333 Witnesses, Terror and Dropouts Across Canada¶
Day 3 · 3:22:33 · Ken Drysdale · Dean Allison · Stéphanie Giguère
- 📍 Hearings ran three days in eight cities plus Regina; 333 witnesses testified, about 22.5% on vaccine injuries to self, loved ones or patients.
- 😨 Venues refused bookings, witnesses quit from fear of job loss, frozen accounts and family pressure—including threats of never seeing grandchildren.
- 💔 Stories included a Saskatoon man crying that he thought he was crazy, a cancer patient hated online for mask exemption, and an elderly man beaten then arrested on video.
Scale of NCI hearings and climate of fear for witnesses.
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Transcript¶
Ken Drysdale · 3:22:33
Well, it was really interesting. And also, I want to point out that the commissioners were selected across the country and they were selected from different disciplines. So we had a lawyer, we had a doctor, a PhD, and we had a, a somebody in the humanities who had a master's degree in humanities. And they were selected from Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta. So it was across the country representation. It was multidisciplinary representation. And what we did was, it was really interesting. We held, we held 3 days of hearings initially in 8 cities across the country, starting in Truro, Nova Scotia, and we went across the country and then we came back and finished in Ottawa. Then we held, a year later, we held, uh, 3 days of additional hearings in Regina, Saskatchewan. We heard from 333 individual, um, witnesses.
Ken Drysdale · 3:23:36
And I think it's important to this hearing today that we didn't go seeking witnesses with just vaccine injuries. Of course, that's the mandate here, but we had 22.5% of all of our 333 witnesses either testified about vaccine injuries that happened to them, their loved ones, or they were doctors or medical professionals who were testifying under oath about what had happened or what they observed to their patients. So that was a significant portion of it. I think that's about 75 different testimonies contained within the NCI, which would be very relevant to what happened here.
Dean Allison · 3:24:17
Right, but the, but the mandate was larger, so it was all government actions.
Ken Drysdale · 3:24:21
So education, economic effects, um, social effects, uh, how the churches were affected, how the children were affected. We looked at the finances of our country because we doubled our national debt, plus or minus, during this whole COVID thing. We looked into regulations as to how the vaccines were authorized for use. We heard from everyone. We heard from doctors, we heard from lawyers, we heard from mechanics, people who drove a courier, people from grandfather, grandparents to young people. So we got a real cross-section of Canadians there. And when their experiences were significant, they were— they, you know, sitting here in this chair for the last 3 days, there was a lot of déjà vu as to what we went through and what we heard. And again, it was, it was, it was different for us because we were talking about everything and the commissioners didn't know who the witnesses were.
Ken Drysdale · 3:25:25
So when we came into a room, and, and I want to remind you, it was different, it was a different time now too. People were terrified. People were terrified to come out and talk. The venues were terrified. I often say, you know, we started, we started in Truro, Nova Scotia. That's a wonderful place, by the way. But people say, why didn't you start in Halifax? We couldn't get a venue in Halifax. It wouldn't rent us a room. And then we were in— I can't remember the name of the place in Toronto, but I wouldn't go back there. Nobody would rent us in Toronto. We weren't in Montreal. Because we couldn't get a meeting room in Montreal, we went to Quebec City. Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, they canceled the meeting room for us a week or a few days before, and we met at another interesting place. So very different. And we had witnesses dropping out. I remember in Saskatoon, you know, because the commissioners were independent, we didn't know what was going on in the background.
Ken Drysdale · 3:26:28
And I remember we filed into the room much like you guys do here, and we sat down and the four commissioners were talking to each other. And what we didn't know was that the witnesses that morning all quit because they were terrified. They were terrified about what you're still hearing today, but on steroids, so to speak. You know, you still hear people, they say that they're injured and people start to feel sorry for them or start to empathize with them until it turns out it's a vaccine injury, and then it's something you did wrong or you're crazy. Imagine that, what was going on in people's minds in April and March and May of 2023.
Dean Allison · 3:27:10
And remember, the bank accounts had been frozen, bank accounts recently. So we'd had— we were only— if people were thinking they were only locked down solely because of what the trucker convoy had, had basically caused the government to pause. But bank accounts had been frozen. People were worried about losing their job, and so they back out. And people were— curiously, more people dropped out because of family pressure. So we've had that here, Mr. Drysdale, where witnesses have dropped out because of family pressure. So one witness we had selected, we'd scheduled them, and then we get a call. My daughter-in-law has made it clear I will never see my grandchildren again. If I testified before the Allison Inquiry LIVE and National Citizens' Inquiry LIVE. That was all the time. And we had another witness drop out who had also been scheduled, got through the vetting process, saying, you know, you want me to testify about my mother that died, but my other sibling died, and the only one I have left is my brother, and he's made it clear that he'll have nothing to do with me, but I need his support because I'm injured.
Dean Allison · 3:28:14
And so she dropped out. You know, so that's the type of thing you're, you're sharing.
Stéphanie Giguère · 3:28:18
Yeah.
Ken Drysdale · 3:28:18
And there was, and there was more. I remember, I can't remember the name of the witness in Saskatoon. He started to testify, and in the middle of his testimony, he started to cry uncontrollably. And what he said was he thought he was crazy, he thought he was alone, he thought he'd done something wrong. And this was the first time he felt safe on a national basis to be able to say, or in any basis for that matter, that to describe what had happened to him and where it came from and how he felt about that.
Dean Allison · 3:28:54
Just ask Katun, can I— do you remember the name of the witness that I'll call her a little old lady? I know that she'll be mad if she's watching. Who— so she's at the oncologist's office and she's just told— she's basically just told she has terminal breast cancer. And she's describing how, well, she can't receive the information. She just needs to find a quiet place to basically melt mentally. So she goes into a coffee shop, but she doesn't have a mask. Well, she's got COPD and she's got a doctor's letter saying she can't wear a mask, but they're confronting her and won't let her in. And then somehow that gets to— was it a radio journalist? Some big journalist in Saskatoon. Who on Facebook does a big hate on, on her. So she wakes up with the entire city hating on her when all she was trying to do was find a quiet place and medical excuse not to wear a mask to basically decompress with the knowledge that she's dying of cancer.
Ken Drysdale · 3:29:54
And she wasn't the only one. If you remember the fellow in Truro who testified, he had a heart condition or COPD as well, and he had a doctor's note And he went to a certain store to return something. Do you remember this? And the manager came out and tackled him and started to beat him up. And then the— and he's suing them. I don't know how that lawsuit's gone. It's been a few years. And then the RCMP came and arrested him, and it was all on videotape what had happened. You know, he tried to tell them. He was an elderly man. And we heard those kinds of stories over and over and over again.