John Carpay, The Interim

In recent months I’ve spoken at several peaceful gatherings, urging citizens to exercise their Charter rights and freedoms in the face of unscientific, arbitrary, irrational and unconstitutional health orders. But now I wonder if I will end up in jail, as Jason Kenney has effectively banned peaceful outdoor protests in what is supposed to be Canada’s freest province.

In April 2021, Mr. Kenney warned that he might impose curfews on Albertans. My first thought was about the curfews my grandparents endured when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands, for five long, awful years, 1940-45.

Curfews are as unscientific as other lockdown restrictions, ignoring reality and facts. Covid’s spread outdoors, and amongst healthy (“asymptomatic”) individuals, is negligible. For those who catch it, the survival rate is 99.77%. Covid is statistically harmless to children. Canadians under 70 are more likely to die in a car accident than of Covid. Of the 309,000 Canadians who died in 2020, only 5% died with Covid (and not necessarily of Covid). Death rates in Canada in 2020 were in line with death rates in 2019, 2018, 2017 and prior years, which is not what you would expect from an unusually deadly killer. All of the foregoing facts can be found easily on government websites, by anyone who is willing to spend a few hours doing her/his own research, rather than blindly swallowing the half-truths proclaimed daily by fearmongering, government-funded media.

Covid’s impact on population life expectancy has been negligible: more than half of those dying with the virus are over 80. Three quarters of those who died with Covid (and not necessarily of it) were already suffering with three or more serious health conditions like cancer, stroke, and diseases of the heart, lungs, liver, and kidneys.

As Jason Kenney himself told Alberta’s Legislative Assembly in May of 2020:

“The average age of death from Covid in Alberta is 83, and I remind the House that the average life expectancy in the province is age 82. In Canada 95 per cent of fatalities from Covid are those over the age of 60, eighty per cent are in care facilities, and the risk of death from Covid for people under the age of 65 is 0.0006 per cent. … younger people, while not completely immune, have a rate of mortality related to Covid that is no higher than their general mortality rate for other illnesses. For most Albertans the risk of death from other pathogens, accidents, and traffic fatalities is actually higher than it is from Covid.

I challenge our public health experts and our officials to ensure that our policy response is predicated on protecting the most vulnerable … because we cannot continue indefinitely to impair the social and economic as well as the mental health and physiological health of the broader population for potentially a year through measures for an influenza that does not generally threaten life apart from the most elderly, the immunocompromised, and those with comorbidities.”

At time of writing, Albertans can still legally leave their homes after dark. But gathering outdoors with more than five people is punishable with a $2,000 fine. Inviting friends and family to your home is still illegal, as it was at Christmas.

Schools, swimming pools, gyms, rinks, restaurants, bars, and houses of worship are still closed or subject to severe restrictions. St. Mary’s Cathedral in Calgary can seat over 1,000 people, but only 15 may attend Mass; Catholic bishops are very eager to please the health authorities.

GraceLife Church now meets at a secret location, its building physically barricaded by Premier Kenney’s police forces. Given an opportunity to present medical and scientific evidence to justify its Charter-violating lockdown measures at the trial of Pastor James Coates in May of 2021, the Alberta Government declared itself incapable of doing so, and has asked for an indefinite extension of time. This after having violated Albertans’ Charter freedoms for more than 13 months. This tells you all you need to know about how “scientific” and “evidence-based” lockdowns are.

Why would a smart man like Jason Kenney, previously known as a defender of religious freedom and conscience rights, be jailing pastors and barricading churches? Why impose restrictions that inflict grave harm on the mental, physical, emotional and financial well-being of 4.4 million people? Why disregard government data and statistics that tell us that Covid is nothing much to fear?

Whether these questions are ever answered, or not, I hope the tyranny of our medical dictatorship will end soon.