Shaun Newman Podcast - #232 - Paramedic Kate King

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

10 years serving as a paramedic in Alberta with an exemption to vaccines. Now removed from her job she started the Alberta Boot Project. We discuss momentum bias, AHS pre-existing issues & going along with the narrative. Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 Support here:⁠ https://www.patreon.com/ShaunNewmanPodcast

This is Nick Hudson. I'm Dr. Daniel Nagas. This is Julie Pennessy. This is Corporal Daniel Bulford. This is Dr. Eric Payne. This is Dr. Stephen Pellick. This is Dr. Peter McCullough. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast.

Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. Hope everybody had a great weekend and, I don't know, maybe got out of the house a little bit. It's been awfully cold in this part of the world. If you're elsewhere and it's warm, well, I don't know. I got some choice words for you because here it's, been minus 30 for what now three weeks straight i believe it's supposed to warm up today so hopefully uh as

i record this it's starting to warm up and and it continues to do so because man it has been a stretch now today we got a great one on tap before we get there let's get to today's episode sponsors a new one for you canadians for truth they are a non-profit organization consisting of canadians who believe in honesty integrity and principled leadership and government as well as the canadian Bill of Rights, Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Rule of Just Laws. Yeah, that sounds like a breath of fresh air, doesn't it? On their website, they have COVID-19 prevention and treatment protocol. So if you're interested in anything regarding maybe some tips or some ideas, you can head there.

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and all things automotive for over 110 years. She was a paramedic in Alberta for the past 10 years until she was forced from her job after refusing to comply with the COVID-19 vaccine. mandate. She also started the Alberta Boot Project. I'm talking about Kate King. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Kate King and welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast today. I'm joined by Kate King. So first off, thanks for hopping on. Thanks for having me. Now, you got to give a little bit of your backstory to the audience just to kind of serve it up, so to speak, for where we're sitting today and a little bit of your backstory.

so they know who they're listening to. Sure. All right. So my name's Kate. I've been a paramedic in Alberta for the last 10 years. That's been with Medivit. So we cover a whole bunch of different stations that I've worked full time in from Fort Saskatchewan to Lloyd Minster.

Kind of been all over the place. And as it pertains to the podcast today, I guess, I've been operating for Metavi under a religious exemption that made me not have to take any vaccines. which utilized aborted fetal cell lines in their production for the last 10 years. So for 10 years, I didn't have to take the MMR vaccine because I was able to supply antibodies showing that I was immune, but I didn't want to take it. When COVID came around and all of us, whether for work or for some other reason, have been asked to provide COVID vaccination status, I said, well, I have a religious exemption that covers this, so I don't need to take it. And my employer said, nope, sorry, that doesn't count anymore. You need to take COVID vaccine or else you are fired.

And I said, but I have antibodies. And I can prove that with my blood work. And he said, sorry, I know it worked before, but it doesn't work anymore. So my religious exemption got denied. And I ended up with several thousand other Alberta Health Services workers who were out of a job as of December 13th. Man, that's got to make you scratch your head. Yeah. Yeah, more than scratch my head. Maybe say a few things. May me do a few things. But yeah, it's, there's no logic to it, though. And that's what we got used to over the last few years. right. There's no logic or consistency. Yeah, but you have an interesting perspective in that not only do you work in the healthcare emergency response field, right? So you deal in the avenue of human life and dealing with stressful situations, so we say. But then on top of that, you had a medical exemption for 10 years. Like it's not like, you know, it's not, you know, it's not. like it's old Bill walking down the street going, yeah, I got a medical examiner for the

priest. Give me, I don't want to take it. No, Bill, we know you're lying, right? We know you just got it yesterday. You're an atheist and whatever else and blah, blah, blah, blah. Not saying atheists can't do whatever they want to do either. Just that your story, I mean, there was no way of reasoning that out with your bosses. There wasn't, no.

And I think anybody should be able to get an exemption if they want to. It could be ethical exemption. It could be religious. It could be medical. Whatever your reason is, I don't care. If you don't want to get a medical procedure done, you shouldn't have to get it done at the end. But no, when it came to my bosses, I mean, my boss wanted to keep me. My boss is a great guy, and he fought hard to be able to keep me. But ultimately, it came to Alberta Health Services. And they said, absolutely not. We have this little box. And if you don't fit in our little box, it doesn't matter. And it's funny because Alberta Health Services actually offered. medical and religious exemptions in their policy. They said, anybody who can provide us adequate reason will be granted an exemption. And I know of no one who has. And I know people with very good reasons. Medical reasons. I know a guy who's anaphylactically allergic has had two near-death experiences

with similar products to the stabilizing agents in the vaccine. And Alberta Health Services told him, he went into his doctor. And his doctor gave him a medical exemption, which he submitted to his employer. And Alberta Health Services told them, you know what? Here's our compromise. You're going to come down to Evanton. You're going to lie down on the bed. We're going to get a crash cart beside you. We're going to get a team standing by. We'll inject you with the COVID vaccine. You'll react. We'll resuscitate you. And they'll go on your way. The benefit outweighs the risk for you. So like my story is not unique by any means, there's a lot of people who have refused vaccines for religious reasons in the past,

who are no longer allowed to. And we're talking people who've been in the career for decades. Nothing's changed. I had the antibodies then. I have antibodies now for this one. It's, you can reason all you want, but ultimately they've already decided and have said in so many words, no exemptions will be granted. So that leaves us with a tough political decision. You know how asinine that is to say, hey, just come now. We're going to revive, like, to be on the AHS side and be like, no, no, no, it's better in your body. Even if it's almost going to kill you to the point where we have to resuscitate you, we're going to have a team and everybody. That makes no logical sense to me.

It makes no medical sense. And even to tell him the benefit outweighs the risk. Like, let's talk about that, okay? The risk of getting this vaccine is we know you're going to get an an anaphystic reaction. there's a good possibility you might die, guaranteed it's going to be horrible. If you don't get the vaccine, there's a very slim chance you might catch COVID. And there's a very slim chance that you might possibly have an adverse reaction or die. Benefit risk, like.

You're sounding a little crazy there, Kate. You know, you're sounding a little crazy. I know. I'm a rabid. I know what I always find amusing is, you know, you know, what I always find amusing is, you know, you're saying. you know, there's extremists on both sides. We all know that. Oh, yeah.

But the majority of people I talk to, I'm like, and here's another one of those extremists, you know, that's just like got these crazy reasons for not doing things. And it's like, nah, they're pretty humble, soft-spoken people are just like, this makes zero sense. Why can't we see that? Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that the extremists on both sides make a bad name for the moderate people on both sides, which makes it hurt. harder for the rest of us. But you realize we've become extreme. You understand that, right? I know. I know. I tell this story and I don't think Ken will mind me telling it. Have a very good friend Ken. We go to Tim Horns. This is pre-COVID. And Ken is the type of guy that while we're at COVID, while we're at Tim's, he gets, you know, a couple, you know, donuts and a couple coffees, whatever. And the ladies like, that'll be 1726. And he's like, 1726. That doesn't add up. That'll be 1726, sir. And we go back and forth. I'm like, can't just pay the woman the money.

He's like, no, no, that doesn't add up. And so then they sit there and they go through it. Oh, it was, it was two dollars off. She'd added, you know, a couple slices or whatever. And he was right. But the uncomfortableness that he made me feel. And I hope he's listening. I hope he's chocolate because I mean it in the best way. just to get a coffee and a donut and whatever else. I was just like, Ken, why you got to do that? Right. And yet, here we are two years in. And I feel so many people going, can we just move on?

And I'm like, can we move on? Like, do you understand what's going on? And now I've become, you've become, we've all become, if you haven't just gone along to get along, that extreme person who's just going, no, like this doesn't make sense. When are we going to just see it, see what it is and just stop this and then we can move on. Then we can move on. Yeah. Yeah.

And not only move on, but move on wiser and more alert to political insanity going on around us, right? But yeah, and like you're saying there, I'm not an argumentative person either. I would be, I would absolutely be you in that scenario. In fact, I'd probably be offering her more money. you just, you're like, you probably made a mistake. You're take more. You know, I hate fighting. I think the vast majority of people who are standing up for themselves in this situation,

hate fighting. We just want to comply. But when it's a conscience issue or whatever else, like, when your world is going to pot and you have to either comply or suffer difficulty, sometimes even the mildest of people will stand up for what's right. Well, I think we're seeing that, aren't we? I think we are. I think we are. Yeah. Now, you're sitting in Quebec. I find that interesting timing. Now, by the time this comes out, it'll be a few days after we talk about this. But I find Quebec very interesting. It's on the other side of the country. Of course, curfew just came into effect. You've been in Quebec during curfew. You've got to share with the listeners what that was like. This isn't the first time I've had curfew, hey?

Yes, I realize. Yeah, they had it at eight before, so now they're like, oh, well, at least it's 10. It's insane. Like, I know Quebec is very left on the political spectrum, and they don't do things, you know, how you or I are used to them. But the insanity of it to me is just crazy. So I came to Quebec to visit my cousins because I had a little break of time.

And curfew actually came into effect after I got here. So the rules changed after I got here. You're not allowed to have anyone in your house. You're not, you have a curfew. You're not allowed to go anywhere. Restaurants are closed. Anything that's not absolutely essential is closed. And that happened the day before New Year's.

There was no warning. There was no lead up. Everyone had already bought all their fireworks, planned their parties, everything. And they're just like, nope, because we said so, the world now shuts down again. Now, the hilarious thing about that is that I think it's over 90% of people in Quebec are vaccinated. And how my cousins described that they're like, it's like back to square one with COVID, like two years ago where they shut everything down. Only the irony now is that everyone's obeying them. Everyone's vaccinated. Everyone's keeping six feet apart. We're back to these draconian measures.

But I can't describe to you what it feels like to be over visiting someone's house and then watch the clock tick and realize, oh no, I don't have time to get back to my house before the 10 o'clock curfew and there are police roaming the streets trying to find people who are out past curfew and if I don't sneak back in and pulled my car and turn off a license for 10 I'm not there if I see cops I'm going to get ticketed it feels it's insane like and they're they're comparing it to world war two when England had like London had curfews at night so that the Nazis wouldn't see the town yeah that's right and they're comparing it to that That's what Quebec's comparing it to.

Like the people. Yeah, yeah. They're like, well, you know, in World War II, we had to curfew to protect ourselves. And I'm like, in what world do we have viruses flying around at night looking for lights? So I'm thinking, like, this is not how any kind of biology works. What on earth? But they honestly believe that by making curfew 10 o'clock, they can prevent the spread of his virus.

Because people aren't making poor choices after 10 and congregating and drinking and falling over one another and live in life. Well, what's happening now is everyone is just staying over at their friends' houses in secret. So they're going over to their friends and, oh, it's too late to go home. I guess we stay here now. So if they're sick, you're increasing your chances. Like, I cannot understand how we can even call that science. Like, I'd love to hear the train of thought that said, this, this will be effective.

What's scary to me is that it's happening within Canada. And I know Quebec's a nation within a nation or whatever else. But like, that's part of Canada. And this is going on. You know, when it was happening and I don't know, I interviewed it. This is a long time ago. Paul Meyerhug, a comedian from Camrose. And I hope I said his last name, right?

He lives over in France. And last summer, so 20, geez, we're in 2022. it was 20. Anyways, two summers ago. Anyways, when I talked to them, France had a curfew going on. And I remember thinking at the time, like, huh, that's interesting, I guess, right?

Because we're so early into it and then whatever. Now I think I'm like, two years in, man, they have a curfew. I would hope Alberta would riot, but I don't even know if they would, right? Like, they might, parts of Alberta for sure. Like, I laugh because, you know,

Jason Keating has a news conference. And out here, I swear half the, maybe more than that, 70% of the population just doesn't care anymore. Just like, yeah, we're just moving on, right? Doesn't even turn it on. You show up to a liquor store or something. And they're asking for papers.

And you're like, what are we talking about here? Like, what happened? Where did I go? Right? Like, no, we're out of this thing, right? Everybody wants to be Texas. We're not Texas, but they want to be. Yeah.

How was driving across country? Was there any weird spots? Nothing too crazy. We took the northern route. Obviously, we can't go through the states anymore, which always used to be the fact. fastest way to go to Montreal. Now you got to go the whole way through northern Canada. But we went through the northern villages, right? So everybody there is just living their lives

normally. Nobody's asking for masks. Nobody's asking for anything. You just kind of live your life. It was really nice. Saskatchewan is the best. I love Saskatchewan. Manitoba's a little funky. Ontario's fine. And then you hit Quebec and it's just like, boom, the world has ended. Did you? I saw, oh, sorry, I saw, I saw videos of cops. You mentioned the cops. You mentioned the are kind of roaming the streets. There was like crazy videos on Twitter and stuff of like cops everywhere, lights on, speakers going. It's past curfew, go home.

Like, did you see any of that? I didn't see them with the speakers on because we were kind of in a suburb. I don't think they do that in the suburbs. I think it's downtown. But absolutely you saw them going by and they were checking houses. You have neighbors ratting on each other calling the cops. I saw several houses where the cops would go up, knock on the door, pull people outside, hand them tickets.

happened to friends of ours that live just down the street while I was there. Like it feels post-apocalyptic almost. Oh, you know, I don't even have the words, I guess. You know, I just hope that doesn't come. I don't know how they would circle around poor old, poor old, good old Saskatchewan with all the little little villages. They could come out to the farmers would probably figure it out, go for a bush party. Let them try and find us out here. Now, I brought you on, you know, you got interesting stories.

You got a background that I find fascinating. You started up Alberta, the Alberta Boot Project or Alberta Boots Project. Would you mind, it's relatively new. Would you mind, you know, telling the listener a little bit about it? Sure, yeah. So the Alberta Boot Project is more or less an accident. I never meant to start something that big. I thought I was just going to do a little display one day,

but I'll give you a bit of the backstory. With my religious exemption, I've grieved it. I have a lawyer and we're working through it in court, but there's just no progress really being seen. And I just kept seeing again and again and again that people like myself who have a reason to not want to get vaccinated and are losing their jobs over it are just not being counted as people almost anymore, right?

We're just numbers where statistics and the government skews the statistics so that we seem like we're less than we actually are. But there's no humanity. It's just, you know, if we lose a couple hundred nurses, it's no loss to the province to the end. And I hated that. And in one of the groups that I'm on, one of the telegram groups for health care providers such as myself, somebody just said in passing one day, you know what, we should drag our uniforms down to the steps of the legislature building, just so that they can see that we really are health care workers. and we really are going to stand against this, even if it costs us our jobs.

And I looked at that and I was like, I don't think we can use our uniforms because they all have company logos and you have to sign an agreement when you first get hired. You're not going to use your uniform in a protest, which is fair. But I was like, what about our shoes? Footwear is very generic. And the big question that we're posing to the province right now is who's going to fill our shoes? Like we're looking at thousands and thousands of jobs being taken away from a healthcare system that is in sham. Like, who's going to replace us? What are you doing? And so I just made a little poster and I shared

it on one of the groups and I said, hey, if anybody wants to join me, I'm going to be taking my shoes and a piece of paper that says my job description and how many years of service I've got. And I'm going to leave it on the steps to the legislature. And I hope that some people in power see it and go, wow, these are real people and these are real losses to communities. So I circulated the poster to see if anybody wanted to join. And a few people did. And then interest started building and started building to the point where I was like, I can't drive around Alberta, drive to Leftbridge, Grand Prairie, informing Marine,

pick up all of these shoes of people who want to send them in. So we set up drop points. We set up 20 different places around the province that you could bring your boots to and your paper. And they would come in. And it was actually one of those drop points. I think it got the whole boot project off the ground. Lethbridge one day just sent me a pitcher,

the guy who was running it down in Lathbridge. And he said, this is the boots that came in last night. And you just showed me a picture of his front step. And there was firefighter boots there. There was paramedic shoes. There was a physician. There were nurses. And I put that picture up and people just started going, whoa, we're losing these guys.

That's what it looks like. Because you can envision the people standing in those shoes almost, right? And it just gets the end of the gut. So all of a sudden, it just started exploding. And I had people texting me and messaging me nonstop. And I was like, we need a Facebook page. This is getting ridiculous. So we started the page.

We extended it. I was going to drop my boots on a Saturday. And I was like, oh, my goodness, we can't process all this in time. So we extended the legislature day until Monday. And the boots started pouring in by the hundreds with stories. And it was crazy. It was insane. We ended up getting someone's house and just bringing all the boots there and trying to process them.

This guy stepped up to. take photographs, he was our IT guy. And we took a photograph of every single pair of shoes with its sign. We gave it an inventory number and we cataloged it because we wanted to be able to verify how many people were represented here and how many years of service. And we just calculated everything up. And it took us about a week of chaos. And finally we were ready.

And then this last month, two Mondays ago, I guess, we set up on the steps of the legislature building. And at that point in time, we had 77 pairs of boots. Holy crap. It was insane. And at that point in time, I mean, I still had about 100 pairs of shoes that people had messaged me and said, hey, I can't make it there, but can you just get a random pair of shoes and make a sign for me? These are my details.

And it just kept growing and it still is. Like, it hasn't stopped. There's so many people represented. Like, AHS has said that there are 1,650 people that have been put on LAA. but if in like three or four days we were able to gather 777 pairs of shoes and counting, I don't think those numbers are even close to accurate. If you really read them, it says that's the number of people who are offered individual testing and refused it because it's unfair.

The actual number who have gone, we estimate to be between 5 and 10,000. That won't hurt the old healthcare system at all. It will destroy it. It already is destroying. it. Again, like we were saying before, logic is not a factor in this discussion. Yeah, I have a struggle. I do a ton of different conversations. And it just kind of ebbs and flows with the stories that it goes, right? Earlier in the week, I had Mike Kuzmiskis, who's the CEO of Bicor Labs and he has he has data that I just don't understand why leaders can't look at it and go,

huh, we should be giving some of this out to, you know, and to me right away, it just goes across all the population because if you're double-vaxed, wouldn't you want to know whether you got immunity or you got any antibodies? And if you're not vaxed, wouldn't you want to know the same bloody thing? And we're spending trillions of dollars anyways. So why not do something that actually might bring us all back together. But instead, you know, Mike has problems getting on any national network, right? CBC doesn't want anything to do with them. And he's left with a little old me, which I enjoy because I find it fascinating. That's great. You know, and then you fast forward and you get a lawyer from everybody will remember Philip Moire. I chuckle because he was a guy who said, just get vaccinated. And it was

interesting. It was an interesting look from the other side. Then you walk on and you tell me you're starting to go, oh, my goodness. My brain, like, it's complicated. I get that. But underneath the complication is a lot of common sense that I can't dismiss, you know? Like, it's just like we're going against everything that's brought us to this point. And here we said. It's a hyper fixation. It's something that we refer to in medical terminology as a distracting injury. oftentimes you'll focus on the biggest most urgent thing and neglect the thing that's actually going to kill your patient.

It's actually funny that you talk about it like that because annually we have to renew our courses and stuff for Alberta Health Services. And the last couple of days leading up to January 1st, I was finishing my courses. And one that we had to do was about medical mistakes that happen. Okay, so it's just talking about, I think it said, 5% of patients. of patients who come in may experience some sort of a medical mistake while they're in the hospital where a medication is misdiagnosed or whatever happens, right? And it's talking about what leads us to make faulty medical decisions. And I don't think that they saw the irony in it, but they're giving all these different types of bias that lead us to misdiagnosing or being lazy or whatever else.

And it talked about something called momentum bias, which is as something girls, and gets bigger and we become more certain that it is the pathway we want to go down, we pick up speed, it's like a snowball rolling downhill, we pick up speed and we just can't alter our course. We keep going. And there's something else called herd bias or group think, which is where the more people who think something, the more legitimate it seems, whether or not it's actually true. And I was going through, there's like six different biases. And I was like, wait a minute, this is the situation that we're in, right? We've invested so much into the vaccine. being the only cure that it's too late for us to start investigating other cures. It's too late

for us to admit that we've wasted trillions of dollars and we have to just stick with the narrative and protect it at all costs, lest anyone points out how foolish we've been. And yet, the longer this goes, the more foolish they look. Oh yeah. You said it. Yeah. And so you wonder at what point it falls apart, right? To me, it feels like, it feels like it should be falling apart right now. Like, I just, to me, I'm like, I'm like, anybody not like, you know, like I'm a big hockey guy. Obviously, it's on the wall. And if you go back in my, my story passed to the podcast, there was a lot of hockey people on there.

And I was excited about the world juniors. I haven't been excited about much hockey. Just haven't had much time for it. Probably, uh, now, there's a lot of reasons there. But the world juniors, a bunch of amateurs, they haven't quite, made it yet. It's fun hockey. It's one, you know, Canada, rah, raw, and it falls apart at the wayside. And I'm like, like, at what point are we going to admit that this isn't working? Like, it isn't working. You know, they'll slide the money under the rug. They'll slide a bunch of things

under the rug and walk away. That's what they're going to try and do. But at what point do they start doing that? Or what point do we start just like, okay, this didn't work? You guys are going back to work. Well, at what point did any world leader admit that their regime didn't work? What did Hitler admit it? He just took his own life, man. He realized that this was not working, but he couldn't face actually telling the public that, you know, what point did any world leader admit it? You'll let it fall apart. So you don't think they're going to let go? I don't think they will. No. That's a tough. I don't think they will. I have faith. I have faith. the individual people will start to see through the insanity.

And I think that there is a possibility that the government will try and find a way out without looking foolish. Like maybe, oh, look, Omicron has infected everyone and now we all have immunity and we'll just pretend this never happened and keep going. But I don't think they're ever going to come to a point where they say, we made some really poor decisions politically, scientifically, medically. I will agree with that statement right there. Yeah, I don't think, you know, I've been saying, I've been saying now for five months or however long it's been like, I just don't get why they can't come out.

Obviously, I'm not a politician. And then this is why maybe I would never win anything. But I just can't see why they wouldn't come out and be like, you know what? Yeah, we, we're going to, we're going to open some things up. We're going to start doing this, this, this, this. We're going to get all these tests out. We're going to do boom, boom, boom. we're going to get out of this.

Because to me, that is an emitting defeat. That's admitting we had an idea. We thought it was going to work early data. I'll give them every inch of the tree branch I'm trying to extend to them to them. All they got to do is just change course, right? Like we're the Titanic. We're hidden for the iceberg. And I just don't know what the iceberg means.

I don't know if that's like we all go down. Or if we could just like shift course a little bit, you know? And life will carry on, you know. Chris Montoya, a professor from Thompson Rivers figures three years and life will carry on and we'll keep moving forward. And I'm not 100% certain on that. And when you talk about the Hitler of the world or the Stalin of the world or et cetera, you're right.

They didn't just go, oh, yeah, I was wrong and changed course, which we as the people then need to ensure that happens. Absolutely. Yeah, I think that that's our responsibility is to. help people understand the fallacy and encourage them to, encourage them to see the world objectively and think critically and make decisions for themselves. And, you know, I think that that's our responsibility as common people is just to help open eyes. Isn't it an uncomfortable? You can't do. Finish. You can't do that by waving a sign in

someone's face saying, you're a sheeple, you're a sheeple. But I think you're a sheeple. But I think you can do it through personal conversations and stuff like the boot project, whatever else, and just gently, gently slip in a question and be like, so let me just ask, what do you think about natural immunity and let them start getting into it? And sometimes you can poke holes in someone's worldview and let them see that rather than just say, you're wrong, I'm right, the end. Because that doesn't get anybody anywhere. Yeah, and I think you would agree. The only way we get out of this is by either the government changing course, which by us talk about that, that's a long shot is what you're talking about. Or it's by more and more people coming to the conclusion themselves

because there's nothing more powerful than doing a little bit of reading, starting to see what's going on and going something doesn't add up, doing a little bit of research, talking some people, you're right? Like one of the cool things about what I do is I get to talk to a lot of different people. and by doing that, I get to hear your, I put faces to all these different people. And it's like, no, that doesn't make any sense at all. I've actually talked to these people. And this is what they're saying, right? It actually gives you a pretty good sense of like how divided we've really become.

Because there's lots of good people on both sides. Yes. Yeah. Now, this Alberta Boots project, Alberta Boots project, what is the, you're heading back to work, right? I am heading back to work and I feel a little bit guilty in saying that the vast majority, about 90% of people are not going to. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And that's, it's been an interesting, it's been interesting. It's it, as I'm sure you've heard, um, one week after we started the boot project and not as a result of purely the boot project. It was a result of everybody's work for so many

months. But Alberta Health Services finally made the announcement that all unvaccinated staff are requested to come back to work, but they have to pay for their own testing every 48 hours. And to me, that was what I was fighting for this whole time. I was just fighting for any viable alternative to be recognized. I was like, look, I have natural immunity. Can we recognize that? I have a religious objection. Can we recognize that? Or even testing, I will happily test just something other than this vaccine that I'm not going to take. So for me, it was a huge victory. But for a lot of people, they have been treated so poorly by Alberta Health Services for so long.

And there's so much animosity and discrimination and everything else that they essentially looked at it and said, why would I come back to a workplace that requires me to pay $500 a month to test myself to be good enough for them? even though their staff are getting sick at an equal, if not greater rate than unvaccinated people. And why would I subject myself to that discrimination, hatred, abuse, everything else that I'm going to encounter at work? The answer is no, unless it's a fair workplace for all, where everyone's getting tested and it's paid for the employer or no one's getting tested, why would I come back? Now, for me, I don't work for Alberta Health Services. I work for a private employer that, like I said in the beginning, they have fought for me this whole time.

my coworkers are gems and I love them and they've been rooting for me. They helped out with the boot project. They're incredible. And I just can't wait to get back to work. My community needs me. We can't staff an ambulance in my town unless I'm there. So it's been shut down. And I just.

What happens if you don't mind me asking? What happens if they can't staff an ambulance? Then what happens? Oh, it happens daily all over the entire province. They just don't have one. So then what happens? Well, we're on a dispatch system in Alberta where we have three dispatch centers. We have north, central, and south.

So when an emergency call comes in, those dispatchers can see every ambulance in the province. When an emerge call comes in, the closest ambulance response. It might be the ambulance from your town. It might be one who's just traveling through. It might be one that's an hour and a half away, but that's the closest one, but they respond. So when you call 911, an ambulance is still going to come. it just might be a couple hours before it gets there. So if they have to shut down a town,

which happens constantly, constantly. Like Edmonton, Calgary, they're shutting down cars left, right and center. Even Mediv where, I mean,

we have great staff and we try and staff the cars. Healthcare in general is just crashing and burning and people are quitting all over the place just for burnout or whatever else. So even in Medi, we struggle to staff cars sometimes, associated struggles. Everybody struggles.

and it puts our communities at great risk when we can't have an ambulance in town or when we can't have enough ambulances in town. Like it's kind of important to have someone there when your heart stops. You know? Well, you, yeah. Once again, my logical brain goes, you would think before they pulled the trigger on, we're going to put people on unpaid leave.

they would look at it and go, yep, but how are we going to figure this out? Like how, you know, like I know that's some poor dispatcher sitting there going, oh my goodness, this is going to end up with pie on her face, right? Yeah. Yeah. The dispatchers, I feel so bad for them, man, because they're forced to do their job and find ways to make it work with not enough staff. And the road crew crews are forced to do the same thing.

I mean, and it's not just ambulance. I mean, several of the towns that I work out of, we don't have doctors on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because we just don't have doctors. So you can't go to that hospital. You cannot bring them a patient. They have the facility. They have nurses.

They have the beds. But without a doctor, they can't accept. So you got to go to the next town over. It happens all the time. This is like, it's an Alberta problem. Our health care system needs staff. What we've been being told this whole time was a bed shortage. If we haven't had beds, okay, it's not a bed shortage.

We have a staff shortage. And that's not just a result of the mandates. It's a result of staff going on stress leave, staff getting sick. Like, okay, I'll explain this, okay? Our system's been in crisis for a long time. And then you throw COVID at it. So now every time somebody gets exposed or gets a sniffle, they have to go off for 14 days.

That leaves the rest of the staff having to fill in and do their job. They're working hard. They're getting exhausted. they are crashing and burning and having to take time off. And every time any one of them takes time off, the whole team has to step up. And it's gotten to a point where we just don't have the staff to fill the holes. And those good staff that we have are permanently leaving or going off on stress leave.

There are estimates that between 30 and 42 percent of staff in Evanston are on stress leave right now. So you have these holes that you cannot fill. And then on top of that, you're having to do extra paperwork because it's COVID. You have people really tense and frustrating because COVID. And all the stressors of the job have built to the point where this isn't, like, our staffing crisis is not a direct result of the mandate at all. It was happening before the mandate. But the mandate just tipped it over the edge, I think. Because then you're just adding an additional several thousand staff who are no longer there all in one day.

You know, like, how does it make logical sense? It doesn't. Should we have thought this ahead of time? Yes. What's the chances? Hinshaw doesn't know this. Humor me. Maybe I won't even single out Hinshaw. Just what's the chances? Leadership doesn't know all this. I don't see how they can't. They have the numbers in front of them. Now, we know that they don't look at statistics the same way. you and I do they kind of yeah but we're not talking COVID here we're talking manpower right so you're or women power I'm just talking staffing you know you went back whatever whatever whatever um and you look at it and you just go this is where the small Saskatchewan boy in me makes it's just like this makes zero sense. You want to go, you got to go plant a whole whack of fields. You say it's got to be done in 24 hours. Yeah, but we physically can't. We only have one tractor. Okay. Is there a way we can get around this?

Well, yeah, we go get more tractors. I mean, you know, and a couple more men to work and we can have as much fields as you want done in one day. But the way we're doing it right now makes zero sense. We have one tractor, one body, and you're asking for 10 days of work to be done in one day. It just doesn't happen. Even if I go at haul-ass mode, it still can't happen. And so what ends up happening is you burn out said tractor. Now you got no tractors. And then you tell, you know, the old machine in the back that's been just laboring for you. Oh, by the way, you know, you're unvaccinated.

Get the hell out too. And you're left with, well, we got a real problem here. But is COVID the problem or is it everything else is the problem? It's how it's been managed. That's the problem. I would venture to say. And I realize that might make me lose my job. But it's how it's been managed.

That is the problem. And COVID has accentuated that problem. Yeah. It's really put pressure on the system, but the system was already in a tough spot. The system was set to breakdown. And this was the catalyst that I think is making it happen. And it's not something that we're just saying in Alberta.

You know, with the boot project, I've had people from every province and territory. Well, no, not every territory, but every province contact me and say, hey, we want to do a boot project in our own province. I'll spend hours on the phone with them, kind of helping them out. And it's the same situation in every province in this country. You know, I had someone from Newfoundland talked to me for two hours the other day about how their health system was breaking down. And she's like, you guys in the rest of Canada don't understand.

It's this bad. And I was like, no, it's that bad everywhere. I do understand. And I do understand what it's like to have a hospital with no doctor. And empty ambulances sitting in empty garages. Like, I get it. And you tack on to that. So you tack on to low staff.

You can't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you throw in a fastball that blows it by the batter with the full count, right? And that is all these lovely early treatments came out that would have allowed to take the pressure off the hospitals. and they say it's horse dewormer. They absolutely railroad any of them. They, like, and you just go, it's like, you know, nobody wants to say it, right? But I listen to McCullough and I listen to Malone on Joe Rogan.

And they all dance around it. And I'll dance around it too because I don't know what it is. Because I just look at it. Is it incompetence? Is it what is it? I don't know. But it just feels like the entire matchbox is set to just blow up in front of us. And we're just lighting a match and watching it go instead of just,

you know, not doing that, right? It's like the whole deck is stacked. Why not just hire more nurses? Put an incentive there. People love incentives. Give the creative problem to what Alberta and Saskatchewan do extremely well. The problem itself. That's what we do.

Yes, we do. I'm not a giant. I'm not no genius, but I know lots of guys that are super smart that would have nothing more than to sink their teeth into this and just figure it out. Mike, I was going to say Mike Kuzmisk is one of them, right? He was an engineer who started ICOR blood services because he saw an issue and went, we can fix this.

And now they're doing what they're doing. And Icor is incredible. And that's all it takes is people working together to find solutions. Like look at, I was look at when Fort McMurray burned as an incredible example of what our province is capable of when we all have a common goal and a common purpose. you know like that was i i don't know in lloyd minster how much you guys saw the effects of that but i'm sure you guys would have seen a lot but it was insane watching networks spring up where

hey we can help with transporting animals hey we can help with putting people up just it was incredible it was beautiful to watch but with covid we don't have one unified enemy we have some people believing that the health system's the enemy we have some people believe in covid's the enemy some people think government some people think the unvaccinated and that's what's killing us right now is we're all fighting against each other. If we had from the beginning of this taken the money that we put into Serb and everything else and just invested in some mobile field hospitals to handle a influx of sick people for a few months, our country would be back to normal right now. Well, I would say when it came to, and correct me if I'm wrong,

when Fort McMurray happened, you had a common spot. This place needs help. Everybody knows somebody in Fort Mac. Like, I mean, honestly. And so everybody got the stories. Everybody has business, probably half Lloyd probably does business in Fort Mac.

So it definitely, yes, we felt everything there. But it was a common, like, rally the troops, let's go here. Yeah. Literally had Justin Trudeau, on a show earlier this week talking about how anti-vaxxers don't follow the science or misogynists or racist. That's our leader. He is...

Racist? Yes. He is sowing descent between the two sides. And so as long as that continues, I don't know how you can get to where you bring everybody back together. Because they just keep splitting and just keep splitting and keep wedging. and keep wedging it harder. And, you know, Trudeau is definitely the leader of Canada, which pains me to say. But like, I haven't seen a premiere, you know, and people will talk about different ones, you know.

But right now where we sit? I mean, wouldn't it be nice to wake up one morning and try and find a way out of this with some solutions, right? Like just solutions. Here's some solutions. We're going to do this. We're going to try this. We're going to get out of this thing. they'll pat themselves on the back like they're doing it.

It's like it's been two years. But the whole system is like, I don't know. I mean, I'm listening to you. I'm going, God, I was just, you know, you think you start to see parts of pieces and now you just get added in another one. I don't know. I just think that our problem here is that we're all fighting each other as opposed to all dealing with this. So then how do we stop fighting each other?

Kate. There's the million dollar question. How we stop fighting each other is we start to see the humanity in one another, I think. I think that's a start. You know, like, I have a good number of friends who are very inhumane in what they say about the vaccinated. And I have a lot of friends who are very inhumane in what they say about the unvaccinated. And ultimately, neither one matters. If there's one thing we can be, no, I'm not even going to say that. But in the end, if we're fighting for people to be allowed to make whatever decision they choose is best and work together towards a harmonious society, then we need to stop beating each other up over what we decide to do with our lives and realize that each other are not the problem.

and I think we need to just work with one another to fight for freedom in this country and to try and combat disease and to have a healthy system that is well-staffed with good people. But how do we get there? I don't know. Again, I wish that I could do something to stop all the corruption in government, but I don't have the ability to do that. I have the ability to talk to the person on the street, and I have the ability to build up my friend who feels singled out.

And that's, that's my role right now is just trying to connect people to people. Well, I think that's well spoken. That's a difficult question because I don't have, I don't have the answer. I'm searching for the answer. I put you on the hot seat. It's a tough question. That is, you know, how do we bring everybody back together? And you're right.

There's two sides. And right now, I think the, I've seen the joke on Twitter, both sides are waiting for the other side to die, right? Well, isn't that a morbid spot to be? That's a horrible thing to say. Isn't it, right? Like, I mean, some people got the shot. Some people didn't get the shot. What the heck is it matter? Can we just move on? And it just, you know, here we sit. And you wonder when this comes to an end and how we can move on from it. But coming back together, I love the idea. I always think the right leader or somebody at the top, I hope it can start from the grassroots, because I'm talking to a lot of people,

just like yourself, that are really making waves on the grassroots level, really tapping into that, what you, you know, the humility and talking to people and, you know, listening and really just trying to find what's making everybody tick and how do we put enough pressure on our government officials to make them understand. We don't like this anymore. We want to move past this. And so that's been really cool. But Quebec just went into another curfew. and Ontario's into another, you know, and you're just like, oh, my God. Like, you know, this is weird. Well, I'm not going to say, here's your final one.

Here's your final question. Crude Master, shout out to Heath and Tracy McDonald. They've been supporters of the podcast since the very beginning. Who would you sit down with Kate, if you could, like this, like we're doing, pick their brain. Who would you sit and talk to in Canada? and try and get them to help change the situation. Hmm. No, I, well,

sure, sure. That's a great question. I don't think I'd sit down with Trudeau because I don't think that that conversation would get anywhere. I don't think I'd want to sit down with someone like-minded because that conversation also wouldn't go anywhere. It would be great. We could build each other up,

but it wouldn't actually get anything done. Like I said, I think that in order to make change, you have to talk to people who are of a different mindset, but who are civil enough that you can have a conversation with. I mean, over the course of the boot project, I cannot tell you how many people came through who were antagonistic, hated everything we were doing. And I was like, cool, that means you're open to talking.

So we'd just sit down and talk, and by the end, they'd be trying to give us money to pay for our hot chocolate and be like, you know what, you are fighting. This is a human rights issue. Keep fighting. This is great. People are changing their minds.

So I would want to talk with Kenny and Henshaw. I'd sit down with them and I would want to have a three hour conversation to be like, explain to me where you're coming from. I want to hear your side. I want to hear what you think is actually going to make a change. And then I want to be able to present my side and show you what it looks like on the road and just give you insight into the harm that your decisions are making and work together to try and find some way to both protect what's really important to you

and protect what's really important to Albertans. That's why I'd want to talk to is people who did not see the eye to eyes, who did not see eye to eye with me, but that I could hear from and maybe expand my perspective, and that would be willing to hear from me and perhaps expand their perspectives. I like that. I like that.

My only thought is, I don't think Hinshaw and I don't think Kenny would be interested in listening. That's my thought. I don't think they would either. I don't think they would either, but I would bring donuts and you can't say no to donuts. Well, I appreciate you doing this, Kate. All the best on your road trip back. Please drive safe.

And if anyone's looking to find out more about the boot project, where do they go? Facebook. Go to our Facebook page, Alberta Boot Project. We have a website that we're making, but just go to the Facebook page. You can find us from there. message the admin if you have any questions if you want to start your own boot project i can give you tips and tricks um if you're mad and you want to talk i'm here to talk anything just go to the facebook page message the admin we're there all the time awesome well appreciate you doing this

sure appreciate what you're doing too keep fighting for truth thanks for tuning in today guys hope you enjoyed it uh if you like what you're hearing make sure to like and subscribe believe me it does help and if you want to help the podcast long share it with all your friends share share share and if you're in the given mood check out the patreon account and the show notes or hit me up via my phone number in the show notes all right i love hearing from you guys love all this support and uh just go be awesome today kick some ass and we'll catch up to you wednesday