A friend wrote me recently, stating “There are times when personal freedom has to be limited for the greater good. I was a small child in World War Two, but well remember restrictions of those times.”
I agree with the principle my friend put forward.
But COVID-19 is no Hitler.
Fewer Canadians are dying since the arrival of COVID-19 in Canada. That is the finding in a new legal analysis of lockdown measures, entitled “Flying Blind”, (https://cjlc.ca/government-data-shows-lockdowns-more-deadly-than-covid-19), which is based on government data and statistics. In spite of politicians repeatedly warning us during the previous nine months that this virus is an unusually deadly killer, deaths in Canada actually declined from 190,000 to 187,000 (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/cv.action?pid=1310076801) in the first eight months of 2020.
In the first eight months of 2020, governments attributed 10,295 fewer deaths to cancer, heart diseases, lung diseases, stroke, pneumonia and influenza (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310078501) while during the same time the government attributed 8,795 deaths to COVID-19. Last year, more people were dying of cancer, heart diseases, lung diseases, stroke, pneumonia and influenza; this year people are dying of COVID-19 instead. And the total number of deaths is down.
We can save lives (or delay deaths, to be more accurate) by providing patients with timely MRIs and CT scans, to detect cancer and other illnesses. We can provide timely surgeries to patients. Sadly, these life-saving measures have frequently been denied to hundreds of thousands of Canadian patients in the past eight months, thanks to lockdown measures that cancel diagnoses and surgeries.
Canada’s federal and provincial governments are required by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to consider carefully the harms as well as the benefits of any law or policy that violates our freedoms to move, travel, assemble, associate and worship.
While governments have created numerous “models” of virus infections and fatalities, they have failed or refused to produce models or projections regarding lockdown harms from cancelled surgeries, delayed MRIs and CT scans, suicides, and drug overdoses. Flying Blind delves into these harms.
Based on publicly available data, Flying Blind reveals that at least 200,000 Canadians suffered the cancellation of their scheduled surgeries due to lockdown measures. Further, over 500,000 Canadians did not receive timely MRIs and CT scans.
Did our politicians create models to predict deaths from cancelled surgeries and delayed diagnostic procedures? None have been produced to date.
Flying Blind exposes the fact that as many as 18,000 Canadians have died or will die of cancer, due to lockdowns.
The research of University of Calgary Professor Ron Kneebone (https://www.policyschool.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Social-Policy-Trends-Suicide-Trends-September-2019-FINAL.pdf) demonstrates that a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate increases the suicide rate by 2.1 percent. The 8.1% increase in Canada’s unemployment rate, multiplied by 2.1, means a 17% increase in the suicide rate. That means 680 additional deaths over the course of a year, based on the established rate of 4,000 suicides (https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/publications/healthy-living/suicide-canada-key-statistics-infographic.html) per year.
These 680 unemployment-related suicides exclude many more suicides resulting from government-imposed social isolation. Millions of Canadians have been cut off from meaningful connections with friends, family members, team-mates in a sports league, co-religionists at houses of worship, and a multitude of fun interactions in various recreational activities and entertainment pursuits. There is no reason to doubt that lockdown measures have driven vulnerable Canadians to kill themselves, apart from the factor of rising unemployment.
But, as with cancelled surgeries and delayed MRIs and CT scans, politicians have not produced any models to predict the increases in suicides that lockdowns would surely bring.
Since governments began violating Charter freedoms in March, opioid use has soared. In British Columbia 1,068 people died of opioid poisoning between January 1 and August 31, 2020, a 51.9% increase (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/overdose-deaths-bc-august-2020-1.5735247) over the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, only 208 British Columbians died with COVID-19 during this eight-month period (https://globalnews.ca/news/7308384/bc-coronavirus-update-august-31), less than one fifth of the number of opioid deaths.
Deaths from suicides, drug overdoses, cancelled surgeries, and delayed diagnostics should not be dismissed by politicians and chief medical officers who claim to be concerned about our well-being. These deaths are the direct result of draconian, ill-conceived lockdown policies that violate our Charter freedoms.
Returning to my friend’s comment about limiting freedom for the greater good, I much look forward to the day, if it ever comes, when politicians present some persuasive evidence that lockdowns have saved lives. Thus far, we have only their assertions and their speculation.
John Carpay – The Interim
