Today we chatted about COVID-19 and how deaths are tallied and reported. The issue of concern is that with “do not resuscitate” orders (DNRs) some people who have had COVID-19 as well as a DNR, were not put on ventilators – and if they had been – they may not have died from COVID-19. These deaths are allegedly being recorded as COVID-19 deaths and there is no additional information included for the statistics saying that this person had a DNR. The concern is that when the DNR is not recorded in relation to the death we will be passing information on to future generations that may be missing important information that they could use for handling the next pandemic.

From there we talked about flu deaths and how those numbers are based on computer models and that sometimes those stats can be inflated by the way they are calculated, for example all pneumonia deaths are counted as influenza deaths – even though not all pneumonia is caused by the flu (https://www.cbc.ca/…/flu-deaths-reality-check-1.1127442).

Then we talked about the amount of public shaming being done in relation to COVID-19 when the science on how the virus is transmitted is still in question. From there we talked about the cost of the emergency measures and the fact that there should have been a pandemic plan in place on behalf of the federal government – especially in relation to the economy. A pandemic playbook, maybe?

The lack of representation in our government for small businesses was also brought up as well as the likelihood that there are very few parliamentarians who were successful small business people before becoming an elected official.

Free speech was brought up in relation to universities and the incident with Lindsay Shepard at Wilfred Laurier (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Shepherd) Lindsay Shepard’s professors called her in to reprimand her, allegedly based on a complaint about clips she played of Jordan Peterson on ‘The Agenda with Steve Paikin’. They cited confidentiality as the reason they could not show Shepherd the complaint. “The meeting ended with Rambukkana asking that Shepherd send him her lesson plan prior to each class because there had been a breakdown in communication. This was the extent of her punishment, but Rambukkana said that he wasn’t sure what else might happen going forward and that he had to discuss the matter with other members of the faculty.” (Wikipedia) Turns out though, when an independent inquiry was requested, that the professors had actually not recieved a formal complaint (or an informal concern) relative to a Laurier policy about the screening of the video. So if they don’t have a substantive complaint, and they are abusing the privilege of confidentially to hide that fact, in a blatant attempt to shut down free speech – is that not a huge concern to all Canadians? Also – if we shut down dialogues because we don’t like the narratives of one of the parties, then we not only prevent free speech, but we prevent the broader public from learning how to intellectually defend against detrimental ideas.

We also got onto the topic of schools and how prejudice is perpetuated in them. We’re working on thinking about what policies or approaches would help make schools safer places for kids.

Cocktail of the week:

Madras Cocktail

• 2oz Vodka
• 1.5oz Orange Juice
• 1/2oz Cranberry Juice
• 1/2 Cup Ice
• 1 Lime Wedge

Add the vodka and then the orange juice in a glass , then you tip the glass on a slight angle and slowly pour in the cranberry juice so it just sits on the orange juice and then begins to bleed into the orange juice.

Next week we may have cocktails before we chat. Stay tuned!