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Unvaccinated Label, Online Hate and Detention Nightmares

Day 3 · 3:57:37 · Stéphanie Giguère · Dean Allison · Teresa Buckley · Blaine Calkins

  • 🗣️ With only one dose she was treated as unvaccinated; Trudeau's 'racists, misogynists, extremists' rhetoric and talk of camps left her with PTSD dreams of being dragged onto buses.
  • 💻 Online, both vaccinated and unvaccinated told the injured to die; she kept speaking to prevent further harm and compiled 404 peer-reviewed references for WorkSafeBC.
  • 🚫 WorkSafe denied her claim citing 'no data' while the medical reviewer had posted wishing death on the unvaccinated and mocking the injured.

Social stigma, political rhetoric and claim denial.

← Gaslighting Diagnosis and Naturopathic Lifeline | Q&A: Social and Mental Harm Across Canada →

Transcript

Stéphanie Giguère · 3:57:37

I don't recall how I answered.

Dean Allison · 3:57:39

You actually said it was the gaslighting and the online hate, and you even gave an example and the pool lady.

Stéphanie Giguère · 3:57:46

Well, I mean, there's been interesting debate around whether Justin Trudeau said it or not, but I am a native French speaker and he did call us extremists, racists, and misogynist people who did not believe in science. And I want to say for context that having had only one dose, um, I was considered unvaccinated, right? I did not receive any exemption. BC does not give exemptions as far as I know. They give 6-month deferrals that have to be renewed every time. And so to become an unvaccinated, to become a hated person in my own country, to be told by all kinds of people that I don't understand the scientific method, that I'm anti-science, that I'm misogynistic and racist and a whack job, and a little tinfoil hat person was extremely offensive to me.

Stéphanie Giguère · 3:58:47

And many apologies are owed to us, all of us, the vaccine injured, the unvaccinated. I am disgusted by what happened. People killed themselves. We had suicide on our hands. People accepted MAiD because they were coerced into it, and the public cheered to see us die.

Dean Allison · 3:59:08

We've got people from around the world watching, so I'm just going to give them some context when you're saying racist and misogynist. So just for the rest of the world, Canadians know this, but our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was on a Quebec television show and he's talking about the unvaccinated. And I think he asks the question, the rhetorical question, How long are we going to tolerate them? And as we know from MLA, Ontario MLA Hillier, he was asking why the federal government was building detention camps across Canada. And so we know we're building detention camps and our prime minister on television is saying, how long are we going to tolerate them, the unvaccinated? And that's the show where he called the unvaccinated racists and misogynists. So for the rest of the world, just imagine your leader while the government is building detention camps on national television asking, how long are we going to tolerate them?

Dean Allison · 4:00:16

Meaning the unvaccinated. Stéphanie Giguère, in the province where I was, Alberta, the opposition leader, Rachel Notley, was calling for the army to go door to door to identify the unvaccinated. And when I lecture and would lecture in Alberta after things calmed down and you could actually have public gatherings, I would sometimes ask the audience, well, put up your hand if during the dark days of COVID you honestly believe that the army would be going door to door dragging unvaccinated people out of their homes and forcefully vaccinating them. And sometimes almost every arm goes up. Now, how does a population in Alberta heal from that? I don't know the answer, but it's just— this is what you're talking about.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:01:10

And these are the dreams that I still suffer from. These are the dreams that I've had. People coming, throwing me on the bus, sending me to the camp.

Dean Allison · 4:01:20

Can you tell us about those dreams in a little more detail?

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:01:26

You know, people in uniform kicking in my door, coming to drag me out of bed, maybe by my hair, maybe giving me another brain injury by roughing me up, pushing me on a bus, taking me God knows where to do to me God knows what. I wake up in tears. I wake up in panic. I haven't slept well in all these years. I have been surrounded by enemies. I have been identified as an enemy of the state. Trudeau didn't just call us misogynist and racist, he said we are extremists.

Teresa Buckley · 4:02:08

He said we're dangerous.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:02:13

So I don't know, I don't know what else tell you about this terrible, terrible post-traumatic symptoms that I'm living with every day.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:02:23

Every day.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:02:24

How do you live in a society that has done this to you? Where the media has been complicit with this? When the government lied to your face? Where your MP's office and your MLA's office hung up on you? How are secretaries enabled to decide what's important for the country, what is of national interest. It's rhetorical. They're not. They shouldn't be. It's disgusting what happened to us.

Blaine Calkins · 4:02:56

Now, aside from the government, there was also citizens. You, you spoke to me about online, online hatred.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:03:04

Well, the group we don't talk about— we had the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, the pro-vax and the pro-choice. There's a third group. There's a third group of us that was wanted dead by everybody. I believe Carol Avoine said this morning, you know, the vaccinated told us, oh, you're, you're dangerous, you know, it's not true, you're a liar. Some unvaccinated told us, ah, you were dumb enough to take it, just go die. So there's a lot of that, there's a lot of that. Not a lot of empathy, not a lot of kindness, not a lot of real respect or any consideration for evidence, for that matter. No consideration. So online was cruel, but I decided to keep speaking because we have to tell the truth. We have to prevent other people from being hurt. We need to study people like me. When my workers' comp, um, claim was denied I was told there was no data.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:04:05

Ironically, when I was able to start reading again, I started devouring neurological journals and I started reviewing cases that resembled mine. And I excluded strokes because there was thousands of those and I needed a team for stroke. So I left stroke alone and it was pretty simple. I looked at things that were more differently complex and I came up with 404 references of, you know, peer-reviewed, blah, blah, blah, real journals. And I put together a bibliography. I did the literature review and I sent it to workers' comp, which is WorkSafeBC.

Teresa Buckley · 4:04:41

And a fine assistant put my bibliography on top of everything.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:04:48

And then she slid in the doctor. Oh, Charlene Kotzi. I'll tell you about her later.

Blaine Calkins · 4:04:55

Who said there is no data to support, you know, There is no data.

Stéphanie Giguère · 4:05:00

I'm like, I am the data. Charlene was my medical reviewer and she had countless posts and I got screenshots of her wishing death on the unvaccinated, calling them all COVID-19 idiots and also mocking the vaccine injured. So this is the person who decided to deny my claim. It's just shocking. Shame on her.

Blaine Calkins · 4:05:27

I think we're learning at this inquiry that nothing is shocking.

Dean Allison · 4:05:32

Uh, thank you, Stephy. Thank you very much for being here. We, we do appreciate your time. I know we have a couple questions and we're running close to time. Mr. Dawson, turn over to you, sir.