaining! And I’m very proud to be who I am. I am proud of the work I’ve done to get to where I am, and I admire my own ability to manage and navigate this and other similar challenges in the landscape of my psychological wellbeing.

When the COVID-19 pandemic was initially declared, I attempted to suffer through wearing a mask, which resulted in severe psychological and emotional trauma that increasingly affected my ability to focus and maintain my health. I soon accepted that I would need to seek alternatives in order to avoid completely derailing years of growth.

Exemptions from mask requirements

Thankfully, the various agencies and organizations that instituted mask requirements and guidelines made sure to account for situations like mine. From municipal to federal, from government to advocacy group, institutions across the spectrum provided exemptions for people unable to wear a mask or face covering for a variety of reasons, including disability, medical, psychological and other such factors.

I was successfully accommodated at school simply by informing them that I was unable to wear a mask, and I was accepted with open arms and without challenge. My experience with businesses and restaurants was less positive, as many people were unaware that such exemptions from mask mandates even existed. But when push came to shove, my disability was accounted for in the law and in public health guidance.

BC Ministry of Health’s Public Health Order

On August 24, 2021, British Columbia’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry announced that face masks would be mandatory in all indoor public spaces as of the following day. The official press release included the following note:2

Having already applied for the job at Elections Canada at this point in time, I familiarized myself with what the steps were in order to be considered exempt under the public health order, as well as any other legal or procedural requirements. This way, I could successfully communicate my exemption to Elections Canada while not providing them with an inappropriate level of detail, allowing them to accommodate me as appropriate without obstacle. Anyone who knows me won’t find this surprising, as I have kept myself well-educated on the local, provincial and federal restrictions since long before I started asking questions about them, and I continue keeping myself informed to this very day.

The public health order was formally issued in written form on September 2, 2021.3 This updated version of the order contained even more explicit details on who was exempt from the mask requirement, and the process for employers to accommodate their workers. Most importantly, the order did not call for anything like a doctor’s note in order for exemptions to be recognized. The language was clear and simple: the requirement to wear a mask did not apply to people unable to wear a mask for the described reasons.

Note that there is a caveat: had Elections Canada accommodated my exemption from the order, I would not have been allowed to “provide a face-to-face service to a visit unless there [was] a physical barrier between the operator or worker and the visitor.”

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t believe Bonnie Henry or her staff at the Ministry of Health decided to include this in the order out of the kindness of their hearts. The truth is that they had to include it in order to ensure they weren’t breaking provincial and federal human rights law. Employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees based on grounds protected under the Canadian Human Rights Act, or its provincial equivalents, like the Human Rights Code in British Columbia. They must, by law, accommodate people with protected characteristics all the way up to the point of “undue hardship.” Anything shy of that is against the law. If Bonnie Henry had issued the mask order without providing for human rights exemptions, it would likely have caused the entire order to be struck down upon the first challenge.

But don’t take my word for it…

BC Human Rights Commission

As described by the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, the BC Human Rights Commissioner is an officer of the provincial government “responsible for protecting and promoting human rights.”4 Commissioner Kasari Govender and her office are the province’s primary human rights authority.

On November 5, 2020, Commissioner Govender published a guidance document titled “A human rights approach to mask-wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic.” This document was “updated over time to reflect changing circumstances,” with revised versions published on November 23 and December 10, 2020, and April 23, July 22 and September 29, 2021.5

The version published on July 22, 2021 clarifies how “mask-wearing exemptions and accommodations” should be handled in the Province of British Columbia:

By its very nature, the employment opportunity in question was always going to be “shorter-term,” with only one Election Day and just a few days of preparation. No long-term employment relationship was proposed or on the table, though it must be noted that there are severe long-term impacts resulting from Elections Canada’s discriminatory policy, which I will go over later. And for reasons I will explain shortly, it is unquestionable that the accommodations were “relatively easy to implement.” As far as requesting medical information goes, the recruitment officer asked me for a doctor’s note, but it didn’t wind up being terribly relevant given Elections Canada chose not to allow for any accommodations on any grounds, even if I had provided such a note. This is vital for readers to internalize.

An updated version of the guidance document was published in response to Bonnie Henry’s September 2, 2021 public health order, which was even more explicit:

Also published by the Commissioner’s office was a helpful poster titled “Guidelines for people unable to wear a mask as required in British Columbia,” which clearly states “if a person claims a valid reason they cannot wear a mask, take them at their word. Proof should not be required.”6 This is present on the versions published in both July and October 2021 (pictured below).7

BC Human Rights Clinic

Finally, the BC Human Rights Clinic published an article on October 7, 2020, titled “Mandatory Masks and Human Rights”.8 The piece, authored by articling student Emily Zarychta, offered the following:

In short, Elections Canada failed to engage in any process of accommodation whatsoever, denying me the opportunity to work at the 2021 general election due to the fact that I have a disability. Because I communicated my medical exemption to the recruitment officer, the offer of employment was revoked.

In so doing, Elections Canada violated its duty to accommodate under the Human Rights Act. Unfortunately, this was just the beginning of my troubles. In my next article, I will walk you through the process of filing my complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

For now, I want to thank each and every one of you who took the time to read my story so far. I want to reiterate that I have nothing to gain out of this other than making sure Canada is, indeed, a country that practices what it preaches, and that the government can’t wave away entire identifiable classes of people when it deems them inconvenient or otherwise unwelcome.

Stay tuned for Part II…

Turns out I was wrong on two counts:

1. Trump did not coin the phrase “fake news”—he appropriated it.

2. Fake news is most certainly a real thing.

Let’s look at a case study that came across my desk today. A good friend and trusted colleague of mine sent me the following Tweet by Dr. David Cartland:

I’ll defer to my friends at and to explain who and what Anonymous is/is not. Luckily, we need not be an expert on that subject in order to apply our media literacy skills here.

Let’s make something very clear: there are “paid pharma shills” all over the public discourse, particularly in the context of the global COVID-19 response. I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the last several years documenting them and their conflicts of interest on the Campfire Wiki and COVID Truth Initiative. In other words, I’m already onboard with the premise and am in the target audience for this article.

I’m not the only one. As I’m writing this sentence, Dr. Cartland’s Tweet has some 13,700 views, 297 reposts, 13 quotes, 541 likes, and 42 bookmarks.

I wonder how many of those people actually clicked the link to the article. Those that did would have been taken to a website called The Science Post. The contents of the article itself aren’t terribly surprising, listing off genuinely questionable “experts” such as Paul Offitt, David Gorski and Neil deGrasse Tyson.

But let’s back it up, because we’ve got a problem here: the article is dated March 4, 2017. In other words, even if the information contained in the article is legit, it’s most certainly not breaking news, and is not as relevant to the present day as Dr. Cartland suggests by sharing the link absent any context.

For that matter, what does it mean to “hack Big Pharma”?

But we didn’t even need to read this far down, to be blunt. Look closer at The Science Post logo right at the top of the webpage:

That’s right—The Science Post: Science, Health, Satire.

In fairness, some outlets offer a combination of real news and satire, including some with dedicated satire columns. As such, it’s still in the realm of possibility that this is a genuine article.

…until we read the fine print. Scroll to the very bottom of the page, and you’ll find a disclaimer that reads: “All stories are made up.”

There are other clues that should also alert us to the satirical nature of this website. For example, take a look at the headlines of the latest articles featured on The Science Post’s front page:

• Moderna scientists reportedly struggling to add microchips to latest boosters

• Thousands rush to exchange online medical degree for Google PhD in foreign policy

• Wearing a mask may help protect against deadly chemtrails, new study finds

In my opinion, these are genuinely funny headlines. But they’re clearly satire, and it takes no more than 30 seconds of active critical thinking to devise their true meaning. Beyond stimulating a good chuckle, these four articles also present an opportunity to trick well-meaning dissidents into sharing stories that are indisputably fake. It then becomes much easier for institutional media or individuals concerned about “disinformation” to dismiss those same people when they share articles or pieces of news that actually do challenge the status quo on topics such as COVID-19 vaccine safety, the realities of the Russia-Ukraine war, the safety and efficacy of masks and face coverings, and geoengineering.

In other words, it will almost always be the better call to avoid passing on any piece of media until you’ve done some basic checks on it. But don’t let this come across as a judgement: I’m sure I’ve inadvertently done this before, and I’ll bet you $5 I’ll make the mistake again one day. But as with everything else that is worthwhile, practicing caution and good judgement will always will the day.

I hope you find this short article helpful as an exercise in media literacy, and as a reminder that liberty-minded dissidents need to practice what we preach!

I am excited to announce that I’m running for a position on the Board of Directors of Music BC, the for-profit music association in my province of British Columbia, Canada.

While voting is only open to members of Music BC, I wanted to share my platform with you as I believe the issues I’m experiencing as a musician are similar across industries.

I’m running to give a voice to the issues resulting from the COVID-19 era and the public response. If I am chosen to join the board, I will be able to engage directly with the most influential and inspiring professionals in the local music business, and I will use this opportunity to exchange ideas for solutions moving forward.

Thank you for your support!

Why I want to join Music BC’s Board of Directors

British Columbia’s music community is truly unique, home to the most diverse group of people and genres in the world. I’m one of the lucky musicians who got to grow up here, and I’ve been inspired throughout my life by people who speak different languages, play different instruments, and have different ideas. This is the perfect environment for creativity to thrive.

As we all know, the gap between picking up your instrument and achieving a successful musical career continues to get wider, especially over the last few years. When the world shut down in 2020, we were all left without a stage, and in many cases, without a studio. While some have been able to resume their musical careers as the world opened back up, many others have found that this has been significantly more difficult than expected. I know, because I’m one of those artists. Between venues going out of business, booking agencies slimming down their rosters, and other lasting pandemic effects, many BC artists find themselves isolated from the opportunity-filled music community that we once knew—even with COVID-19 behind us. 

This is a challenge we can solve together, and I want your vote so I can help Music BC lead the charge. As a member of the board of directors, I will advocate for musicians and artists at all points in their career, and work to create opportunities for those searching for their way back onstage or back into the studio. I will listen to all perspectives and collaborate with an open mind. I will represent people of all ages, sexes, genders, races, religions, and everything else that makes you uniquely awesome. Finally, I will make sure every member has a voice, and fully benefits from the opportunities and programs Music BC will offer in the coming years.

My biography

Liam Sturgess is a Vancouver-based recording and performing artist, working professionally in arts and entertainment since 2013. He has worked extensively with local governments and community organizations to create opportunities for up-and-coming musicians, earning him the “Kind Heart Award” from the City of North Vancouver. He graduated in 2015 from the Advanced Arts and Entertainment Management program at Capilano University, completing a practicum at Studio Cloud 30 under Warren Dean Flandez. In 2015, Liam opened his first commercial recording studio and music academy in West Vancouver where he led a team that taught and inspired hundreds of musicians of all ages. Liam was a founding co-producer of Rapidfire Hip Hop, featuring a range of prominent Vancouver artists including Missy D, Eric $hawry, and From Ash and Dust. 

After losing his mother to cancer in 2019, Liam embraced the opportunity to reset and began training in Advanced Audio Engineering and Studio Production at the Nimbus School of Recording and Media. When COVID-19 struck in 2020, Liam led his peers through innovative online performances, eventually helping return to in-person shows with clients such as FlyOver Canada and Lonsdale Quay Market. He is an avid human rights advocate, working alongside doctors, lawyers and a large community of volunteers to defend free speech, non-violence, and bodily autonomy in Canada and worldwide.

Liam's production portfolio includes dozens of albums, EPs and singles spanning a range of genres including pop, hip/hop, punk, folk, EDM, and country. He has featured as vocalist on multiple progressive house tracks, several of which have made international iTunes charts. He continues to create music as engineer, producer and artist through Sturgess Prime Productions. He released his fourth studio album, Foreverland, in July 2022.

Over the past several years, I have participated in various working groups focused on accessing public records through Freedom of Information (FOI) and related mechanisms. Through the work of the most recent iteration of this effort, we have successfully accumulated a growing collection of internal emails, public health data and other relevant documents, which have helped us strengthen our understanding of Canada’s COVID-19 response and prepare to launch and support legal action.

Our quest for documents has spanned municipal, provincial and federal governments, with a particular focus on the Governments of Canada and Ontario (the country’s most populous province).

A week and a half ago, my colleague Karen sent out the most recent batch of documents released through an Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) request to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Canada’s national broadcaster. CBC is a federal Crown corporation, which means it is wholly-owned by the Government of Canada. As of September 1, 2007, it is subject to the Access to Information Act, allowing Canadians to submit ATIP requests just as they would any other government agency.1

Today, I’m going to take you through what I learned from reading through the 186-page document release. You can download the original, unaltered PDF at the end of this post.

Input from CBC’s Director of Journalistic Standards

Paul Hambleton, CBC’s former Director of Journalistic Standards, was frequently engaged with the outlet’s reporters and editorial team on issues related to the integrity of its COVID-19 reporting.

His first email on the topic was March 27, 2020, titled “JSP COVID-19 and the NUMBERS.” The message is entirely redacted, aside from introducing the grey block as containing “Friday thoughts on our formidable COVID-19 coverage.” He sent a second email titled “JSP and Social Media” three days later, with even more redactions.

On April 17, 2020, Hambleton sent another email titled “JSP COVID-19 reflections.” After a month of the declared COVID-19 pandemic, he sought to “pass on some observations from the JSP desk on COVID-19 issues” that he’d “seen come up recently.”

In an August 25, 2020 email titled “Some JSP thoughts,” Hambleton offered the following:

After yet another huge redaction block, Hambleton signed off by thanking staff for their “vigilance on these things.” It is certainly refreshing to hear that at least somebody at the CBC was taking in feedback from its readers. If only we were privy to the specifics of his guidance.

He followed up on September 9, 2020 with an email titled “JSP Notes - COVID-19” where he offered “[t]wo things to bear in mind that have surfaced recently.” Just under a month later, in an October 5 email titled “More JSP thoughts and considerations,” he offered “some observations… about issues that surfaced recently.” While the “long read” is almost entirely redacted, we are left with a telling heading: “PRECISION.”

The only Hambleton email provided from 2021 is titled “Friday JSP thoughts - election.” Dated August 20th, the message came five days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called a snap election, and exactly one month in advance of election day.2 Recall that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies a core issue of his campaign. Here is a snippet written by Politico’s Andy Blatchford, published on the day Trudeau called the election:3

In other words, Trudeau himself ensured that the 2021 federal election would fall into the scope of this COVID-19-related ATIP request.

Hambleton’s resignation

Hambleton did not remain in his position as Director of Journalistic Standards for much longer after his August 2021 election memo. He had, in fact, been facing an unrelated internal crisis related to comments made by former commentator Don Cherry in November 2019,4 which eventually led to Hambleton announcing an early retirement on October 15, 2021. His position was effectively superseded by a new Journalistic Standards and Practices Advisory Committee who could support his official replacement “in a proactive and consultative way on matters of inclusion and equity.”5 According to Hambleton’s LinkedIn profile, he ultimately ended his 30-year career with the CBC in March 2022.6

The next person to take on Hambleton’s former title was George Achi, who only appears once in the disclosure package we received.7 He co-authored an October 24, 2022 email titled “Language note: Convoy protests: avoid ‘so-called’” with Senior Standards Editor Blair Shewchuk. Despite the intriguing title, we are not provided any insight into what use of the term “so-called” the pair found problematic.

COVID-Check

While a good chunk of the ATIP disclosure was padded with copies of news articles that were already public, they did provide an excellent opportunity to review what the CBC did immediately following the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, this March 25, 2020 article titled, “An update on local services and all the ways to access COVID-19 information on CBC News,” which mentions that the outlet “launched a COVID-19 fact checking unit to expose falsehoods and disinformation around the global pandemic.”

The original article is still online, complete with hyperlinks to the fact-checking unit’s “early work”:8

• March 23, 2020: Viral video claiming 5G caused pandemic easily debunked

• March 24, 2020: No, the new coronavirus wasn't created in a lab, scientists say

Both of these are dumb, grossly naive attempts to assert intellectual authority over topics the authors have no hope of understanding, any more than the panicked public they’re ostensibly attempting to inform. But the articles do reveal that the CBC’s fact-checking program is called COVID-Check.9 Another article on page 48 of the response package titled “Canada not immune to the virus of COVID-19 conspiracies” further reveals that COVID-Check has a French language counterpart called Décrypteurs.10

CBC Coronavirus Tracker

Also mentioned in the March 25 article is CBC’s Coronavirus Tracker, which appears to have launched on March 21, 2020.11

Developed by something called CBC News Labs, the dashboard cites CBC News as its source for Canadian data, and Johns Hopkins University for international data. The earliest archived version also hosts a set of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) that have not all aged well. Let’s take this for example:

Q: What should I do if I have fever, cough or shortness of breath?

A: Fever, cough and shortness of breath can be symptoms of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus — but they're also symptoms of seasonal flu and other respiratory illnesses that are common at this time of year.

Call your local public health unit if:

• You have even mild symptoms.

• You have been exposed to someone known to be infected.

Indeed, CBC correctly points out that the symptoms most commonly associated with COVID-19 are identical to those caused by the flu, and “other respiratory illnesses”—like the common cold or seasonal allergies. This would be helpful if the FAQ didn’t then direct readers to report themselves as a presumptive COVID-19 case if they had “even mild symptoms” or no symptoms at all.

Then, there’s this gem:

Q: Should I wear a mask?

A: If you're not sick, the answer is no. There's no evidence that wearing a mask will protect you from becoming infected in your day-to-day life.

Health-care workers wear N95 masks — these are specialized masks that block smaller particles. It’s important to preserve the supply of these masks for health-care workers.

But if you are sick, there is some evidence that wearing a mask will help reduce the amount of virus around you, potentially offering a measure of protection to others.

Finally, we find that CBC was promoting the idea of a forthcoming vaccine right from the very beginning:

Q: Is there a vaccine?

A: A vaccine to stop the spread is at least a year away. Here’s a look inside some of the Canadian labs doing research.

Read more about vaccine research here.

The hyperlink leads to a March 14, 2020 article titled “COVID-19 vaccine research takes on new urgency.” Coming just three days after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC),12 the article highlights in rapid succession the already-ongoing efforts of various organizations to rush “experimental” COVID-19 vaccine candidates through clinical development, with an unprecedented focus on using mRNA and adenoviral vector-based gene therapy as the platform globally.13

Among those featured are:

• The Vaccine Research Center at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), working in partnership with Moderna

• The Government of Canada’s “$2.7 million in funding for vaccine candidates.”

• The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which invested “more than $23 million US in the development of new vaccines against COVID-19.”

• The Group of Seven (G7), led by French president Emmanuel Macron, which subsequently put out a statement pledging to “support the launch of joint research projects funded by both public and private resources, and the sharing of facilities, towards rapid development, manufacture and distribution of treatments and a vaccine, adhering to the principles of efficacy, safety, and accessibility.”14

• MIGAL Galilee Research Institute in Israel developing an oral protein subunit vaccine candidate15

• Denis Leclerc and colleagues at the University of Laval, who were developing a viral vector COVID-19 vaccine candidate16

• Medicago, developer of Canada’s only approved plant-based COVID-19 vaccine

• And finally, Charu Kaushic, Director of the Institute of Infection and Immunity at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Despite providing several comments for the article, she fails to mention that she had recently returned from a seminar co-hosted by the WHO and the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R)—an organization which Kaushic chairs—where various public health and pharmaceutical industry leaders set the global research priorities for everything related to COVID-19.17 Don’t believe me? Listen to Kaushic herself explain how they did it.

Interestingly, I couldn’t find much at all about CBC News Labs, apart from this “Climate Dashboard” which launched May 3, 2023.18

CBC consolidated news coverage

Another interesting move I wasn’t aware of is the CBC’s decision to “temporarily scrap” local news broadcasts, consolidating attention and resources towards its national broadcast.19 The stated intention was to make the national CBC News Network into the “core live breaking-news service,” ostensibly in response to public health measures that limited the organization’s ability to do their job.

The result, of course, was the centralization of messaging on the unfolding crisis, taking away any opportunity for local reporters, producers and editors to divert from the official national narrative. Anybody watching CBC would no longer be taking in the range of perspectives and experiences informed by different regions of the country. Additionally, CBC boasted that they had “partnered with Canada's private broadcasters to pool video coverage of official press briefings across the country in order to space out the number of crews present at any one event.” In other words, a far more limited number of people with the opportunity to ask hard questions to our public health officials and politicians.

CBC almost immediately moved to reverse the pause on local broadcasting after facing heavy criticism, including from Prince Edward Island’s Premier Dennis King.20 It’s unclear how long it took to actually get things back up and running.

Ironically, Global Affairs Canada published a November 16, 2020 report titled Media Freedom and COVID-19 written by Ravi R. Prasad of the International Press Institute.21 As noted in the executive summary:

Sound familiar? Prasad’s report is a breath of fresh air, even though I take issue with some of his assertions. Still, he concludes by demanding that governments around the world “immediately withdraw all measures limiting independent media coverage and equal access to information and stop misusing the crisis to restrict press freedom and freedom of expression.” Presumably, this should also include Canada.

Except, of course, for the fact that the Government of Canada continues to aggressively fund “anti-disinformation” programs through its Digital Citizen Initiative—not just in regards to COVID-19, but also divisive topics such as the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine.22

Edelman’s Trust Barometer

On page 48 of the ATIP disclosure package, CBC celebrates a report that asserted that “public trust in those traditional news organizations soared to record highs in Canada as the pandemic took hold.”23 The report in question was a special Spring 2020 Edition of “The Trust Barometer,” a series published by marketing giant Edelman.24

First of all, trust in Canadian media didn’t exactly “soar” as the CBC suggested. In fact, the report shows that it maxed out at 58%, which appears to be equal to where it was back in 2019. But after hitting that previous all-time high, trust fell by several percentage points as of January 2020, from which it returned in the initial three months of the declared COVID-19 pandemic. By January 2021, Edelman reported a 4-point drop in trust in Canadian media, back to 54%.25

CBC’s highlighting of Edelman’s report in May 2020 is not a coincidence, though, for two reasons. First, note that the media saw a similar bump in public trust immediately following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, which also began to falter after just a few months.26 Secondly, Edelman was one of the handful of organizations who participated in Event 201, the coronavirus pandemic planning exercise that took place in New York City in October 2019.27

The firm was represented by Matthew Harrington, Edelman’s global chief operating officer.28 During the event, Harrington offered this particularly helpful insight into how to maintain trust in institutions by controlling the flow of information. Here’s a YouTube clip posted by event co-host, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (watch from 7:51-8:26):

Trusted News Initiative

Finally, on page 49 of the disclosure package, CBC highlights their participation as a member of the now-infamous Trusted News Initiative (TNI).

In case you haven’t yet heard of the TNI (or need a refresher), let’s take a quick moment to summarize the key facts.

The Trusted News Initiative is an international alliance of news media, social media and technology companies described as a “real-time, early warning system to flag serious disinformation that may pose a threat to life or the integrity of the electoral process.”29 CBC/Radio-Canada was a founding member, working right alongside fellow news outlets the Financial Times, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal in partnership with big tech companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

Indeed, the group’s initial focus was on combatting so-called “disinformation” related to elections around the world, having been “activated for the general elections in the U.K., Taiwan, Myanmar and the U.S.”

The TNI was officially announced in September 2019 following an event called the Trusted News Summit convened by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).30 A BBC media release cites “recent events such as the Indian elections” as the inciting incidents leading to the group's creation.313233

Though its founding mandate was related to elections, the TNI announced in March 2020 that it would “extend its efforts to identifying false and potentially harmful Coronavirus information.”34 But it didn’t abandon its original scope; in July 2020, the TNI announced it was working to “combat the spread of disinformation during the upcoming U.S. Presidential election.”35

Then, “with the introduction of several possible new COVID-19 vaccines” at the end of 2020, the TNI shifted again “to focus on combatting the spread of harmful vaccine disinformation.”36 In an accompanying article, the BBC offers several examples of what it deemed to be so-called “vaccine disinformation,” such as “widely shared memes which link falsehoods about vaccines to freedom and individual liberties,” and posts that “seek to downplay the risks of coronavirus and suggest there is an ulterior motive behind the development of a vaccine.”

Furthermore, the TNI also launched “a new initiative which will help TNI members to gain an understanding of the effectiveness of interventions to fight misinformation.” Led by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and First Draft News, the research study would “examine the effectiveness of different interventions which seek to educate audiences and prevent the spread of health disinformation.”

This is what the CBC is so proudly boasting to be involved with. Needless to say, Canadians reading the news would not have been alerted to their involvement in a psychological experiment of this scale, violating the principle of informed consent—and providing yet another reason why people should, indeed, be highly skeptical that their news and social media providers are behaving in a trustworthy manner.

If you feel this interpretation is a stretch, let me point out that this is not the only instance of a Canadian government agency running propaganda experiments on the unwitting population.

The Privy Council Office, one of the highest-level agencies of the Government of Canada, runs a program called Impact Canada, originally launched in 2017.3738 As highlighted by the Star Vancouver, starting in April 2020, Impact Canada conducted a “scientific experiment,” mostly “under the radar,” using behavioural science tools in which “ordinary citizens were the laboratory subjects.”39 The study is called COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO), and captures the “attitudes and behaviour on all things pandemic-related” of about 2,000 participants while implementing the “WHO Behavioural Insights tool on COVID-19 to inform response efforts, including policy, interventions and communications.”40

On February 5, 2021, Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam acknowledged that such studies were being “carried out by the Privy Council Office, where there is a behavioural insight team,” which had contributed to “the intention for Canadians to get the vaccine” increasing since the beginning of Canada’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. She then stated that the government planned to “work with the internet and social media companies and that has been happening with Facebook, Google, YouTube and others”—the very same companies working shoulder-to-shoulder with the CBC through the Trusted News Initiative.

From March 11-30, 2021, Impact Canada ran their fourth study on COVID-19 vaccines titled “Messaging in Response to Adverse Events Following Immunization.” The study tested seven possible messages, delivered randomly by modelled representatives of the “Government of Canada, a top Canadian medical professional, or a spokesperson for the vaccine manufacturer.” Impact Canada concluded that “behaviourally-informed messages… significantly outperformed the status quo communications strategy” when publicly addressing reports of adverse events related to COVID-19 vaccines.41

A May 2021 memo titled “Testing Behaviourally-Informed Messaging In Response To Severe Adverse Events Following Immunization” disclosed via an Access to Information (ATIP) request describes messaging guidance very similar to Impact Canada’s study, including recommending “that any COVID vaccine-related injuries or deaths be carefully managed with ‘winning communication strategies’ as to not ‘shake public confidence.’”42 In other words, the Government of Canada decided not to accurately inform Canadians of the true nature and rate of serious adverse events associated with the novel COVID-19 vaccine products, because it could risk turning people off of being injected. The result is that the general public has no sense of the scale of injury and death associated with the mass rollout of these products, even if they have opted not to take further boosters.

I can’t be more explicit: the Government of Canada chose to lie to Canadians about this, while censoring and vilifying anybody attempting to correct the record.

Conclusion

I hope this has been a helpful summary of what CBC News was up to during the COVID-19 era, particularly in the early days. While only some of the information provided in the ATIP request was new, the release package still provided an excellent opportunity to revisit early published articles and compare them to some of the internal emails we got to see, as well as other things we know were going on at the same time.

Download the ATIP response package

Final Release Package A 2023 00049

215MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download the entire, unaltered ATIP release document for your records and perusal.

Download

Operation Underground Railroad, the human trafficking organization featured in the runaway hit movie, The Sound of Freedom, has strong ties with genetic technology company Predictive Technology Group.

How’s that for a lede? Allow me to explain.

A few weeks ago, I published a Microjourney exploring a company called Pure Blood Registry. In summary, it offers its customers access to a curated list of blood donors who declare having not received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine, rendering their blood “pure” for transfusion.

While I have numerous concerns with the business itself (from the name to its terms of service), what really piqued my interest was Pure Blood Registry’s list of partners.

MyID was the first name that caught my eye, in no small part because of its connection to the story of the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio — however relevant that aspect may or may not be.12 But my investigation quickly led me into the strange world of another company called Predictive Technology Group, with whom MyID had collaborated on a COVID-19 antibody test called Assurance AB.3

Over the past few weeks, I have continued to pull on the so-called “Predictive” thread, and have been utterly perplexed by what I’ve found. You could say I didn’t “predict” where this line of inquiry would take me.

Meet Simon Brewer

Simon Brewer is a certified professional accountant (CPA) based in Salt Lake City, Utah.4 There’s a couple of things I’d like you to know about him.

Brewer is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as the Mormon Church.5

As part of his faith, Brewer travelled to Russia for a two-year mission from 1997-1999, visiting the cities of Yekaterinburg, Ufa and Chelyabinsk. According to his LinkedIn profile, Brewer “planned service activities, taught English classes, and planned large meetings,” which helped him develop conversational fluency in Russian.

He then studied at the University of Utah from 2000-2004, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting with a minor in Russian. He graduated in 2005 with a Masters Degree in Accounting.

From 2005-2009, Brewer worked as a Supervising Senior Associate at KPMG. His clients included the United States Department of Energy, United States Department of the Interior, CHG Healthcare (one of the largest healthcare staffing agencies in the country)6 and United Way. From 2009-2013, he worked as Corporate Controller at Backcountry, an online retailer that sells outdoor gear. He also worked as an Associate Instructor at the University of Utah in the accounting department from 2010-2013.

In 2013, Brewer was recruited by Wilson Electronics as their new Vice President of Finance and IT. Wilson sells signal boosters for cell phones, which “allows businesses and consumers to easily enjoy 5G.”7 The company claims to work closely with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the branch of the United States government responsible for regulating the wireless communications industry. He worked there from 2013-2016.

Brewer’s next two years were spent as Chief Financial Officer at Norbest, “one of the top turkey marketing firms in the United States.”8 A rather odd career move, but one where he created a “big data” group to “add databases and informational flows to help in decision making.”

Then, in 2018, Brewer was “[r]ecruited to Predictive Technology Group, Inc. as CFO and head of accounting, finance, IT and HR prior to major Company growth from cutting-edge DNA products.” In other words, Brewer’s arrival came just before the company underwent significant expansion, specifically in the realm of DNA analysis and therapeutics.

Federal filings and a market research report reveal he started as Chief Accounting Officer in January 2018, and as Chief Financial Officer on July 1, 2018.910 His LinkedIn profile puts him at both Predictive Technology Group and its subsidiary, Predictive Biotech, from 2018-2021. He is also registered as Treasurer for LifeCode Genetics, another of the many Predictive subsidiaries.11

Moreover, Brewer takes credit for completing “identification, due diligence, financial viability, accounting and integration of 6 acquisitions.” If Hindenburg Investment Research’s analysis published on Seeking Alpha is correct, then this might not be something to be bragging too loudly about. Based on that article and my own research, some of those six acquired companies are most likely Taueret Laboratories,12 Inception Dx,13 FlagShipHealth Group,14 Regenerative Medical Technologies (RMT)15 and possibly CellSure.16

CellSure is a stem cell donation company founded by none other than Eric Olson, CEO of MyID and Predictive Biotech.17 On his LinkedIn page, Olson describes CellSure as a company “focused on procuring human tissue, cells and DNA for clinical studies and product development.”18 A CellSure fact sheet from April 2021 describes the company as a subsidiary of Predictive Biotech.19

As a quick side note, the lawyer registered as a manager for CellSure is Jim Pesoli, whose former partner was convicted by a federal judge in December 2022 for “swindling $2.6 million from hospitals seeking coveted protective gear in the traumatic early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and blowing much of it on credit cards and luxury cars.”20

In May 2019, Brewer went back to work at the University of Utah as an Adjunct Instructor in Accounting. His staff profile has since been wiped from the school’s website, but I was able to recover it from Google’s cache.21

He does, however, still have a profile on Rate My Professors, where one student complained about how often he would go on tangents and tell “irrelevant stories about Area 51 during his time auditing.”22

Now, I’m no expert on Area 51, but my gut tells me that not just anybody gets to take a look at those books. As described by Military.com, Area 51 is “a highly classified United States military installation” which “was not officially acknowledged by the CIA as a military base until June 2013.”23

It sits on land with a history of tight control by both the Department of the Interior and Department of Energy,24 so it’s not a big leap to speculate that Brewer may be telling the truth about conducting audits there. That does, however, suggest that Brewer received sufficient security clearance, since the base’s primary occupants are the Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency.25

Finally, in July 2021, Brewer was “[r]ecruited to fight against human trafficking worldwide at a nonprofit dedicated to the cause” — specifically, Operation Underground Railroad.

What is Operation Underground Railroad, you may ask? Great question. For that answer, let’s turn to the movies.

The Sound of Freedom

Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) was the subject of this year’s runaway hit movie, The Sound of Freedom, which premiered on July 4. As covered in the BBC:26

According to the filmmakers, the movie is based on the true story of Tim Ballard and his noble quest to save children stuck in the all-too-real child sex trafficking industry. As with any biopic, it is a “fictionalization” of real events;27 nonetheless, it presents itself as an advertisement both of the problem and Operation Underground Railroad’s valiant efforts to resolve it.

Without a doubt, it is a noble cause. Apart from the absurd handwaving dismissals of the film that accuse it of doing no more than promoting “QAnon conspiracy theories,”28 I think any reasonable person would agree that a world where this kind of human trafficking operation exists at all is simply untenable. And in the face of government obstruction (such as is depicted in The Sound of Freedom) and apparent collusion (the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein had some really powerful friends),293031 one can at least theoretically understand why a non-governmental organization such as Operation Underground Railroad would decide to take matters into its own hands.

For now, let’s take OUR at face value, as an organization seeking to raise awareness about child trafficking and apply some vigilante justice to stop the bad guys. As I’m sure you’ve already surmised, OUR faces a number of credible criticisms that potentially undermine its purported good intentions. But for the sake of staying within scope, I will leave those for another day.

In the meantime, it’s safe to say that Simon Brewer was taken by the mission, one which led him to leave his high-level position at Predictive Technology Group in order to join Operation Underground Railroad. This turns out to have been a trend in Brewer’s circles.

Meet Jeff Carter

Jeffrey Layne Carter is an American goat retail industry specialist based in Draper, Utah,32 a suburb of Salt Lake City.33 His LinkedIn profile lists the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as his top interest, suggesting he may, too, be Mormon.

This rather innocuous detail is not the only thing Jeff Carter has in common with Simon Brewer. From November 2001 to January 2019, Carter worked in a series of high-level positions at Backcountry, the aforementioned outdoor gear retailer.34 Brewer’s tenure as Corporate Controller between 2009-2013 took place while Carter was Vice President, and then Senior Vice President, of Fulfillment Operations.

Backcountry and John Malone

Notably, a controlling stake in Backcountry was acquired in May 2007 by Liberty Media, a mass media corporation owned by billionaire John C. Malone.35 Described by The Gentleman’s Journal as “the most powerful man that you’ve never heard of,” Malone’s media empire rivals that of the Murdoch family, with sizeable stakes in some of the world’s most notable news agencies and film studios.36 Believe it or not, he even came close to a hostile takeover of Murdoch’s News Corporation.37 He also happens to be one of the largest (if not the largest) private land owner(s) in the United States of America.38

Malone also just so happens to be enthusiastic about genetic medicine. In December 2014, he and his wife donated $42.5 million to Colorado State University for the creation of the C. Wayne McIlwraith Translational Medicine Institute, borne out of the couple’s fascination for “the healing power of stem cells” — and horses.39 The intent of the donation was to create a facility to “investigate next-generation remedies based on living cells and their products, including patient-derived stem cells, to treat musculoskeletal disease and other ailments.” More specifically, “gene therapy, stem cells, specialized tissue replacement and novel proteins.”

The Institute opened its doors in May 2019.40 At that point, Malone’s portfolio through his Malone Family Foundation held a healthy, and profitable, stake in Pfizer,41 which would go on to roll out an experimental gene therapy product to much of the world’s population starting just one year later in the form of its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine. Other companies in Malone’s portfolio with an interest in gene therapy, novel proteins and the like include Gilead Sciences, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Novartis.

Needless to say, 2020 and 2021 were excellent years on the stock market for Mr. Malone.4243

Now, back to our friend Jeff Carter…

After over 17 years working at Backcountry, Jeff Carter left to take a job as Senior Vice President of Operations at Predictive Biotech in February 2019 — reunited with his old coworker Simon Brewer, who was at this point working as CFO at Predictive. Then, in September 2021, Carter jumped over to Operation Underground Railroad as its Chief Commerce Officer (just two months after Brewer).

At this point, there are many plausible explanations as to why these two would follow such a similar career trajectory. For one, they may have just been good buddies and effective co-workers, successfully leveraging each other’s promotions to get the other guy a gig. Case closed, right?

Wrong.

Meet Will Oborn

Will Oborn is a customer service specialist based in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is visibly younger than Simon Brewer and Jeff Carter, suggesting they are not simply contemporaries.

They did all work together, however. After early gigs in restaurant and retail (plus a sweet gig with the company that manufactures compound bows for the Olympics, Hunger Games and Avengers),44 Oborn wound up at — you guessed it — Backcountry.45 He began as a customer service representative in August 2016, working his way up to customer loyalty team lead by the time of his departure in November 2019.

Oborn was then, too, recruited to Predictive Biotech, starting as a Relationship Manager and then Customer Service Supervisor. He stayed in the latter position from July 2020 to July 2021, before making his ultimate leap to Operation Underground Railroad as Customer Service Manager.

You know, “Operation Underground Railroad” may be more appropriate as a name than I previously realized, what with all of these recruits being ferried down the same track. It’s now really hard to see this as coincidence.

Meet their friends

What?! There’s even more people to add to the list? Yes, it’s true. There are further examples of people who check off a large number of these same boxes, though not all of them are quite identical.

Carlos Bauer

Carlos Bauer is a certified professional accountant based in… yep, Salt Lake City, Utah. His LinkedIn profile even boasts an endorsement from the “highly skilled” Simon Brewer.46

Bauer worked his way up through junior accounting and senior associate positions from 2010 to 2017, when he started a nine-month gig as Controller of Nielson RV. He took this job title with him when he was hired at Predictive Technology Group in April 2018, where he remained until April 2021. Like clockwork, Bauer then hopped over to his new gig at Operation Underground Railroad, working variably as Controller, Treasurer and VP of Finance and Accounting, where he remains to this day.

Interestingly, Bauer’s LinkedIn profile doesn’t explicitly name the not-for-profit organization he works for. However, OUR’s most recent tax filings confirm Bauer’s position and the timing of his employment.47

How about another?

Taylor Huckstep

Taylor Huckstep is an information technology specialist based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Huckstep is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. According to his LinkedIn profile, he volunteered with the church in Yekaterinburg, Russia from 1996-1998, overlapping with Simon Brewer’s mission in the very same city.48

In March 2017, Huckstep began work as Senior Director of Information Technology at Norbest, specifically located in Moroni, Utah (as per his LinkedIn profile). Recall that Simon Brewer had previously been CFO at Norbest, a large turkey company, from 2016-2018 — another area where these two men crossed over. As it turns out, the Moroni farm where Huckstep claims to have been based had an animal rights scandal just a couple of months prior to his arrival, and during Brewer’s tenure as CFO.49

In November 2018, Huckstep began his position as Senior Director of IT at Predictive Technology Group, where he “led all information systems initiatives within the company, reporting to the CFO” — the CFO, of course, was Simon Brewer. He stayed there until July 2021, when he went to work for Operation Underground Railroad as VP of IT.

Anyone else?

Tauni Frampton

Tauni Frampton is Operation Underground Railroad’s Director of Financial Operations, also based in Salt Lake City, Utah.50 Her accounting skills got a one-two thumbs up from Brewer and Carter.

Frampton attended the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah in 2013/2014 while working as an accountant at Backcountry. In January 2015, she went to work as an Assurance Senior at BDO USA — an accounting firm which just so happens to be a member of the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium (MCDC).51

CBRN stands for “Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear,” which are generally described as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).52 According to MCDC’s website:53

Without getting too far into the weeds, Other Transaction Agreements (or Other Transaction Authorities — OTA) have been fingered as the mechanism through which the United States government commissioned and procured its various “countermeasures” against COVID-19, including genetic vaccines and experimental therapeutics.5455 Some have even suggested this mechanism allowed the government to completely bypass the authority of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with so-called “approvals” being done entirely for show.

I don’t feel confident enough in my understanding of OTAs to comment more on that train of thought at this point, but I do feel it’s important to introduce the term to you nonetheless. As described in an overview document published by AcqNotes:56

In any case, BDO USA’s fellow members in the Medical CBRN Defense Consortium include multiple companies that have previously been created with or led in some form by Dr. Robert Malone, including Alchem Laboratories and Inovio Pharmaceuticals — plus COVID-19 vaccine/therapeutic developers and manufacturers AstraZeneca, Emergent BioSolutions, Ginkgo Bioworks, ICON, Janssen, Medicago, Merck, Novavax, Pfizer and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.

After her time with BDO USA ended in January 2019, Frampton went to work for Predictive Technology Group as Assistant Controller, and then Controller. She left Predictive in August 2021 for her position at Operation Underground Railroad.

What’s the deal?

Predictive Technology Group and Operation Underground Railroad are inexplicably tied together in a way that one might not have anticipated. In this short summary, I’ve highlighted six people who worked at both organizations back-to-back, without any clear explanation for the pattern.

The organizations don’t work in the same industry, and there is very little (if any) inherent crossover in their activities. In fact, the combination of “cutting-edge DNA products” and the tracking, processing and relocation of sex-trafficked children is just plain weird.

What am I missing?

By now, you’ve likely come across the term “pure blood” in reference to people who have not received a COVID-19 mRNA transfection. If not in the wild, then perhaps in the occasional news headline coming out in objection to the term.

While the term itself is divisive and historically problematic, the underlying premise is understandable and straightforward. But for those who aren’t yet sold, allow me a brief summary.

In late 2020, a range of experimental gene therapy products were rolled out across the planet under the banner of “COVID-19 vaccines,” after an unprecedented “warp speed” development sprint. Despite the frequent assurances provided to them by the pharmaceutical companies and health authorities, many millions of people chose not to undergo this particular medical procedure. Each person has their own reasons, and the choice to decline unwanted medicine is in line with universal principles of informed consent and bodily autonomy.

A few months ago, a story went viral about a family in New Zealand whose baby required a blood transfusion as part of invasive heart surgery.1 The six-month old child suffered from a congenital heart defect, and the prognosis without surgery was not good. However, his parents were concerned that the blood he would be given could contain components of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine products circulating in the bodies of the blood donors at the time of their donation, or fragments of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein which the shots are designed to produce in the body’s own cells.

Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand rejected the family’s requests to use only “unvaccinated” blood. Their reasoning was that the New Zealand Blood Service “does not make a distinction between donations from those vaccinated or unvaccinated against COVID, as there is no extra risk from using vaccinated blood.”

NZ Blood’s FAQ page for COVID-19 vaccines and blood donation has been removed from the internet. An archived version reveals that the agency was telling donors as recently as November 2022 that “the spike protein is present in vanishingly small quantities in the blood in some people for the first two weeks after their mRNA vaccine. The chance of finding spike protein in donated blood is very small, and it will be in the picogram range if it is there at all. It is not found in the blood after this time period has passed.” They conclusively asserted that “there is no evidence that this represents any risk to recipients.”2

The American Red Cross took an even more absolute position in a September 13, 2022 post on Twitter, saying “[w]e don't label blood products as containing vaccinated or unvaccinated blood as the COVID-19 vaccine does not enter the bloodstream & poses no safety risks to the recipient.”3

Disturbingly, the American Red Cross was way off. As has been thoroughly and repeatedly summarized by Ryan Cristián of , the contents of the vaccine vials as well as the resulting spike proteins have long been known to enter the bloodstream, both as a matter of design and by accident.

Pfizer’s own biodistribution studies on their candidate, BNT162b2 (the initial formulation rolled out by Pfizer-BioNTech in 2020-2022), describe the “LNPs [lipid nanoparticles] entering the blood stream,” resulting in the delivery of the vaccine payload to the liver of lab mice where the target protein was produced.4 These findings have replicated in humans multiple times over,5 with one study admitting that “the biodistribution, quantity, and persistence of vaccine mRNA and spike antigen after vaccination” remain “incompletely understood.”6 But by July 2022, there existed plenty of clinical and real-world evidence demonstrating that the vaccine components “remain in circulation for extended periods of time, retaining their ability to induce [spike protein] expression in contacted cells.”7

A study published in September 2022 found that circulating spike protein is associated with a wide range of long-term symptoms broadly diagnosed as COVID-19.8

It is safe to say that there exists more than enough evidence to justify an individual’s hesitations around them or their loved ones receiving a blood transfusion from an unspecific donor, whether or not you personally agree with their decision.

Parallel structures

So what does one do when faced with a challenge like that of the New Zealand family?

If the last few years have taught us anything, it is the importance of erecting parallel structures in order to protect against over-centralized systems such as food production, finance and healthcare.

Rather than relying on Walmart or Costco to perpetually keep their shelves stocked in the midst of an ongoing supply chain crisis,9 one can turn to their local farmers market, or work directly with independent farms.10 As governments and institutional banks across the Western world “de-bank” more and more people based solely on their political views,1112 lawful exercise of civil rights,13 and national origin,14 one can diversify their finances through Bitcoin or other “privacy” blockchains — or just use cash whenever possible.15

But what about addressing the much closer-to-the-heart issue of healthcare, bodily autonomy and medical privacy? Needless to say, there are plenty of industrious folks out there who have jumped at the opportunity to fill the gap.

“Unvaxxed bloodbanks”

Of course, the incident in New Zealand is just one of many in which people are being forced to accept transfusions from a single source. Many countries seem to have their bloodbanks centralized and hooked in with the healthcare system at large, such is the case with Canada and its Canadian Blood Services (CBS). Despite officially operating “at arm’s length from government,”16 CBS describes itself as “the country’s blood authority in all provinces and territories except Quebec.”17

Understandably, a number of “unvaccinated bloodbanks” have been set up to fill the void. And on first glance, many such organizations present as well-intentioned and well-run programs! But upon closer analysis, one can begin to identify red flags that suggest the solution may not be better than the problem being solved. Let’s take a look at a case study to explore this idea further.

Pure Blood Registry

Pure Blood Registry is a limited liability company based in Sanford, Florida.18 According to its website, the company offers “safe blood for emergencies & planned medical procedures.”19 It is a membership-based organization, offering a $500 Diamond/lifetime tier or a $120 “Donor & Recipient Member” tier which must be renewed annually. Conveniently, those who only wish to donate blood can do so at no cost!20

In a disclaimer at the bottom of its homepage, Pure Blood Registry clarifies that it “operates as a registry of individuals and facilitates connections between them,” and does “not provide medical advice or recommendations.”

In other words, the business involves taking in applications from people around the world who self-identify as being of “pure blood” (unvaccinated), the results of which are compiled into a registry of said individuals. Those who buy in are then granted access to this registry, allowing them to make contact with an appropriate blood donor in the event of an emergency, or while planning an upcoming medical procedure.

There’s one caveat, though. As explained in the fine print, “individuals who do not possess an active subscription to our Premium or Diamond Memberships and find themselves in need of a donor list during an emergency will be kindly requested to make a donation of $1,500 to our platform.” Not that this would be much help, though, as the company notes that both of their paid memberships “include a 30-day waiting period” before members can request that donor list.

It may be that Pure Blood Registry has already done great work in helping those in crisis to access the blood they need at a crucial time, or even that I’m misreading their website.

With that out of the way, who is behind the noble venture, after all?

Pure Blood Registry was incorporated on August 30, 2022 by Gil Levy, who describes himself as “Founder & Patriot.” His biography describes him as “an accomplished entrepreneur and visionary,” who travelled from Israel to California at an early age and embraced the American Dream. He reportedly founded Pure Blood Registry “as a passion-project for his daughter,” inspired by his values as a silver and gold stacker, gardener and self-reliant individual, as well as his experience “witnessing events unfold during the 2020 election cycle.”

It is not clear to me why some of these details are included, other than to paint a picture of a dissident battling the system on multiple fronts that aren’t strictly related to each other — the 2020 election, for example, being a rather odd thing to mention in this context.

Levy founded another company in February 2017 called Framed Listings, through which he provides photography and videography services for real estate.2122 His listed clients include Airbnb, Amazon, Coldwell Banker, Cushman & Wakefield, and Vrbo.23 From his biography on Framed Listings’ website, we further learn that Levy is a semi-pro poker player, playing on the Word Poker Tour (WPT) and World Series of Poker (WSOP) circuits. Sweet!

But the real concern comes from Pure Blood Registry’s partners.

MyID

First and foremost, we have MyID. If that name sounds familiar, it’s for good reason.

MyID is an American medical services company based in Saint George, Utah. As described on its Pure Blood Registry partner page, MyID is a digital medical identity device in the form of a QR code on a wristband.24

Users upload various medical documents “such as insurance information, living wills, x-rays, and any other medical records,” which can then be shared with anybody the user desires. The company boasts that there are “3 access points to your data,” as opposed to their competitors who offer only a single access point.

More to that point, in the case of an emergency, a smartphone camera pointed at the QR code will reveal your “vital medical information” so first responders can help you, “even if you’re unable to answer questions yourself.”25

MyID is the latest iteration of a company that has undergone multiple rebrands. Steve Schone founded the company in November 2010 under the name LifeStrength.2627

LifeStrength sold “balance wristbands and energy bracelets” which used “the exclusive ION HEALTH technology process that uniquely aggregates the positive properties of seven minerals and gemstones into a performance enhancing and attractive balance bracelet.”28 MyID was introduced as a product sometime around 2012, with a very similar description to the one it has today.29

In August 2013, LifeStrength announced a name change to ENDEVR.30 MyID, LLC was incorporated as a separate company on February 20, 2018.31

MyID was very busy during the COVID-19 era.

In April 2020, MyID published several promotional videos for the Assurance AB™ COVID-19 IgM/IgG Rapid Antibody Test developed by Predictive Laboratories and distributed in partnership with Wellgistics.32

Results of the antibody test could be uploaded to the MyID app, which would provide that data to health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The test and application were described as ways to help people return to work as they could provide “proof of immunity.”33

Later in 2020, MyID introduced the MyID COVID Cleared Program, which “enables individuals to voluntarily self-report symptoms/temperatures, order/receive COVID-19 related test results, and choose when and with whom to share those results, thereby putting employees in control of their sensitive data.”34

In January 2021, MyID announced a partnership with pharmaceutical giant Merck to “provide the MyID mobile app and wristband to patients” being treated with Merck's Keytruda, an antibody-based immunotherapy drug.35 This was now an explicit application of the MyID platform in the context of a clinical trial.

MyID also participated in the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA)'s 2021 Annual Convention,36 focused on how to “leverage the disruption of the pandemic, change the face of pharmacy, and power up our practices.”37 Event sponsors included McKesson, Merck, Moderna and Pfizer.38

UPDATE - August 25, 2023: I’m not sure how I missed this, but it turns out that Wellgistics also sponsored this event! See below logo wall as published here.

Who is Wellgistics, you may ask? Hold tight. We’ll get to that in just a few paragraphs.

This connection with some of the largest drug companies on the planet is certainly unexpected, given Pure Blood Registry’s ostensible role as a “dissident” and “alternative” organization as compared to these exact companies. Certainly, it seems their partner, MyID, has a different set of priorities much more aligned with institutional interests.

MyID hosts an informed consent page noting that part of their mission is to “advance research related to the study of human health.”39 Last updated February 15, 2021, the page describes the “MyID Human Diversity Project” (also called the MyID Study Project) which seeks to “develop new or improved diagnostic tools and therapies to treat diseases or other conditions.” While some of this research is said to be done by MyID employees, partners “might include academic institutions as well as non-profit and for-profit businesses or government agencies.” Strangely, the link provided to learn more about these collaborators leads to a website for AncestryDNA, describing the Ancestry Human Diversity Project.40

Reviewing MyID’s privacy policy reveals that as of October 2021, MyID offers users “access to COVID-19 immunization records,” in “partnership with public health agencies,” using “personal and sensitive data required directly to support COVID-19-related-efforts.”41

Oh, good. Yet another vaccine passport. Hooray!

On May 12, 2020, MyID's general counsel, Douglas Edmunds, filed a trademark application for the MyID logo and the design of its wristbands, as well as the previous image of a so-called “Heath Passport” (their words, not mine). Matthew Starley, Chief Operating Officer at Wellgistics, was listed as a secondary contact.42 Recall that Wellgistics was one of MyID’s partners in the Assurance AB COVID-19 test.

Wellgistics is an American pharmaceutical distribution company based in Lakeland, Florida. As it turns out, Edmunds serves as general counsel for both MyID and Wellgistics.43 Brian Norton, CEO of Wellgistics,44 is also named as Chairman of MyID’s Board of Directors in the Merck partnership announcement.

Why is this notable? Well, Wellgistics is partnered with a number of pharmaceutical companies in its commercial activities, the most egregious of which is none other than Pfizer.45

Another company of interest is Rising Pharmaceuticals, which provided the hydroxychloroquine for the first randomized control trial (RCT) evaluating its use in treating COVID-19.46 This was the trial led by David Boulware,47 with funding from Steve Kirsch, Roblox founder David Baszucki and two Chinese-American community organizations.48

On April 1, 2020, Wellgistics entered an agreement with yet another previously-mentioned partner, Predictive Laboratories, to purchase a minimum of 1,000,000 units of the aforementioned Assurance AB COVID-19 IgM/IgG Rapid Antibody Test.49

This is where the rabbit hole of biometric data harvesting gets real deep.

Predictive Technology Group

Predictive Laboratories was, until very recently, an American clinical research company based in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to its now non-existent website, Predictive Laboratories focused on “clinical and discovery work for human infertility and genetic conditions affecting women and children.” Its laboratory facility was “active in new test and technology development” and collaborated with “numerous federal, state, and local agencies, universities, commercial laboratories, and private clients.” It was incorporated June 2, 2017 as a subsidiary of a larger company called Predictive Technology Group.50

Predictive Technology Group has a colourful history of its own, much of which is laid out in this excellent analysis by Hindenburg Investment Research, published in July 2019 by Seeking Alpha. The company was originally founded on August 25, 2005 under the name K-9 Concepts, Inc.5152 It was based in Kowloon, Hong Kong, and focused on marketing vitamin C-laced shower heads.53 In February 2008, the company performed a reverse merger with a shoe company called Aussie Soles.54 Rather than integrating its new subsidiary into its branding, K-9 Concepts changed its own name and continued operations as Aussie Soles Group, Inc. It purchased another company called Global Homes, Inc. on January 7, 2010,55 and once again rebranded to the Global Housing Group.

Finally, this company renamed to Global Enterprises Group. On March 24, 2015, the company announced that it had acquired a biotech startup called Predictive Therapeutics, LLC.56 Shortly after, they launched a shiny new website on May 4, 2015, seemingly with the sole purpose of publicizing the company’s new biotech direction.57 Soon after that, the company adopted Predictive’s name and branding and became Predictive Technology Group.

Predictive Therapeutics was itself founded in September 2013 by Bradley Robinson.5859 He also founded LifeCode Genetics, which the new Predictive Technology Group acquired in November 2015.60 This company changed its name to Predictive Diagnostics in June 2016.61

Further expansion of the Predictive portfolio came through what the Seeking Alpha article describes as an “acquisition spree.” Inception Dx was acquired in September 2018,62 merging with Predictive Laboratories as of April 2019 under the leadership of Inception Dx’s founder, Kenneth Ward.63 Ward also founded Taueret Laboratories in 2003,6465 from which Predictive purchased “key assets” in August 2018.66 Juneau Biosciences — yet another company founded by Ward — has been slowly acquired over several years by Predictive, through shady mechanisms described at length in the Seeking Alpha article.

Its most recent acquisition was FlagshipHealth Group, whose website currently boasts their marketing of “all types of Covid-19 tests” including PCR and rapid antigen67 — both of which, it should be noted, are types of genetic tests.

Predictive Therapeutics acquired ReNovo Biotech in March 2016,68 repackaging it for relaunch the following month as Predictive Biotech.69 ReNovo’s Founder and CEO, Eric Olson, carried his position over into Predictive Biotech, where he remains today.70

But Mr. Olson holds another relevant position. At least as of January 2021, he was also CEO of MyID. This fact is revealed in the same Merck/MyID press release that listed Brian Norton as both CEO of Wellgistics and Chair of MyID’s board of directors. Recall as well that Wellgistics and MyID share Douglas Edmunds as their chief counsel.

In other words, there exists a strange and incestuous relationship between MyID, Wellgistics and Predictive Technology Group, each carrying with them their own sets of red flags and possible ulterior motives for the mass harvesting and analysis of biometric data.

MyID focuses on digital identification based on biometrics and private medical information; Wellgistics markets and distributes drugs and treatments for biotech companies including Pfizer; and Predictive Technology Group’s range of subsidiaries cover testing, analysis and treatment of disease based entirely around their (by some accounts) shoddy and unproven genetic technology.

Speaking of Pfizer, Predictive Technology Group’s staff includes several alumni from the company and its subsidiaries, including Chief Development Officer Bruce Forrest and Board Chair John Sorrentino.7172

Then there’s the just plain weird coincidences — who could forget MyID’s perfectly-timed rollout into East Palestine, Ohio mere weeks before the Norfolk Southern train derailment that is causing severe and ongoing health issues among its residents and neighbours on the Eastern Seaboard to this day?73747576

How is all of this any different than the solutions being pushed on humanity by our public health institutions and their friends in Big Pharma? And if we agree that it’s not really much of an alternative at all, then what in the world would the motivation be for Pure Blood Registry to partner with such a company as MyID? Could the affiliate royalties really be that good?

In any case, Pure Blood Registry strongly encourages its clients to purchase the premium MyID package.

Do you feel comfortable sharing your blood with this organization, with all of the above in mind?

Conclusion

Believe it or not, this article only covered one of Pure Blood Registry’s partners, of which there are now six. I have looked at the others and identified potential red flags with each, some of which I intend to explore in the near future.

But until then, I leave you with this: “It's not enough to be against something. You have to be for something better.”

This is a quote from Tony Stark that I thought I had read in a comic years ago, though it may have actually come from the Captain America: Civil War movie. Regardless, it has stuck with me ever since, and it is a piece of wisdom that I invite readers to contemplate in the days to come.

I, like many other average citizens of the world, am opposed to the kind of reality previewed during the COVID-19 era. One of the most egregious invasions of privacy and bodily autonomy over the last few years has been the use of private medical information and biometric data to determine whether one shall be granted permission to enjoy their God-given liberty, or be relegated to an artificial second class citizenship.

This entire premise was based around the misleading use of genetic tests, the samples from which wound up in the hands of government agencies and sold to private interests around the world. Then, after gene therapy-based vaccine products were mass-distributed globally, people were made to disclose whether or not they had opted to receive this genetic treatment in order to avoid being ejected from work, school and even family life.

It is the avoidance of this very set of “medical countermeasures” and surveillance that is leading so many millions of people to seek alternatives such as the one ostensibly offered by Pure Blood Registry. But in doing so, we run the risk of falling into a new version of same problem, hiding behind a more attractive mask. It’s not enough to be against one idea, and then fail to address the reasons why people don’t like the idea in the first place.

Permanent solutions take time, and what’s at stake is far too precious to get wrong by jumping into quick fixes without fully exploring the consequences.

And in my opinion, we’re not gonna get there if we continue to identify ourselves as more or less “pure” than our friends, family and community.

Thank you for reading, and I invite you to share your own perspective in the comments!

On July 5, 2023, Kids Help Phone announced they were deploying artificial intelligence “to help respond to the ‘enormous need’ as more and more young people reach out for mental health help and support.” From the article by the Canadian Press, published on CTV News:1

Why are the counsellors so busy?

According to the article, “the organization is already using some AI technology to help triage texts.” Whether by text or by voice over the phone, the idea is that the AI will catch on to key words and phrases indicating someone is at particularly high risk of, for example, harming themselves in the very near future. This allows crises to be prioritized and the most pressing situations addressed quickest.

It makes sense in theory, but as my partner Sam pointed out to me when we heard this over the radio, “why does this need to be something that AI does?” Because beyond working as a prioritization system, it allows for the identification and classification of various types of mental illness, disorder or personal crisis:

Okay, I’ll give you the wildfires. Depending on where you live, the last few weeks have been very hard on people forced to evacuate their homes due to the fires. The smoke hasn’t been great, either.

But the framing of most of these issues is very strange. “A pandemic”? Climate anxiety? Mass shootings? In Canada?

Furthermore, the artificial intelligence company in question can be squarely blamed for contributing to this anxiety — using the very same AI they’re now offering as the solution.

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Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence

The Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence is a Canadian not-for-profit organization based in Toronto, Ontario. It was launched on March 30, 2017 with an initial funding package of over $255 million from a variety of public and private organizations.2

Funding

A notable founding funder of the Vector Institute was the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a philanthro-capitalist fund set up by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan with a mission “to end all diseases by end of century.”3

Other notable funders from 2017-present include:45678

• Accenture

• Air Canada

• Bank of Montreal

• Bell

• Boehringer Ingelheim

• Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)

• Canadian National Railway (CN)

• Deloitte

• Deep Genomics

• Google

• Government of Ontario

• Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS)

• PricewaterhouseCoopers

• Roche

• Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

• TD Bank Group

• Thomson Reuters

• University of Toronto

Additionally, the Government of Canada provides a significant amount of money to the Institute through the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence Strategy (PCAIS), dispensed by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR).

Vector’s COVID activities

You better believe the Vector Institute was very busy during the declared COVID-19 pandemic.

On April 12, 2020, the Vector Institute announced it was repurposing “high-performance computing” NVIDIA graphics processing units to contribute to the Ontario Ministry of Health's Pandemic Threat Response (PANTHR) platform. This would “enable processing of large amounts of data spanning Ontario’s vast universal health system, allowing for deeper insights on critical issues such as risk of spread to vulnerable people; asymptomatic transmission and outbreaks; allocation of resources such as tests, ventilators, staffing; localized social distancing and closure policies; and, stabilization of supply chains for ventilators and PPE.”9

On April 16, 2020, pharmaceutical giant Roche announced the launch of its “Roche Data Science Coalition” which included the Vector Institute as a collaborator, in order to work “with the global community to develop solutions to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.”1011

MyTrace

On April 24, 2020, the Vector Institute held a webinar titled “Innovating Through COVID-19 webinar - Digital Contact Tracing while Preserving Privacy: MyTrace.ca” during which they launched a contact tracing application called MyTrace.12 It was led by Alán Aspuru-Guzik, a University of Toronto professor and faculty member at the Vector Institute.13

Another participant in the webinar was Ashleigh Tuite of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.14 Tuite did some serious feather-ruffling in April 2022 when she published a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal titled “Impact of population mixing between vaccinated and unvaccinated subpopulations on infectious disease dynamics: implications for SARS-CoV-2 transmission.” She and her co-authors, David Fisman and Afia Amoako, used a fatally-flawed statistical model to argue that people are who had not received a COVID-19 genetic vaccine (the “unvaccinated”) were a danger to those who had (the “vaccinated”).15

The Vector Institute participated in the development of the MyTrace application, which was shut down in June 2020 when the Government of Canada announced COVID Alert,16 a national contact tracing app (brought to you by the same folks that gave us ArriveCAN!)171819

On September 16, 2021, the Vector Institute announced a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for all staff, contractors and visitors. The policy went into effect October 1, 2021, with those in non-compliance denied access to the facility and threatened with termination.20

Viral AI

A Vector Institute researcher named Bo Wang contributed to the development of a digital genomics platform called Viral AI, described in a press release as “an AI-enabled genotyping tool that can analyze viral genome data from a nasal swab.”21 Viral AI was created under the leadership of DNAstack, a precision medicine software company, and the CAD $5.4 million Government of Canada-funded COVID Cloud Supercluster project.222324

Don’t worry, though — all that money didn’t go to waste just because COVID-19 is official “over!” According to Wang, “their tool could be repurposed for any other virus, like the common flu.”

A PhD student working in Wang’s lab named Hassaan Maan worked on a similar project called the COVID-19 Genotyping Tool.25 One of his collaborators was Samira Mubareka, who allegedly participated in the isolation and sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from the very first COVID-19 patient in Canada, way back in March 2020.26

On February 11, 2022, the Vector Institute published a study titled “Using AI to Help Solve the Long COVID Puzzle” describing how Vector “applied natural language processing (NLP) techniques to over 460,000 Twitter posts by people who had self-reported long COVID to see if any patterns or signals would arise amidst the social media noise.”27

MaRS Discovery District

The Vector Institute is headquartered at the MaRS Discovery District, a public-private partnership in Toronto, Ontario that funds companies that “streamline our healthcare system, reduce the effects of climate change, unlock new cures for disease, envision the jobs of the future, improve mobility in crowded cities, and provide food and clean water for a growing population.”28

Funding for MaRS has come from a variety of sources, including Amgen, AstraZeneca, Cisco, the City of Toronto, Deloitte, the Consulate General of the Netherlands in Toronto, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, the Government of Canada, the Government of Ontario, Janssen and its parent Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Microsoft, Novartis, Roche, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), and the University of Toronto.2930313233

There are many interesting companies that have found themselves based at or funded by MaRS and its subsidiaries. The aforementioned DNAstack is part of the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund portfolio.34

Another is BlueDot,35 an “outbreak intelligence platform” which claims to have been the first company in the world to detect the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China — nine days before the World Health Organization sent out their own public warning.3637

Merck once set up shop as tenants at MaRS, as did Public Health Ontario.

Deep Genomics

One company in MaRS Discovery District’s portfolio that is of particular note is called Deep Genomics, an artificial intelligence drug discovery company founded in 2015 by Brendan Frey.38 Frey would go on to become one of the co-founders of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence just two years later.

Deep Genomics is the result of a personal struggle in Frey’s life, having been told that his unborn child suffered from a genetic defect. This led him to seek to “transform medicine by applying the hot field of deep learning to genomics.”39 In September 2019, the company announced that it had “made the first-ever discovery of a diseases treatment and drug candidate using artificial intelligence.”40

This is a remarkable claim, given its very close proximity to the launch of a very similar program in the United States. Dubbed Discovery of Medical Countermeasures Against Novel Entities (DOMANE), the Defense Department-funded project published its first white paper just three months later on December 11, 2019, describing its ability to “identify threat [mechanisms of action], drug targets and drug candidates” in response to biological warfare agents.41 DOMANE was deployed by Dr. Robert Malone the very next month, resulting in the identification of remdesivir, famotidine and ivermectin as potential treatments against COVID-19.4243

On October 26, 2021, Deep Genomics announced that Tal Zaks, Chief Medical Officer at Moderna, had joined the company as an advisor.44 Some other notable advisors and team members include:

• Peter Barton Hutt, former Chief Counsel for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current Moderna board member

• Steve Jurvetson, early investor in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company

• Art Krieg, formerly of Pfizer

• Mark Edbrooke, formerly in charge of AstraZeneca’s work with Moderna

• Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Facebook

What about Kids Help Phone?

Kids Help Phone surely does a great service by giving children, youth and adults alike an outlet to share and be heard in times of emotional and psychological hardship. But the idea of an artificial intelligence company like the Vector Institute deploying to process such intimate information is truly unnerving, particularly given their proximity and relationships with so many people and companies whose disastrous actions over the last few years have caused so much suffering.

Funding

Kids Help Phone has received funding in recent years from a variety of organizations with an interest in managing the COVID-19 response:4546

• Center for Disaster Philanthropy, itself funded by AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and the Rockefeller Foundation4748

• Cisco

• Facebook

• Governments of Canada, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan

• Johnson & Johnson

• London Drugs

• TikTok

• Twitter

• Walmart

That TikTok is funding a mental health service for children and youth is an upsetting thought, given that the social media app seems to be playing an outsized roll in royally messing up the psychological wellbeing of this exact age group.4950

Equally scary is that several of Kids Help Phone’s donors are subsidiaries of Tencent,5152 the Chinese corporation that owns WeChat — a messaging application infamous for its use by Chinese authorities for mass surveillance of its citizens.5354 It’s often described as a core piece of China’s social credit system, and according to Elon Musk, is what Twitter is going to turn into.55

COVID-19 activities

In December 2020, the Toronto Star reported that Kids Help Phone was receiving more than double the number of crisis calls compared to 2019, primarily driven by isolation:56

But not to worry, children — a solution was around the corner.

This Is Our Shot

At the end of April 2021, a campaign was launched called This Is Our Shot. Described as “a national, grassroots movement aimed at replacing vaccine hesitancy with vaccine confidence,” the campaign moved swiftly to promote the COVID-19 vaccination campaign which was quickly making its way to younger and younger age cohorts.57

A number of Canadian celebrities joined in, including Ryan Reynolds, Michael Buble, Clara Hughes, Roberta Bondar and Chris Hadfield. All proceeds raised from the campaign went to support Kids Help Phone, ending in December 2021 with a big ol’ $111,839 cheque.58

But “grassroots” is probably not the right word to use. The organizations behind the campaign included the South Asian COVID Task Force, 19 to Zero, Latin American COVID Task Force, Black Physicians of Canada, Canadian Muslim COVID-19 Task Force, Siksika Health Services and BlackNorth Initiative.

First of all, 19 to Zero is an out-and-out behavioural science campaign, otherwise known as a “nudge” program. As I’ve previously reported, the program is funded by a range of organizations that are the absolute opposite of “grassroots.”

Alberta Innovates, an agency of the Government of Alberta, gave 19 to Zero $392,080 in September 2020 for a project titled “Changing COVID-19 Behaviours through a data-driven targeted marketing campaign.”59 I’m sure the close financial partnership Alberta Innovates has with Pfizer had absolutely no bearing over this funding decision.60

The Government of Canada provided 19 to Zero multiple federal grants to combat “vaccine hesitancy,” including the more recent $480,000 from the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Immunization Partnership Fund for a project titled “Reinventing the Critical Role of Schools in Building vaccine Confidence across Canada.”61

Then, of course, there’s the fact that 19 to Zero is funded by Moderna and Pfizer directly — something the organization decided to remove from its website during the This Is Our Shot campaign.6263

Other funders of note include Alberta Health Services (AHS), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), GlaxoSmithKline, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, Sanofi, Shaw, Merck, the Ontario College of Pharmacists, and the Universities of Calgary and Toronto.

Uh-huh. Grassroots.

The South Asian COVID Task Force (SACTF), Latin-American COVID Task Force and Canadian Muslin COVID-19 Task Force (CMCTF), as it just so happens, are all partners of 19 to Zero.

The South Asian COVID Task Force also describes itself as “grassroots.”64 But once again, SACTF’s partners are themselves heavily funded by the Governments of Canada, Ontario and Toronto, such as is the case with the Council of Agencies Serving South Asians (CASSA).6566

Anju Anand, SACTF’s founder, also co-founded the This Is Our Shot campaign.67

Funding

Then we must ask, who contributed to the $111,000 paycheck paid out by the campaign to Kids Help Phone?68

• Companies actively working on widespread introduction of vaccine passports and digital ID platforms, including Accenture, IBM and Mastercard;

• Canada’s biggest airlines, including Air Canada and WestJet, as well as the Toronto Pearson International Airport and the Greater Toronto Airport Authority (GTAA);

• Various government-directed public health and government-funded health care organizations, including Alberta Health Services (AHS), Bayshore HealthCare, Cleveland Clinic Canada, Hamilton Health Sciences and Unity Health Toronto;

• Big tech giants including Amazon, DoorDash, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Spotify, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube;

• Canada’s primary financial institutions, including the Bank of Montreal (BMO), Canadian Bank Note, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Scotiabank and TD Bank Group;

• Boston Consulting Group (BCG), whose role in the global COVID-19 response includes the co-development of New York’s Excelsior Pass and helping establish remdesivir as the standard of care for COVID-19 in hospitals across the United States (thanks in part to the now-infamous Jordon Walker);69

• The Business Council of British Columbia and the Business Council of Canada, whose collective membership includes Berkshire Hathaway, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, McKinsey & Company, Meta Platforms and Pfizer;7071

• Canadian National Railway (CN), a company owned in large part by Bill Gates through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and Cascade Investments;72

• Pharmaceutical giants including GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, as well as Innovative Medicines Canada, a national trade association representing AstraZeneca, Emergent BioSolutions, Gilead Sciences, Medicago, Novartis, Pfizer, Purdue Pharma, Roche, Sanofi Pasteur and Takeda Pharmaceuticals, among others;7374

• Media giants including the Globe and Mail, Postmedia Network, Rogers Communications, TELUS, the Toronto Star and Verizon;

• Professional associations such as the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), the Convenience Industry Council of Canada (CICC), Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada, Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, Ontario Trucking Association and Ontario’s Universities;

• Rexall, one of Canada’s largest pharmacy chains;

• ScienceUpFirst

• TC Energy

• University of Calgary, Manitoba and Toronto and York University

• Walmart

Conclusion

Kids Help Phone’s decision to integrate artificial intelligence into its services will allow it to not only screen, capture and categorize highly sensitive health and personal data on each caller, but also seeks to actually take on some of the tasks of a physician. No matter how powerful an AI language processor is, its proposed use will inevitably lead to incorrect diagnoses of things like eating disorders, depression, anxiety and gender dysphoria based on the biased parameters of the programmers and operators.

Nothing can replace the in-person relationship between a patient and their doctor, cultivated over the course of months and years. “Key words” as a basis of diagnosis is utter nonsense. Children in distress will use whatever language feels most appropriate, even if they’re misguided or lying.

Regardless, Kids Help Phone and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence are both organizations whose funding partners have plenty of financial motivation to harvest, use and sell this private data to people and companies with no interest in the wellbeing of the child or young adult calling in for help.

As I said before, I have absolutely no doubt that Kids Help Phone does a lot of good for a lot of people. But if they’re as enmeshed in this “Fourth Industrial Revolution” mindset as they appear to be on a cursory analysis, then perhaps its time to step up as members of the community and seek to shift some of the burden onto our own shoulders to assist our friends, family and youth in need, instead of allowing them to be caught up in this mass push towards complete, total and permanent digitization of wellbeing itself.