Shaun Newman Podcast - #218 - Officer James

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

James is an anonymous police officer from somewhere in Alberta who's apart of Frontline for Freedom. Here is his story. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Like the podcast? Support here: https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Another Friday edition for you. We got just some excellent guests coming up here. Of course, today's guest is no exception. But before we get to a man in blue, let's get on with a few of our episode sponsors here, the deer and steer butchery. You know, it's funny, I found out as soon as we did the episode,

they're up and rolling. You know, last week I was like, hey, they're coming soon. Well, stop in a day, Range Road 25. and Highway 16. It's the old Norman and Kathy James family-built butcher shop on the north side of the highway. It's been used by local hunters for years and years and years, and it's been kind of out of service for the last couple. Well, now it's back up.

It's got a facelift, and they're doing custom cutting and wrapping. They've begun, so all the hunters out there, if you're looking for a spot to get your animal, well, custom cut and wrapped. Geez, I don't know. It must be, I need my coffee this morning, folks. If you're looking for a spot to get a custom cut and wrapped, stop in a day. Once again, that's Highway 16, Range Road 25, the Deer and Steer Butchery. They have Barry the Butcher.

He comes from a wealth of background in meat cutting, 20-plus years experience here from Lloyd Minster. And they're excited. They've got a cool little spot there. You've got to stop out and see the new look. And if you've never been, all the more reason to go stop in and take a peek. give me a call 780 870 8700 for more details auto clearing jeep and ram center in saskatoon hello saskatoon i hope everybody out to the east of us is uh is doing well i love having a sponsor from out of town i don't know i just kind of ooh a little saskatoon flavor to it i like it jeep brand has always

represent freedom to go anywhere and do anything the team in saskatoon has been helping people with all their transportation needs whether it's new or pre-owned vehicles parts accessories maintenance from repair or their top tier SGI accredited paint and collision center, they will get you what you need and get you back on the road so you can keep going. That's auto clearing Jeep and RAM center in Saskatoon. The only dealership that never charges dealership fees on vehicle sales, head to autoclearing.com today. All right.

Now, we got a great one on tap for you here. Let's get on to the T-Barr-1, Tale of the Tape. He's an officer of the law from summer in Alberta. He's a member of Frontline for Freedom, and he wishes to remain anonymous. I'm talking about Officer James. So buckle up. Here we go. This is James with Frontline for Freedom, and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Well, welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Officer James, and we'll leave it at the first name. I know you're a little, I don't know, hesitant, nervous, whatever the word is to list your full name for obvious reasons. but first off thanks for thanks for coming in no worries thanks for having me Sean appreciate that I don't know I guess I've said this before we started like I'm super honored I think is maybe the word or moved that you would travel so far to sit and do this in person and I agree with you it's way better in person but I think it speaks to the times we're in when you're willing to travel so far to come and and talk about something

that's obviously on your mind and weighing heavy on you. So once again, thanks for traveling all this way. Now, for the people who are listening, obviously they know you're an officer. Can you give them a little bit of your background just so they have an idea who they're listening to? I know we can't go too deep into it just by giving your first name and trying to protect your identity. Maybe you could just give them a little bit of background on yourself. Yeah, so I'm a police officer, as you said, in the province of Alberta. I'm also part of a group called Frontline for Freedom, and that's Frontline, the number four, freedom.

I moved to Canada about 12, 12, 13 years ago with my family. We're originally from somewhere else. I can't say too much, like you said, because my... Yeah, and I don't need to... I kind of put you on the spot. It's a tough question because we're trying to steer you away from any repercussions that can come being a police officer and speaking out about this. So probably knowing that you're an officer from Alberta is enough for most people. What is it a, you know, maybe we could start with what is it that's going on in your eyes,

your life that has got you to this point? Well, it's to do with the infringement of people's fundamental freedoms that's going on right now. And I know people stand, you know, on different parts of the spectrum in regards to what I'm here to talk about, which is COVID and the COVID mandates and the, the extortion that's going on in regards to people being forced to choose to have this vaccine or lose their jobs. The core of it all is the oath that I took and the brothers and sisters that I worked with took when we became cops and signed up for this job. And I actually have the oath of office that police take.

Sure. If you want to read it, you give it. Yeah, I'd like to read it. Yeah. So the oath to office says, as a police officer, I acknowledge that my fundamental duty is to serve the community to safeguard lives and property, to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, the peaceful against violence or disorder. I will enforce the laws courteously and without fear of favor, malice, or ill will.

Never will I use unnecessary force, accept gratuities, or behave in a manner, contrary to the high standards expected of police officers. I will keep my life unsullied, as an example to all, maintain courage in the face of danger, scorn, or ridicule, to develop self-restraint and be consistently mindful of my words and how my actions reflect on myself in my organization. I will be exemplary and obeying the laws of the land and regulations of my service. I recognize my office is a symbol,

of public trust and I accept as a public trust to be held so long as I am true to the core values of the police service. I will constantly strive to achieve these objectives and ideals dedicating myself to my chosen profession. Policing. There's a lot in there. I mean, you know, you're supposed to be standing up for everything right in society and right now we sit in a place where, well, it's not only police officers. It's not only police officers. It's health care professionals that's it's right across the board there's so many moving parts it seems these days with the deadlines to have your your vaccinations etc otherwise we're going to terminate you know your job or put you out of work etc i don't know how like you sitting there james

how hard has this been this last little stretch uh not only in your current profession but i mean just in general, to see what's going on. It's been extremely difficult. Any cop or any good cop knows that what's happening, you know, whether it be businesses removing someone from their property that's not vaccinated and only certain individuals having rights while others do not. We know this is wrong. At least most of us should know it's wrong.

But like anybody else, we're scared, right? We're scared because we, yes, we're cops and yes, we're taking this oath, but we're people same as anybody else. And we're scared to you. We're scared that we'll lose our jobs. Or we're scared we're going to get suspended or be placed on a leave of absence without pay. And so the economic crisis portion of it is there. The mental health crisis portion of it is there.

and you know if you're anybody in any profession and you have a wife and kids and a mortgage to pay to not be able to do that and provide and protect your family is a huge huge influence influence to us all and I think that's why a lot of cops have been hesitant to speak out and and to go off tangent a little bit to your audience it's listening. I know a lot of those large portion of your audience is critical thinkers. There are critical thinkers. You know, they ask all the time

where are the police and all this. And we've taken a long time to come out and publicly support people. So first of, I'm sorry. I truly am sorry for that. We're supposed to do more. We're supposed to be more for people. And it's taken us a while to do that.

Part of the reason is, is yes, we're cops. Yes, we have this oath. but we're also held to, I guess, a different standard. And by that, I mean, police are subject to the Police Act and the police service regulations. And for those that don't know, those are pieces of legislation that dictate how police services must be formed, how they're governed, which committees govern them, how the hierarchy or the structure of those committees works, the conduct and misconduct of a police officer. And so I'll expand on that.

So, for example, under the police service regulations, it lays out everything I've just said, and it also lays out what construes as a misconduct of a police officer. And I'll just list out a couple here. For example, misconduct of a police officer would be something like a breach of confidence, corrupt practice, deceit, discreact, conduct, insubordination, etc. And what's a breach of confidence? One of the things that constitutes as a breach of confidence, for example, under the police service regulations is, and I'm doing one of them

right now, is without proper authorization from a superior police officer or in contravention of any rules of the police service, of which he's a member communicating to the news media or to any unauthorized person any matter connected with the police service. Meaning, anytime I talk to any media, such as yourself or any other outlet, about anything to do with the police, I'm breaching that part of the act, and therefore I can be punished by that part of the act. And that's why a lot of cops are scared to speak out, is because they don't want to be punished by this part of the regulations for being insubordinate or being.

discredible. And part of that contradicts with the oath we have as police officers because, yes, we're not supposed to divulge private information about the police to the public. Yes, we're not supposed to divulge information in regards to ongoing criminal cases, and rightfully so because it will jeopardize, you know, the case or whatever the investigation might be. But for something like this where we know we're doing something that's wrong and we don't speak about it, we're. breaking our oath of office. We said we would protect everyone and maintain courage in the face of danger, scorn, or ridicule. It's our job to protect the innocent against deception.

And so by not say nothing, we're breaching our oath, but we're not breaking the policy. If we breach the policy, or sorry, don't breach the policy, we're breaking our oath. So you're almost between a rock and a hard place. as somebody once said and I don't know who was you're damned if you do you're damned if you don't is what you're saying that's right and that's why it's taking so long for us and why even now I'm a little scared to review who I am and speak even more openly about this because even though I haven't said which police service I work for even though I haven't said anything specific to that police service they will undoubtedly be trying to figure out who this guy is and try and reprimand you for her reprimand me yes so then The simple question is James, at least for me, knowing what you face, knowing that there's

possible repercussions of this. You know, I just had Dan Bulford on and he's an RCMP officer out in Ottawa, right? And he was, you know, he's very vocal. He's Mounties for Freedom. And he was very emotional in that towards the end of that episode and just, you know, understanding that the repercussions will come and it could be, you know, termination of his job for, you know, doing what I think is it's not divulging critical information in an investigation, like you say. It's speaking up about something they believe in and truly is for the benefit of all

Canadians. Knowing all that, though, what moved you, like, what was the final straw of like, if I don't speak, you know, you apologize right at the start. And I don't, man, we're all under the same stress. You're just in a uniform, a different uniform than some of us wear. But like, knowing what you're, you're doing right now, knowing that, man, this could, this could be bad for my career. Why make the drive? Why come here? Why sit down? Why do all of this? If, you know, we talked about incentives, I think you got about a zero, zero incentive right now. It's probably negative incentive of coming here because it looks like it could be all bad on one side, you why do that part of it is because I see that there is a hypocrisy in the way some of these

regulations are applied to us and I'll give you an example so under the police service regulations officers are punishable for sorry just give me one second no we got time everybody who's listening is driving somewhere okay are punishable for discredible conduct And one of the things that construes discredible conduct is when an officer contravenes, when an officer makes a contravention that is of such character, that it will be prejudicial to discipline or likely to bring discredit on the reputation of the police service, meaning that if I wanted to go to a freedom rally and support people, I could get punished for that because I'm bringing about a negative reputation to the police service,

However, you know, just last year we had in 2020, there is a Black Lives Matter movement in Calgary where there's protesters outside City Hall and members of that police service joined in on the protest and took a knee in solidarity with the people that were protesting. And I'm not judging the actions of those officers. What I'm saying is that those guys joined in on the protest, partook in it to some extent, and were likely, we're, we're worried. awarded for taking part in that because it looks favorable upon the police service because that's the flavor of the month because that's the that's being woke but if I was to do that at a freedom protest or any officer was to do that at freedom protest that would be looked at as bringing a bad reputation to the police service and so that the acts are the same they're both partaking in a protest but because one is not favorable I would get punished and those other

guys would get rewarded. And so there's a hypocrisy in how the policies administered. That's one reason that I was motivated. The other reason is, as you know and as you've spoken to with other speakers on the podcast, there is an economic crisis going on with everybody right now. There is a mental health crisis with going on right now. I know numerous members throughout Alberta, police officers, that have been put on leave or been suspended from duty because they refused to review their vaccination status.

They were stripped of their use of force equipment, like their gun and the baton and things like this. They were stripped of their badge or access to whichever agency they work in and are being investigated for insubordination and for what? because they don't want to review their private medical information. And oftentimes, depending on the agency, oftentimes it's without pay. Meanwhile, historically speaking, you have other officers, and again, throughout the province, that have been charged for domestic assaults where they beat their spouses, possession of child pornography or even impaired driving. And while they are suspended, penes it.

the investigation, they are suspended with pay. So there's guys out there and few of them, I'll add, few of them. Most of us, I believe, are out there trying to help our communities and live up to the oath that we took. But there's few of them out there doing things they shouldn't be doing, and they'll be suspended with pay pending the investigation. And what are officers doing now? All they're doing is they're withholding their private medical information, and they're being penalized even more than these other officers. Why? It doesn't make sense. And from a mental health point, just as recently as last week in Emmettin, there was a 911 dispatcher who hung herself because of the pressure of these mandates. Now, I don't know her personally, so I don't know all the details and all the stressors in her life that led to her doing this.

But she did, and she was opposed to these mandates, and she was concerned that they would impact her life and cause additional financial stress. And she did. okay and why is no one talking about that why is it on the news why is it that that people being suspended uh from pay or with from work because they don't want to get the vaccine is better for the community than if they stay in there and do their jobs for the past year and before that they were seen as heroes there was no issue with them they were seen as heroes you know a lot of these guys are experienced members that have done nothing but serve the community investigative tons of files put their lives on the line.

They were heroes. All of a sudden, they don't want to disclose their private medical information and they're to be shunned, they're to be cast away. All the stuff they did, all the good work they put into the community

into this province means nothing. The one time they don't tow the party line means nothing. It doesn't make any sense. Those are all really good points. As far as what the media reports, I think a lot of people are waking up to the fact that there's a lot more going on that is not being talked about.

Why it's not being talked about? I would say it's pretty evident at this point. The mainstream media has made its stance pretty clear. Get the vaccine or get out or what have you. I'm putting words in their mouth, but you know what I mean. The vaccine works. It's safe. It's effective.

Carry on. And if they start to admit that there are people being affected by that, then all of a sudden their message has cracks in it. And, you know, I'm not here to say, get the vaccine, don't get the vaccine. I keep saying this on this podcast over and over again. I'm no doctor. I'm just a guy that sees the hypocrisy and what's going on and just wants to give it a voice. Just wants to give the other side a little bit of a chance to speak of what they're seeing, you know?

And the crazy thing is, is the more I open that door, the more I meet individuals like yourself that are, just trying to do the best they can for not only their family, their community, but all of us. And it's the best. Like, yeah, is there people that have some ill intentions maybe on, on, you know, the side of not wanting to divulge things? Maybe, I don't know. I think those people exist on both sides. But what I see coming forward right now is the best of us saying, guys, this, this isn't

right. Like, we got to turn the, we got to steer the ship a little ways away from where we're heading. Going back to your your Black Lives Matter protest, I think everybody watched that and went, it has nothing to do with Black Lives Matter. Like honestly, like this isn't right, wrong on that. It's we were in the middle of a pandemic where we were all supposed to be home, socially distance, protect the community. And our fearless leader went and took a knee. Now, can we talk about, like, do we understand, okay, yeah, it's showing solidarity? Yeah, we get it. But you're surrounded by like thousands of people in a time when we're supposed to be around nobody because

we're worried about this pandemic about to kill the entire lot of us. And a lot of them maskless. That's right. And so you fast forward and now when you have protests, you know, or some of them not the greatest protest? Sure. But I mean, they're just protests and now they're vilified. And it's interesting to see how media deals with every new scenario that comes up. Because you're right, it's society and the social media aspect of it is just interesting to watch because they can either make you a hero or a villain awfully quick. And it's happening all the time right now. And if you're not the flavor of the month, you're getting put to the back burner.

And watching media deal with that is interesting. And that's the thing, though, who is the media to decide which protest is more meaningful within the other? I thought their job is to be impartial and report on all things happening in our community. But, you know, if it doesn't fit the narrative, we won't report this one today. It's not as important as this one. This one's way more important. It's not that I don't think that's their job.

It shouldn't be. Yeah, I, it's interesting to, watch because, you know, there's certain key phrases and they get slowly changed as we go through, you know, we've been in this almost two years. So it's interesting to watch the words and everything that happens, you know, two years ago would you have ever said narrative so many times in your life? Probably not. You probably just would have carried on and the news reported on some things and were they biased? Yeah, you know, you got your different news sources and they're biased to their area, they're biased to this, they're by it, blah, blah, blah. What's interesting right now,

is there is a group of people that are just, they just don't want to get the vaccine, and they come from all walks to life. It's very interesting, right? There's some that have had the vaccine the first time, had adverse effects, right? Like really bad, don't want it again. Just don't want again, can't, but no, they're not allowed that.

There's others that are young and healthy and just don't want it. There's others that are old and just don't want it. They come from all walks to life. You know, there's the health care workers, who've had COVID because they work through it all and just don't want it, right? And all of them are no, get it or you're done. And that in itself is hard to understand.

Well, it's suspicious is what it is. And again, I'm not a doctor either. You know, do I have all the answers? But from a police, like a law enforcement point of view, you know, we're trained investigators, right? We're supposed to be inquisitive by nature. And throughout this, all I've done is ask questions and questions, and I have more questions. I have very little answers.

You know, police officers, for example, will go to a robbery, and they'll go, and they'll be like, okay, we need to secure the area. We need to find out what was description of the offenders. Is there a CCTV available? If they were on foot or in a vehicle, if they were in a vehicle, was the description of the vehicle, was the license plate for the vehicle? What was the direction of travel? We ask questions because that's part of our job. That's how we get answers by asking questions. And throughout this, you know, myself and my colleagues that I talk to you, we ask questions

and we have no answers. All we have is more questions. Or we have an answer, but then it changes next month. Or we have an answer, but it's not really a very firm or concrete answer. And so it's suspicious of what it is. Well, Melanie's for Freedom Letter. I don't know if you've read their letter that they wrote. I got to sit and part of it sitting here.

and one of the things that I highlighted was a proper investigation should be conducted as objectively as possible and follow the principle that it is better to have questions that cannot be answered than to have answers that cannot be questioned. And right now, anytime you question anything to do with the vaccine, rollout, how businesses can, you know, like we can all see it. You've got to walk with a mask to your table, but as soon as you sit down at your table, but as soon as you sit down at your time, table, you're good to just do whatever. And, you know, they've done things. I'm not, like, they've done things to socially distance whatever. I'm not trying to point out masking or whatever else. It's just, it's like anytime any question is raised about anything they roll out, you're not allowed to do that. Like, and it's almost like we're not allowed to talk about what we're

seeing right in front of our eyes, which is wild. And if you do talk about it, you're seen as not a team player or what have you. It's like, well, I don't know about that. Part of the reason for that, I think, is that because people know it very closely resembles discrimination where a certain class of citizens have more rights, more privileges than a certain class of citizens. And nobody wants to be made to feel uncomfortable or nobody wants to be forced to talk about these things because I believe that most people know that to some extent this is wrong. And I'll use an example, and hopefully it doesn't frustrate too many people, but I've heard from work from other police officers, the sentences or the words,

I hope those anti-vaxxers die. Okay? And the problem with this, the people should see, is if you replace one word in there, or two words, I guess, anti-vaxxer with anything else, it would be wrong. People would know, people would have an outrage and know this is wrong. If instead of saying, you know, I wish those anti-vactors would die, they said, well, I wish that lesbian person would die or that black person would die.

People would flip. They would lose it because we know that's wrong, because we know that's immoral, and we know that's discrimination of some sort. But for this, how is it not? If you say something like that, all you did is change your own word. Because it's safety. Right? Because it's safety.

Right? It's hidden in the guise of, it's hidden because it's public safety. It's trying to keep everybody safe, right? So by not getting the vaccine, you're looked at as being unsafe because now you're going to get sick. What I struggle with when I say that aloud is, but that's a lot. That's why you get the vaccine, right? So if you get the vaccine, you're protected. I mean, we're learning more and more about that.

But just in the thought process, if you get the vaccine, you're protected. So you shouldn't be worried about what anybody else is doing because you have protection. That's what a vaccine is. Somehow, we've got everybody thinking that by getting the vaccine, you're protecting everybody else. You're just pretend. Super man. Yeah. And so then, you know, now it's this crisis of the hospitals, which don't even wrong.

I'm not in a hospital. I'm no doctor. I'll say that to a thousand million times. But if you just continue to read and people continue to read and follow what other countries have done and are doing and everything else, there's multiple ways to help the hospitals out and get out of this. But rewind it back. Why do we look at one set of citizens right now? is because we look like they're dangering everybody else because people are dying,

and they're associating unvaccinated with all the deaths. And all the critical thinkers, like your audience, know that you've had guys on here, like Todd Kenyon, Mike Kozimikas from the Ecore Blood Services, Dr. Eric Payne from the Alberta Children's Hospital. You've had guys on here way smarter than me talking about this to disprove some, if not a lot of that narrative. They've talked about the antibodies. They've talked about the cycles for the PCR test and how they lead to false positives and things.

You've had guys way, you have had guys way smarter than me in here to explain that. And that itself should raise some doubt in people's minds by now that, again, there's something wrong with this, right? And you mentioned, if I can just backtrack a little bit. You mentioned the letter that the RCMP Bounties for Freedom sent out to the Commissioner Brenda Lucky. there's other groups out there like police on guard for thee that are in the middle of a lawsuit against the province of Ontario regarding these mandates. I know for a fact that there's police officers in Alberta that are making formal complaints via their internal affairs or their professional standard sections against the upper management

in regards to some of the provincial criminal code and federal violations that are being made. But as you and I just discussed, the media isn't talking about that. At least the mainstream media is not talking about that. You know, if I was working for mainstream media, I was a journalist, and I found out that cops from the province were making formal complaints against their supervisors for extortion, for breaching the Charter Rights and Freedoms,

or the Canadian Human Rights Act or even Alberta, victim bill of rights and things like this, that would be huge headlines. You know, police officers make formal complaint against their superiors or against their chief or whatever the case may be. Those would be huge headlines. But for some reason, only people like Redwood News, which, you know, a year ago, I didn't really know about them too much or align myself much with them. But they're dealing with wasn't reporting any of this, right? So these guys and small other groups here and there on Instagram or Facebook are reporting this.

But why isn't the mainstream media touching it's because of the censorship, like you said? It's a censorship, but it's exactly what you're dealing with in the police force. No different than what nurses are dealing with. No different what doctors are dealing with. Everybody's dealing with the same thing. They're being told not to talk about this. And if you do talk about this, there will be repercussions. And why?

Because they want everybody to get vaccines. We're at 100% because that's going to make everybody feel better about everything. They believe, I would say, that by getting to 100% vaccination, this will go away. That is, I think, the thought. And the reason why everybody's stuck is because exactly everything you've been talking about. Listen, I feel that too. By having you walk in my door, I'm going, oh, man. Like, I talk about this over and over and over again.

I got lovely, great listeners who text me and just say, man, just keep going. You're doing really good, and it's enjoyable to see and hear all these different opinions. But it was like two months ago, I was doing, what's on the wall in here, right? I was doing hockey. I was doing things that were, honestly, not nearly as meaningful to what's going on, but we're pretty light and just like good,

not good feeling, but just like, just light. There was, you, you turn it on and you're going to get a chuckle and you're going to have a laugh and you, you know, you didn't have to flick your brain on nearly as deep. You walk in my door, James, and I go, hmm, what repercussions am I going to have from this, right? But at the same time, I go, if I don't let you walk through my door, now I'm turning away people that are trying to speak to what's going on. And I keep thinking, if I stop talking about it, I mean, then where do we go?

Right? Like, where does this go? I mean, when you talk about Mike Kuzmiskis, the CEO of IACOR, him saying he has two sheets that show people have antibodies from COVID, but only one's accepted right there that's that's wild right because they're both showing protection but they aren't allowed to participate in society because they don't have the shot it's like everybody should look at that and go yeah that makes zero sense because it does make zero sense and the government should look at that and go that makes zero sense and we should right away be like listen you want to spend 120 of your hard-earned dollars and go get this test and you can prove that you've had COVID in the last whatever and I'm starting to hear like maybe more and more this is starting to

come to light, but where I sit, when the guy who runs that company is saying right now, nobody will give them the time of day, mainstream media, about this, to me, that's a red flag. And these red flags keep popping up everywhere. And me and you are staring at them going like, this makes zero, zero, zero sense. Red flags are warnings. Warnings should be adhered. That's, I work in the oil field. In the oil field, that's what we do. Every month, we've got to submit hazard assessments, right? Well, what's a hazard assessment for? Well, maybe something bad hasn't happened,

but you can understand that if we put in a hazard ID that shows like, listen, that looks unsafe. We got away with it this time, but we should probably correct that before it turns into a fatality or what have you. That's what they're for. And right now, people like yourself, doctors, et cetera, all standing up going red flag right here, red flag over here. And blinders on, we're not going to talk about them.

And we're just going to push forward and keep going. And that's when disasters happen. And right now, this is my rant as I'm going, like, it just continues. And I keep waiting. Like, my heart just wants nothing more than everybody to see what's going on and get out of this thing. But it just, I don't know, James, it just won't change. Well, God bless you for letting guests like me come and talk on your show. because like you said,

the mainstream media won't talk to us and therefore we got to find people that will listen to us. Is it mainstream media won't come talk to you or your higher-ups won't allow you to talk to mainstream?

Well, it won't allow us and we don't trust them because of all the reasons you just mentioned. But again, God bless you for doing the work you're doing and for at least being open to talk about all subjects

to do with this and hear from it from all sides. And that's what it should come down to is people have all the information presented to them from all different aspects, and then they can make the decision themselves as opposed to being coerced to making only this one decision or following this one very narrow path, when as you've already explored it with some other guests, there's different ways we can work on this together as a group to sort this out, because the end goal should be to get out of

the situation, should be to end. Should be to relieve the pressure on the hospital. That should be the goal. It should be to unite the population. instead of divide the population. Exactly. It should be to get back to life where it was two years ago, except two years later and a few things have changed,

and we've maybe gotten smarter, and we've added a couple things that makes sense moving forward in society so that we don't have some of the pitfalls that we just went through. But, I mean, we don't seem to want to learn some things. I don't mean we, as in everyone, it just seems that our fearless leaders keep doing things that everybody's eyebrows kind of range. You know, as a police officer, I'm curious. And I don't, I think Alberta has it.

I know for sure Saskatchewan has it. What's the police's thought on the government's introducing snitch lines where people can call and make complaints? And then, I mean, I assume as a police officer, you've got called into some really random situations where you're like, what are we even doing here? So before I answer that question, I just want to add and say that, I don't speak for all police officers. I don't want officers out there listening to this and say, and he doesn't, you know, know he's not speaking for all of us because I don't I'm speaking for myself and hopefully of you know others that are on the same side as me and have the same concerns that I do but obviously I don't speak for all police officers and I know there's people uh firefighters cops whatever you

want to call them everybody emergency services all over the spectrum on this thing so I can't speak for all officers but I know that for myself and the guys that I work with that we don't like the snitch lines because the government or the police has no place in the bedroom of people's private homes and that that's the way it's always been the government usually never got involved in people's bedrooms never got into into their home meaning that if police wanted to go into your house for whatever reason unless the circumstances were exigent we would always need a warrant or we always do need a warrant to go inside and if it's nothing criminal nature then what purpose is do we serve going into your home and talking to you about some of these things.

But neighbors are, and I have gone to a lot of these calls where neighbors are snitching out their, you know, someone in the community saying, oh, they have too many people over. Or, oh, you know, they're supposed to be quarantining, but they're not. And we deal with it as we're obligated to accordingly, you know, under our policy and law and bylaws. And does that put you in a tough spot? It does put us in a tough spot. If someone's got 10 people over at his house and they're not supposed to be, you know,

gathering or they're unvaccinated, one, how do I know they're unvaccinated? I have no right to any of that information. I can ask, but even then, they don't have to reply to me. And I shouldn't be asking that. And if they have 10 people over and the limits, I don't know, whatever it is now, 4, 10 or 6. Well, if you're unvaccinated, unless they've changed it, unvaccinated and aren't supposed to have anyone in their house. No, they're not.

So what am I going to do? go into the house unlawfully and drag them out, that's not an option. And cops know this. They know that if someone makes a COVID complaint saying, oh, this guy's got 10 people over his house. We have no lawful authority to go into their house. We have no lawful authority to ask him for ID. We have no lawful authority to do anything.

And we know this. And so I don't know what the government expects us to do because we're not lawfully placed. If we do anything to infringe a citizen's rights, we must be lawfully placed. because if we're not, then the ticket will get thrown out of court, the criminal trial will get thrown out of court, and it will end up in nothing. So we have to be lawfully placed, and we're not with a lot of these complaints

or a lot of these COVID bylaws and mandates. We're not lawfully placed. And that's why you'll see a lot of the tickets and stuff like that will get thrown out, because they know we're not lawfully placed. Yet they put us into this role to become government enforcers, oppressed people, contrary to the oath I read earlier. And that's why I'm so concerned. That's why a lot of cops are starting to speak out against this,

not only throughout Canada, but throughout the United States as well. In New York, L.A., a lot of cops are starting to say, we can't do this. Because we're meant to keep the peace. We're meant to help and protect people and catch bad guys, you know. But we're not meant to oppress people. That's not a rule. We're not government thugs. and if we start to become like that

and enforce any rule that the government puts out then what separates us from the bad guys or at that point I guess I would say that we become the bad guys if I can just infringe any citizens right for no reason then the charge has been thrown out the window it doesn't matter anymore oh me erode uh man politicians have done

obviously I'm being tongue in cheek with this with this word but a lovely job of eroding trust in a lot of service in a lot of services. It's just, you know, trust is really, really hard to build. It takes a long time to build up trust. And one action, just poof, gone, gone. And you're seeing that all over the place right now. People are, like, I've never seen something infect so many families.

Like, up until this point, a family unit was so tight and I'm not saying every family was like that obviously we all have our differences but a lot of families families could work through a lot of things and what's going on right now with the lack of trust in our services all across the board and our politicians our leaders is his filtered down all the way to the backbone of our society which is the family the unit and you're just seeing that over and over and over again and like what you're talking about i just i feel for you because it's got to be you're a young guy like to me you wanted to become a police officer because of what it meant and what it helped upheld and now you're in this tough

position of being like what are we doing like we got to stop this well that's not the job i sign up for I sign up to help people and have some fun catching bad guys and do what I believe to be the right thing. But if we get to the point where, again, we're becoming thugs and we're oppressing people, I don't want to do the job anymore. That's not the job I sign up for. And it's one of the reasons why a lot of us are speaking out or starting to oppose this. Because if we get to that level, I'm not a policeman anymore. I'm a thug.

And I'm sorry, but whether it be via termination or me resigning, I'm not a thug. That's not what my parents raised me to be. And so I'll find a different profession. Because then at that point, policing has changed. It's a scary thing to think. You know, I hope people hear that for what it is. It's not so much of what gets talked about these days. It's so doom and gloom, right?

And, you know, I try to be careful on here because I don't want to stir chaos, you know, create chaos, right? Like all cops are bad and they're being forced to do things and they're all evil and let's march on the police stations or whatever else. It's just to try and hopefully get people thinking that like, man, we need a support you and standing up and push, maybe not push, but give the support needed for other police to stand up and unite and just say we need to come together because the further we get

divided the harder this thing is going to be to steer to a place where we can you know you mentioned at the start you handed me the charter of rights and freedoms and you look through that list if people like i don't know as as a kid who grew up here i don't know when i actually you know it's almost like you didn't even think about the charter and rights and freedoms because i mean you had it right you just you're born into it and you know life was great and everything else and here i sit at 35 And I don't know how many times I've picked it up and just went, right? Like we're letting these things slide more and more.

Like freedom is, you got to fight for that every single day. And I don't think, I don't think majority of the population here in Canada and lots of different places throughout the world understand that. Well, let me highlight this for you on the charter since we're on that subject there.

We know people's freedom of assembly, has been infringed in the past due to all these mandates. We know people's freedom of speech has been infringed in the past due to these mandates. We know people's freedom of movement has to some extent been infringed due to these mandates, meaning you can't travel between this area or that area unless it's essential travel, or you can only travel during certain times because right now it's essential travel only. Who is the government to tell you what is essential? You know for yourself what is essential.

It's not the government has a place to tell you what is essential. And in the Canadian Charter Rights and Freedoms, before you get into any of the rights, at the very top of the Charter, it says, whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. And to me, that says that the government does not get to take away and give back my rights when they see fit. My rights are thrusted upon me by God when I am born into this earth and I am born with them and they're equal for everyone and if the government is refusing to recognize people's rights or my rights, it is my job to assert them onto the government or the oppressor, whoever they may be. They're not frivolous things

to be, it's not a joke, it's not frivolous things to be taken and given away whenever they feel like. Yes, can rights be infringed under the charter? Yes, under Section 1 of the charter, rights can be infringed. However, Section 1 states that the infringement has to be proven justified in a free and democratic society, and it's only proven so when it goes a proportionality test commonly referred to as an Oaks test, and that comes out of Supreme Court Canada law, RV Oaks in 1986. And these mandates haven't been put through that test yet, and when they do, because the day will come when they are put through this test, I know they will fail.

And that goes to show that this is wrong. These mandates are wrong. And again, and I can't emphasize this enough. Our rights are given to us by God, not the government. And people need to start giving them so much power because the power is ours. It's mine. It's my parent. It's yours.

Your kids. We're the backbone, as you said, of this country, of our communities. Without us, nothing moves. If we all said next week, we're all taking a, next week or tomorrow, we're all taking a sick day. No one's going to work in the world. The earth would stop. People would stop making money. airlines would cease to fly, people would stop, everything would stop.

It would come to a halt. And that was proven by Southwest Airline, I believe, when all those pilots went on strike, none of those planes moved. And when they didn't move, they weren't making money. Didn't you realize it was weather? That's what it was. It was a bad weather. Exactly what it was, yeah, the weather, yeah.

But when those guys stopped, they immediately retracted their CEO and said, okay, you know, we're not going to put these mandates on you, because they knew that if they worked together, as we all should work together, and stood up against them, those planes weren't moving. Money wasn't coming in. And as we all know, money's a huge interest in all this. Political interests are very powerful interest. We all know this.

Yeah, we just don't want to admit it. No. Right? That's, it's, the airline thing is interesting to me because, you know, if you don't dig on that you go oh man there must have been a bad storm down in the States right like it just must have been

and then you start to realize like this wasn't just a couple of flights I mean geez how often in the world do we have bad storms where a couple flights get delayed or whatever like this is some serious problems going on in the infrastructure of the United States we're talking the United States right now

like the United States has some you know when you go back back to the charter and people need to understand what power they have. I've heard a multitude of people talk about Canada versus the states. And I think it fits really well in that Americans fought for their freedom. So that's probably been passed down through the lineage of like, listen, government doesn't mess with us because we fought for this. This is our freedom. Yes. And as a young guy, I told you, I played in the United States. It really bothered me as a Canadian.

When I go down there, they're just disagreeable about everything. Like, I mean, you know, you go to a restaurant, the burger's a little cold. I'm just going to, you know, I was born in family. You just eat it. It's not a big deal. Like, it's such a minute. They don't. Like so many of them are just like, nope, send it.

You know, and they're just disagreeable. You know, you talk about Canada. We're a British colony. And so we were given our freedom, right? Here, you guys have been good. Here's your freedom. I mean, I'm being tongue and cheek again, but you just kind of understand that it's a little different.

We all, for all my life, anywhere you go in the world, people applaud you because of how nice you are. God, you guys are nice. I don't know how many times I've went on different places throughout Europe, Europe in particular, right? I mean, they're just like, ah, you're Canadian. Yeah, come on it. You guys are great.

You're so kind and nice and thoughtful and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so right now, you know, I want to believe that that's what's going to get us out of here. But the longer we just go, it just is like, man, I could use a little American right now where people just, I'm not saying we got a riot, you know, like people. There's between being nice and being a pushover. That's right. Right. And that's absolutely right. I think when I, when people equate me saying we need to adopt a little, you know, American disagreeableness, you know, all of a sudden that turns into we got to march into our schools. and yell at our teachers and things like that. No, there's ways to be just steadfast.

And like, this is the line. I'm not going any further. And right now, I think everybody, you know, I was saying with Dan Bolford again, you know, me and a group of guys around town, you know, that's one of the questions we've been wrestling with for a long time. Where is the line, you know? What is your line?

Like, that's a hard question to answer. And Dan Bulford talks about it. And I just think more in society, here in Canada particular need to decide where their line is. It doesn't have to be the same across board. Not everybody has going to have the same line. But there has to be a line somewhere. Like, you know, is it, you know,

I'm sure you can draw the worst comparison. At that point, is that the line? Yeah, probably. We don't want to force and prison people. But at that point, it's too late, right? That's right. At some point, and like you said, this is different for everyone,

depending on their beliefs or ideologies, their upbringing and their political stances and things like this. one's lines, it's obviously a little bit different. But as you've just said, at one point, there has to be hopefully a common line for everyone. And it can't be so far that we can't go back, right? So far that we can't save ourselves or save our kids or save each other anymore, right? We have to say at one point, okay, here's the line and evil will pass through this line, no more. This is where we take our stand. And hopefully people are starting to wake up with the help

of people like yourself and starting to collect all the information available to them and starting to really think about where they're going to draw that line. There's a day will come one day where we have to draw that line, right? And I think a lot of people are just scared that they're going to be put in that spot. A lot of people criticize people that go to these freedom rallies or that are, don't want to get the vaccine. And I don't want to use the term anti-vaxxer because they're not anti-vaxers. They have every other vaccine just they just are cautious about this one, right?

They're not. It's an easy way for people to just rationalize what's going on. Well, the humanizes you. It vilifies you, right? But these people that are on this side of it, I lost my train of thought. Well, you're just saying, like, you don't want to, the people that go to freedom rallies, they're dehumanizing. Like, I worry, honestly, James, this is what I worry. I'm worried that people have, we've talked about COVID for so long,

because it's been going on almost two years. People are over it. Hockey's back on, you know, restaurants are back open. It's just one more step to go to them. But if they've had their shot, then they just carry on it. It's not a big deal. And when this noise is going on, because this is what it becomes, is just noise, is they just rationalize, ah,

they're just being a little extreme. Of them again, right? And the issue comes is we, I think we have to find a way to, I don't know if wake up is the right term, right? Like I think that they understand it's going on. I just think they've moved on and they're focusing on different things. And they think that we're just being difficult, that people like yourself or Dan Bulford or Mike Kuzmiskis or, I mean, the list goes on. Like I've had, you know, Eric Payne, right? All these people are just being difficult and they're not following the science or they're misinformed or, you know, they're starting to equate all these extreme ideas to them.

And I'm like, man, you just need to listen to them. I don't think you have to agree with everything they're saying. But as soon as we stop understanding that people are going to think differently, which is one of the greatest things about our country, is that we allow differences. and as soon as we're not going to allow differences anymore, well, geez. That's a problem. That's a giant problem. And history has proved as soon as you're not willing to tolerate some differences,

well, that's when the extreme things happen, right? Well, don't we have in Australia where the police are showing up at people's doors because six months ago they made a post on Facebook saying that they went to a rally or they went to a protest or they supported a protest and the police are coming to their house asking for them why they did this? if this was you, like, what doesn't matter? And that's, that's extreme. That's, that's gone too far on the one side, right?

Where you can't even, you have to be careful what post you make on social media or what words come out of my mouth when I talk to you? Well, we've seen, we've seen this right now over the last couple of years where people have gone back to a post someone made 10 years ago and hold them to it. You made this post. This is, it's like, listen, if we go back 10 years on me, I mean, I was a younger guy. doing stupid things. Like, I mean, I'm still learning. I tell people all the time that get frustrated with some of the guests I've had on. It's like, am I perfect? No. I'm just trying

to get better every single day. I'm just trying to have interesting, meaningful conversations that make me think, because if they make me think, I'm getting better. And it doesn't mean I'm going to go and try to find some of your older post now. Sure. Sure. I mean, like, we were all 18 once, which means we did stupid. things that's what you do with that age you know at that level and I mean does that mean you at 25 you got to all figure out you know I used to say when I when I was interviewing um people that were my senior so older than me at 18 I thought I had it figured out like I thought I was just like not a bulletproof smart whatever and at 25 I looked back at 18 and went

man was I dumb and I thought I had to figure out at 25 and then I hit 30 and had my first kid and I look back myself at 25 and went, man, I don't know, a damn thing. And at 35, I look back at all my life. I just go, I don't know nothing. Like, I just know nothing. So I'm just going to try and get better every single day. And we're going to see where that ends, which means being open to listen to people like yourself.

It certainly means being open to listen in the other side and going, huh, like when all the doctors are saying, man, our hospitals are full and everything else? It's like, well, are they all crazy? No. Like, we all know that can't be right. But does it mean that the other side can't have some things too that should add to the discussion? I think what we're all staring at right now is the only side of the discussion that is being talked about is one side. And there's some really good people on this side that are bringing up some really relevant information that are just being suppressed, pushed down, and being like, no, you're not being talked about.

That is we're not even going to go there. And that in itself is like wild to look at. And that's the thing is that you don't have to agree with what I'm saying or what any of, the speakers are saying, but you can't muzzle them either, right? If you muzzle them, that's saying that there's a problem, right? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all people that are against this are wrong. And if I'm wrong, then in two, three years, I'll say, I'm sorry, and I'll take my jabs,

and then off I'll go. Okay? But if I'm not wrong, and I do nothing, history will know that the people that stood the most to lose, they're the least. And again, that's part of the problem. You know, I'll bring this all the way back around. The censorship of what's going on right now, maybe the biggest danger we face as a society.

We keep trying to muzzle people and, like, you know, you can only say certain things. It feels very Orwellian, you know, like if you're a reader, I don't know how much you dig into different books. But, I mean, I read George Orwell, 1984 oh god and of course he pulls it out

like that book when I read it which was just a few years ago it was before all this it gave me chills like it almost gave me nightmare like it is a you know and to understand it's been written in the last hundred years at a time that was a dark time

with wars going on and and it just there's so much going on right now it's people say it's prophetic and stuff like that it's like I don't know what it is. It's just that he had a good grasp of what was going on back then

and it's translating to where we are right now and that book gives me chills. It's crazy, you got a copy of it. What's that saying that the only difference between a prophecy and a conspiracy theory is time? Something like that. Something like that.

Something like that. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna, I should ask this more often than not and maybe I've started. I can never you know, you listening to these different interviews, maybe I've brought it up. But like, what do you stand the game from sitting here?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I stand to lose. Actually, no, I'll tell you what. What can I gain? I can gain that hopefully people that are listening take some of the information. I can hope that maybe my brothers and sisters that are listening, If they haven't already wake up, sort of a call to action, if you will.

Like if they're waiting for a time or for a sign, I'm telling you, this is a sign. And to those that already know me and listen to this, we're in this together. And if anything else, they were here for each other, as we all should be. We should all be here for each other. And we're going to stick together and sort this out together. There's no need to lose anybody else along the way. And that's my biggest fear. And a lot of the guys I work with and talk to it's our biggest fear.

Is it because of all the stress due to this, people are going to commit suicide. Okay. And any loss of life, whether it's someone that's, you know, got a vaccine and had some sort of reaction to it or someone that died because they did get COVID and it was very, you know, it was very harmful to them and it did kill them because for whatever reason. anybody on any side along the spectrum any loss of life is too much and so if anything at least I hope that that message gets out they need to stand together and look after each other because if before things get better they will get worse yeah man that's that's a chilling statement Jillian Panessie uh Jillian Julie Professor Julie Panassi said that to me you know

before it gets better it has to get worse and that was like a month ago, two months ago. And I'm like, don't say that. Like, I wanted to get better immediately. It will get better. I firmly believe that it will get better. It just takes time, right? And especially for, you know, people in the emergency responder field,

because we are peaceful and because we want to advocate doing things the right way, we have to exhaust the legal process, right? We have to exhaust the complaint process. We have to exhaust trying to do this as peaceful as possible, go into a picnic protest. Can you imagine you go to a picnic protest and you get arrested for going to a picnic protest? Like that's the most peaceful thing you can do, right? We have to exhaust all the peaceful means first.

You'd mentioned right at the start. Police officers making formal complaints about the higher ups that powers the B. Who follows up on those complaints? Because obviously if they're made about the higher ups, they can't follow up on themselves. So that's the thing. Hopefully, you know, the civilian commissions or the civilian agencies, because every, whether you're Lethbridge, Medicine, Hadminton,

Cary Police, whichever agency you belong to or whichever agency you live in, each agency has a civilian branch that overlooks it, right? Police commissions. So hopefully these police commissions are investigating this properly and not just thinking it's a frivolous complaint and dismissing it, because that would show that, again, there's a problem with the system. And I hope that there's somebody in a position of power, again, that takes it seriously and investigates it. They don't have to agree with what the complaint is, but they still have obligation,

a lawful obligation to investigate it. And if I can also just add to that, under the police service regulations, for discredible conduct, there is a section that says that it is discredible conduct for any supervisor to be oppressive or tyrannical towards a subordinate. So it's, I think, a very powerful section, but the only problem is with it is that if I'm getting disciplined, which I may be after this, if I'm getting disciplined, I have a bunch of people above me in the hierarchy that can discipline me. If I make a complaint against a supervisor for being oppressive or tyrannical, who keeps them in line?

Who keeps them in check? Especially if the people that do are their friends or are aligned with them on their political points of view. So it's not very often you'll see a supervisor get charged with that or get, had that allegation put upon them for being oppressive or tyrannical. But it is under the police regulations. And again, all this information is out available to the public. Like if you just go in Google and type in, you know, Alberta Police Act, Alberta Police Service Regulations, it's all available there. And each province is regulated by a version of the Police Act, but they have similar aspects being that, right? Yeah.

What did Daniel Nagasei say? Keep reading, keep asking questions, keep learning about science and history. and I find the more people I interview I'm impressed at your memory of the charter of rights and freedoms of different things in there but that's where as a society we need to get to is where people start to understand the power of some of these documents that are sitting there at our fingertips

but we haven't had to use for I don't even know I'm being very nonchalant in my saying that we haven't had to worry about them because there's been different groups of people throughout the last hundred years in this country that have needed the charter rights and freedoms to mean what it says it means and they weren't getting the you know I mean all we got to do is look at the um the indigenous population right with their schools like right there we just you know I mean Trudeau flying across the other country when they gave them a you know a day of recognition and reconciliation and then flying to the other side of the country.

I mean, shows where we are at as with our leader. Like, I mean, geez, Louise, I mean, like, what... We know the government's not perfect, and history shows us now. Yeah, 100%. Absolutely, right? And here we sit again. And, you know, I've been told once you need to have more faith in the government.

I put more trust in the government. I'm like, I don't know. You talk to populations from around. the world and hear what different, different populations say about their perspective governments, and I think it's, we need to hold them in check. So I'll read to you something that Justin Trudeau said in the past year at a conference. And again, I'm not disclosing anything that's private here in regards to any police agency or any government branches.

This is all available to the public. But Justin Trudeau said prior to the election when he's trying to get votes and things like this, to people that you deserve, and I quote, a government that has your backs and that's not defending the rights of anti-vaxxers to put you at risk. Now, regardless of whether he likes anti-vaxxers or not, he has to defend their rights.

They're Canadian citizens as well. You can't say a comment like that. And this is the leader of the country, right? This is our nations. And this is why a lot of people have a problem with Trudeau is that he's making comments like this. Who are those guys to have rights? Who are those anti-vaxxers to have rights?

Well, they're citizens. the Canadian citizens and the rights to them are the same rights that everybody has they're equal to everybody so you can't take away the rights or you can't treat them any differently

just because you don't like them or disagree with them especially his job it's his job to make sure that they're everybody's rights are afforded and are equal to everyone but he's making comments like this like these people shouldn't have rights they're your citizens

you have to protect them it's literally why you're in power to protect them and protect the interests of Canada yeah well Scott Moe, Premier of Saskatch said there will be consequences and we will maybe that was we will make life difficult those those are his citizens yeah it's it's things like that that raised the hairs on one's neck so to speak it's just like how can a person say things like that I don't I just I don't I just I don't

understand because we're supposed to be you know worried about everyone and everyone's situation you know is not the same it just isn't it's just we're not all the same we're such a diverse group of people and that's the beautiful thing that's the beautiful thing but it's wild right now when you make statements like that i mean we're we're losing this ability to have empathy like to to see uh things from another's point of view and honestly i'll take i'll take a pitfall on that right at times i um you know i say things like, I have three young kids that are thankfully extremely healthy. And so I'll say things like, I don't understand why kids need to be, you know, five to 11 year olds need to have a vaccine. Do not understand it. Do not. And other parents will say things that they have immunocompromised children and

things like that. And I'm like, huh. Fair point? Fair point. You know, like maybe I need to stop generalizing things as well. And I'll agree with that. I agree with the fact that I need to have empathy. I need to see things from everybody's points of view. But if I'm willing to do that, that means other people need to see things from my point of view. And right now, my point of view, your point of view... We're crazy.

We're crazy, right? We're in this funky land where the world just feels upside down right now. Is it so crazy to want the same rights as everybody else? Is it so crazy to want to be able to keep my job and not fear reprisal or vindictiveness from my employers. Is that so crazy? Well, no, me sitting here hearing that, and I hope all my listeners think,

no, that's actually pretty normal. We want to live in a country like that, you know? Like, that to me sounds pretty everyday. Like, let's uphold every citizen's right to think, speak, and do as they please, right? for the most part. I was wondering as a police officer, over the past year,

have you seen any changes in the general public? Like maybe, and I don't know how much you can divulge of this. I don't mean to pry into police work, so if you just can't divulge, that's fine. I just mean like, I've really noticed by our population being,

stuck away from each other. Like people are, you've heard of more, I guess, like domestic abuse, suicides, addictions, that type of thing. As a police officer, can you generalize that or is that pulling you into something I can't pull you into? I think I can generalize it and hopefully I don't get trouble for that. But I can tell you for a fact that in the past two years, years, I've gone to zero COVID-related deaths, but I've gone to numerous suicides where people have,

and at least, and again, obviously I can't talk to them, but from the circumstances it appears that these mandates or the situations that they're placed in have led to them taking their lives. And again, whether it be financial stress or them not being able to see their family for long periods of time and feeling isolated, I've seen a rise in deaths and suicides in regards to that. is when you talk with your members your brothers your sisters your your your co-workers like is that something that you're all like man another suicide or is it like ah it's just kind of standard operation like they're you know i i don't know i'm once again i'm i'm i'm just i it's not my world so i don't know if suicides is a difficult thing to talk about right like it's a very

uncomfortable situation uh it's not like suicides is all sudden new to 2021 they happen although rarely, I think, frequently enough that it's not like something that nobody's ever heard of. When it's you and your other police officers, is it something that you're noticing a trend in? Like, man, man, like there's an uptick in this. Like, this is noticeable.

For myself, I would say yes. I've even gone to calls where it's not a suicide, but it's a check on welfare for someone. And they tell me I need some help, mental help, because of all these stressors in my life. I mean, I'm contemplating suicide. I haven't had my family visit me in seven months. I'm contemplating suicide.

I've spoken to people like that. And again, I can't speak for the entire police force of Alberta because we're reflection of the public, right? Within policing, we're divided as well. There's some of us that are, you know, think this is immoral. They know that this is a breach of people's fundamental freedoms. And there's guys out there. They say, no, there's nothing wrong.

We should all be doing our part in keeping society, you know, healthy. you guys should just get your jab. And if you don't want to get your jab, then find a different job. And like I said, I know everyone's stance is varying. But that goes back to the apathy that you were talking about. They've already had their jab for whatever reason. Maybe they truly believe they needed it. I know a lot of officers got it because it was just convenient because they want to go back to going to restaurants,

going to games, traveling. So they got it just because it's convenient. But not that they've got it. and they don't face the same jeopardy as they're unvaccinated. They don't care. You know, they'll listen to me and be like, oh, you know, what, buddy, I'm sorry for what you're going through. You know, I hope you don't, you don't lose your, you use your job.

Hopefully you can pay your bills. That's really tough. Good luck. Because it doesn't affect them directly anymore, right? And I think that's what we need to work on. It's not only working together better as a team, but in letting everybody know this is a huge impact on people's lives. They're taking this stance.

And as you said it before, like, what do I have to gain? People that are standing against this, I have huge admiration for because getting the jab and going to work and carry on like normal, that's easy. Anybody can do that. But the people that are taking this stance and openly fighting against it, think about the courage it takes to stand up to your employer. Think about the courage it takes to put your livelihood on the line, to lose your job, and not be able to pay your bills.

I think it's a huge amount of courage. and the other side. Again, I don't want to make this about side, but the other side will be like, oh, that's really tough. You guys are going through that. Good luck. But they've made the easy choice, right?

There's a saying that my parents always raised me by. Hard choice, easy life. Easy choice, hard life. And right now we're in the middle of making a very hard choice for ourselves. And I hope I pray to God that it means that my family in the future has an easier life. That's a good saying. That's a good saying. I admire, I really admire the courage it takes for yourself.

You know, we've mentioned some of the names, Eric Payne being one that sticks out to me because he's in the health care field. You know, a guy back, Dr. Andrew, who came on here, he was, man, he had a lot to lose. and you just think, you know, we talk about skin in the game, you know, it comes back to, I don't know if there is an easy choice, right? For some, just going and getting the shot was an easy choice. For others, it was a difficult choice. But they made it. Everybody's making their choice.

I think what's hard for a lot of people, or what I find hard, not for a lot of people, what I find hard is that people are willing to accept. other people's choices. And the thing they need to realize is yourself, along with a handful of guests that came before this on here, are pretty much putting their entire livelihood on the line to say, like, listen, we need to stop this. Like, I get to have a choice too.

Why is my choice not accepted when yours is? There can't just be one choice. There's multiple ways to do this, and we need to accept that. Well, there's not choice. There's the appearance of choice. There's a... If people get... get it because they have no other option.

Hey, you're making, you're making a choice. You know? You're making a choice. You're making a choice. But if you make this choice, you lose everything. You lose everything. Well, that is the appearance of a choice. That's a good way to put it.

That's an ultimatum. Right? That's what it is. And again, it's sad that not everyone's personal medical decision is respected. I think a lot of people, James, think that, I've had this head behind closed doors to me. You guys are going to make sure that essentially this doesn't continue on. But I just get to, you know, like what you guys are doing is good,

but I'm just going to sit on the sideline, so to speak, because you guys talking and stirring it up and off will be enough to stop it where it is. And it'll never get close to my line down here because I went and got the shot and I really didn't care and it's not that big a deal. and I understand what they're saying but I wish more people who made their choice

would stand up and support other people for the choice they're making because these are great parts of our society a person who's willing to think for themselves is a good police officer in my books a doctor that looks at things critically I think is what we want for any of our kids

any of our family members that's a type of doctor you want you want somebody just goes something's not right here. We gave you this and maybe we should try this or do that or whatever else. We want people to think for themselves. They're critical thinkers. But it doesn't mean that people who went and got the shot aren't critical thinkers, right?

To me, there's critical thinkers on all sides of this. I got people who have been vaccinated, listen to show. I've had actually people who were unvaccinated who've listened to the show and went got the vaccine. And so I admire everybody for their position and their thoughts on this issue as all critical thinkers. I think we all critically think, I just want them to understand

you need to support everybody in the choices they make, and right now we're not doing that, or it doesn't feel like we're doing it enough, maybe, is the right way to put it. Well, we're better together as a society, as opposed to divide it, which is, well, I'm seeing a lot of. Yeah. Well, I'll end on this thought.

is that we need to be careful, we don't take sides. No matter what your choice is on this particular issue, you need to support everyone on their decision. Because if we don't do that, that's how we become divided. That's how we get put into teams. And right now the one team is 80, in Alberta, 87% of the population. Well, obviously the other side is a pretty, minuscule part. I mean, you do the math. It's not that many. There's a lot of people that haven't.

I get that. But if we go to teams, the one side loses. And the way they lose, I don't know how far they're willing to take it, but it won't be fun. And the thing is, is when you get there, the thing we all lose on is this little thing called humanity. Right? Because in order to get this last chunk of the population, whatever it turns out to be, 10%, 3%, 1%, it doesn't matter. Are we all willing to go to, I don't know, the worst that humanity's ever seen to get them faxed? Or at some point is the 87% and maybe it doesn't have to be all 87% but 50% of it?

Are they just going to go, listen guys like what are we doing here? Let's all stand up. They don't want to get vaccinated it. That's okay. Let's carry on with life. Let's work together. Let's get out of this. Let's start to cause some solutions and find ways to bring each other all back in.

We got to start looking at the solutions of this. That's the way the government needs to look at it. They need to start seeing that there are other ways. ways to bring us back together. And me and you, by talking about this, I hope that's what we're trying to do, is that we're trying to find ways to open people's minds up, to understand they can support this. And even though we both made, or all of us have made different choices on this issue, it's

one or the other, either choice is fine. And we can work our way out of this instead of pitting each other against each other until all of us get 100%. I say this a lot too. I think will I talk, or I talk, well, I think, one of the two. So you're getting in these thoughts that are coming out of my mind. Yeah, well, I just, to me, I'm trying to think,

I want a solution out of this. There has to be, right? There has to be a solution out of this that we can all, for the majority, agree on. 87% right now has gotten a vaccine in Alberta. I'm speaking Alberta here in particular. some of them didn't do it because they wanted it. They did it because of the coercion and everything else

that is the underpinnings of what is going on, which is extremely dangerous. And I think we all need to start to realize that that's dangerous. And the only way to get away from that is to support the last part of the population that doesn't want to get it. Because if we can find ways to support them, maybe this starts to go away.

And what we want to go away is the sense. censorship, the manipulation, the pressure that your side, the last part of the population, that group of people is feeling right now. Because I tell you what, I keep saying this, there is terrified people out there that think their lives are about to end because they're not going to be able to work and everything else, participate in society. And we need to find a way to rally behind that and support it. Well, from a policing standpoint as well, from an emergency responder standpoint, it's not a mystery that most police agencies in Alberta are understaffed, like 20 to 35 percent understaffed.

And they will continue to be understaffed and will lose members that are going to be put off due to this. So regardless of whether you support, you know, virtual responders fighting this or not, at the end of the day, we all care about community, I would hope. So what's worth more of fighting to push everybody to get this, even the last ones that don't want to get it, but losing critical and important members of our communities like the police, firefighters, and obviously not all, but they would lose a chunk, right? And at a time when they're already understaffed, losing any percentage, whether it's 5, 10, 15% of members in uniform. That are all a little bit disagreeable or whatever the word is, right? that just look at something and and dig into it a little bit. But the loss of any of those members would negatively impact the community. Yeah.

You're going to lose homicides detectives that have been working for many years and are good at their jobs. You're going to lose firemen that, you know. Look at all the nurses, doctors. Nurses? Here's the thing that from the conversations I've been having behind closed doors that you're starting to understand is like you're already starting to lose those people. They are. Right? Like Mike Kuzmikis and I guess,

If I say his name enough time, maybe people will go back a couple episodes and listen to it. If they haven't, he's already left, right? And I'm like, geez, I never thought. And I know I should be clear. Obviously people come and go all the time from Canada. They do. But I don't know the last time I heard of somebody leaving Canada for. Fleen?

Yeah. Right? How long? You know, like, why Mexico? I just had to get out. Why? Most of the times people come here because this is due to things like the charter and the Bill of Rights. This is heaven for them.

Yeah, it's a refuge. This is a refuge. And it's not seeming like that anymore, right? People are leaving Canada because they're concerned about the future. Again, that's his own problem altogether. We've got to address. People should be coming here. Not fleeing.

Not Canadians fleeing. Right? Well, before I let you go, James, is there anything else? You know, we've been chatting for a little bit. You mentioned we might get on some side tangents, I'm sure we have. But is there anything else you want to say before I let you go? I appreciate you making the drive. I appreciate you, I don't know, man, just standing up because I've been saying it for a long time.

We need more people to stand up. but if you know if there's anything you want to say to whether it's other police officers or just to people in general if there's any other things i know you brought in some some different documents that type of thing if there's something that really you want people to look at or you want to talk about i just wanted to remind the audience that um i am part of a group called frontline for freedom um and it's alberta wide uh collection of active and retired policemen firefighters, nurses, paramedics, and really the backbone of all those infrastructures,

civilian employees. They make sure everything runs smoothly in the background. So if anyone has any questions in regards to the group, they can find us online, online for Freedom.com. We will be seeking legal representation to file a lawsuit against the Board of Health Services and the province. and any support that we can get in that way. You know, if people want to see the cops and firemen

stand up to this, you know, we've stood up for you before, and now we need your help as well, so we can tackle this together. And if there's any police officers that are not part of the group and would like to be, again, all the information is online, and they can reach out to us via that or maybe via you, put us in touch. Sure, if they, you guys can shoot me a text if you're interested in,

can I can get it to the right person for sure. You know, one other thing I'd remind the audience, too, is if you do see police officers standing up, understand that they could be putting, even for the most peaceful of peaceful protest, by being at one, they could be facing disciplinary action. Am I correct in saying that?

Very correct. That's a wild thought, honestly. Here's your final one. We do a segment at the end. It used to be the Crude Master Final Five. and geez, things have just changed. So I always, obviously now it's been the final question with Crude Master. I don't know if I need to keep explaining that.

I'd do it every time. So showed out to Crude Master. They've been supporters of the podcast since the very beginning. You know, if you could sit here and do this with one person, you know, pick their brain. Because one of the greatest things I think the podcast does for me, for my mental health, is it allows me to sit and chat and have interesting, genuine, unique conversations all the time with people from all over the world. Who would you want to sit down with and try and pick their brain? I was thinking about that on the drive here.

And I keep seeing a quote everywhere that's for some reason resonating a lot with me. And it's Ronald Reagan. He said that evil is powerless when good men are unafraid. and for some reason that quote's really stuck with me and it seems really powerful. So if I could choose, I'd talk to Ronald Reagan and kind of maybe pick his brain on some of these issues

and see where someone like that would stand and how we can work through this together. Well, James, to me, you're one of the good men. So I appreciate you coming all this way and doing this with me. I just admire your, you, I think the old farming term is gumption, but courage probably to, you know, John Wayne in there too, just willing to stand and talk and, you know, express what's on your mind when, honestly,

the things you face in the future for doing this is terrifying to me, so I can just imagine in your shoes what you could possibly be in for. So I appreciate you making the drive and doing this with me. It's no problem at all, Sean. Thank you so much. Hey folks, thanks for joining us today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review.

I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time.