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Q&A: Free Speech Cost Provost His Professorship

Day 1 · 6:46:16 · Dean Allison · Patrick Provost

  • 🎤 Dean Allison thanks Provost as an expert with lived experience whose views were deemed invalid and career-ending.
  • 📜 Provost notes Quebec’s 2022 academic-freedom law and the Charter were ignored while Laval weaponized heavy disciplinary process.
  • 🔦 He salutes the inquiry for shining light on underestimated injection risks that cannot be set aside.

Chair and witness on punishment for scientific dissent.

← Laval Fired Provost for Warning on Child Vaccination | Q&A: Is There Any Way to Eradicate Persistent mRNA? →

Transcript

Dean Allison · 6:46:16

Do I address you as a professor or doctor?

Speaker L · 6:46:19

I'm currently retired, so I'm a retired full professor.

Dean Allison · 6:46:23

Listen, I just want to thank you for your testimony. I think it's so important for people to hear this. I don't think people understand in this country, if you have a difference of opinion, that you can be punished in a way that, you know, costs you your job. I mean, we deal with this in Parliament all the time, and the reality is, you know, we're trying to talk about free speech or talk about ideas. You know, some topics you're allowed to talk about, sometimes you aren't. You're a great example of an expert in their field who's got lived experience, not only the academic, but the actual lived experience. And yet somehow your opinions don't cut the mustard. They're not valid. We don't want to hear them. Hear him, and, uh, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for, for stepping out. And I think it's important that Canadians understand that, you know, in this country we call Canada, uh, you know, how free are we if we are not allowed to debate, not allowed to have conversations, not allowed to talk about difficult subjects, right?

Dean Allison · 6:47:26

And I, I feel that, uh, you know, we, we continue to go down a, a pathway where we limit debate. And as the Senator said, you know, we need, we need more talk, right? We need more talk. And I think that's, that's— so I love your comments on that.

Speaker L · 6:47:40

Effectivement, je poursuivrai après.

Patrick Provost · 6:47:43

I would like to continue on this vein, and in French, if you'd allow me, please. I did experience these attacks by Laval University, and we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows my freedom of expression. And in Quebec, in June 2022, the National Assembly of Quebec adopted a law that protects academic freedom, and that's even a broader subject because it allows professors to express themselves publicly without the fear of reprisals. And that— and what happened to me was the exact opposite. It's as if there was no Charter and no law that could protect me, and yet I spoke out with the best of intentions. I was looking for dialogue and debate with people who may have a different opinion to mine, but Laval University always denied me the, the possibility of meeting complainants.

Patrick Provost · 6:48:44

I was not allowed to meet with ordinary citizens to explain my point of view and why why I had expressed the opinions I had expressed. So what I was saying went against what the government and the media was putting out there, and that can of course be shocking to ordinary Canadians, but I was available and I sought to meet with them. But Laval University chose to weaponize science, and they brought me into a disciplinary process that was very heavy-handed. I was given 5 disciplinary measures that I appealed in front of a mediator. But this is a very long process with a lot of red tape. It took several years just to, just to assess 2 of my appeals. And so I had reams of paper to to support my position and I couldn't defend myself in a process that was unfair.

Patrick Provost · 6:49:47

So I could go on about justice for quite some time. I think I might leave it at that because I don't want to move away from this particular subject, but this is a dark period that we all went through, that we continue to go through now. And I want to thank you you, Mr. Allison, for your courage in convening this event. We heard Senator Johnson and experts such as myself, and we are there to shine a light where people don't want to look. And I think this process is important, and I'd like to salute your courage for striking this, for putting this Commission together, because I think it's important for us to talk if we want to live together, all together. You can't take vaccine injuries and set them aside and pretend that they don't exist.

Patrick Provost · 6:50:50

COVID injections have risks that are underestimated, that are true risks for population health in the coming years. So thank you.

Speaker L · 6:51:04

Thank you, Dr. Post. Can I just ask you, first of all, I want to thank you for your voice. Thank you for your research and thank you for being here today. I think your testimony is important. And, uh, for those of us that, uh, that also experience persecution at different levels for being perhaps skeptical or hesitant, uh, your voice means a lot. So thank you. And, and the sacrifice you made in your your career.