Shawn Buckley: Citizen-Run Non-Partisan Inquiry and Permission to Speak¶
Day 4 · 4:31:43 · Shawn Buckley
- ⚖️ Buckley explains the COVID-19 Testimony Association is volunteer and citizen-run so MPs of all parties can listen without partisan ownership.
- 😔 He recounts personal and NCI volunteer stories of myocarditis, deaths after shots, and cancer among people close to participants.
- 🔓 He argues internalized pandemic pressure still chills MPs and clinicians, and that formal listening can free injured people, medicine, and lawmakers to care and speak.
Inquiry counsel frames the project as non-partisan listening that restores permission to acknowledge vaccine injury.
← Dean Allison: Compassion, Compensation Gaps and Canada’s Inquiry Blind Spot | Teresa Buckley: Drew Taylor’s Collapse and Why Silence Must End →
Transcript¶
Shawn Buckley · 4:31:43
My name is Shawn Buckley, and I'm a lawyer that is volunteering with the COVID-19 Testimony Association, which is a not-for-profit that was set up to help manage this inquiry. This inquiry is meant to be a non-partisan inquiry. If it was set up by the Conservative Party or the Liberal Party or the NDP or the Bloc, it would be difficult for other MPs to participate. State. So this is rather unique, is the, the COVID-19 Testimony Association is citizen-run. It's a volunteer organization. So I will be participating, Theresa here who will be speaking next, are participating as volunteers to partner with MPs so that MPs from all stripes of all parties feel free to come and listen to Canadians, because that's all that's happening and the motivation is, is quite something. I was involved in another citizen inquiry, the National Citizen Inquiry, which is in 2003, listened to vaccine-injured persons.
Shawn Buckley · 4:32:54
And I remember there was a volunteer named Christine, and she was getting quite involved. And I asked her, I said, Christine, why are you helping? Why are you volunteering? And her body language, she just froze. She got this pain look on her face and she just froze. And I, I knew that she was volunteering because somebody close to her had been injured by COVID-19 vaccine. I was now just waiting to hear who it was. And she explained that her husband died after taking the shot. Her best friend died after taking the shot and a teenage son of another very good friend died after taking the shot. We've all had this type of experience. For me, early on, once we started this down this road, it was in my neighborhood myocarditis, so that the teenager that did my yard work couldn't do my yard work anymore because of myocarditis. A neighbor a couple doors down in early 30s myocarditis, another neighbor down the block severely bedridden and sick for a long period of time.
Shawn Buckley · 4:34:02
And now it just seems I'm surrounded by people that are getting cancer. In fact, one of the persons that I'm hoping will help in a very significant way with this inquiry, I'm hoping that will be far enough down the cancer journey to be able to participate. And every time everyone I speak to, we all have this experience, have are aware of people, and so this is something that we, we need to address. Now what's interesting is, is even in arriving here today to do this press conference, I've learned that this is a topic that almost seems to be forbidden. You know, MP Dean Allison the, last year indicated, you know, I'd, I'd like to actually just listen to Canadians sharing their stories in a more formal way. Every MP is having this experience in an informal way where Canadians are coming to them and wanting to talk about vaccine injury.
Shawn Buckley · 4:35:04
And we spoke to several MPs, and it's interesting, they'd ask questions like, is, is it okay? Am I going to get into trouble? How is Parliament going to react? How are parties going to react? That there seems to be a fear in actually having people come and formally share their stories before a panel of MPs and Senators are also invited to participate. And it, it's kind of got me thinking, we've gone through this experience where decisions were made to try and get as many people vaccinated as possible, and this inquiry is not here to question any of that at all, but there was pressure and we experienced that pressure, but that pressure is no longer here. We should be free to speak now, and I wonder if what's happened is, is we've internalized that pressure that was there before, and now we need some— something to give us permission to speak again. So it's certainly— I've learned that our lawmakers need permission to speak again, and and I anticipate that the MPs and Senators that participate in this inquiry, which is just to listen to ordinary Canadians sharing their journey, that it's going to be something that will be freeing for all of us.
Shawn Buckley · 4:36:26
Again, this is non-partisan. This is just to create an opportunity for Canadians to share their stories. The Allison Inquiry is not to make any findings.
Shawn Buckley · 4:36:38
There's—.
Shawn Buckley · 4:36:38
We're not— it's not here to grind an axe. It's so that our elected representatives and our appointed Senators have an opportunity to listen to you Canadians. And, you know, as, as MP Dean Allison the, spoke earlier in this press conference, I mean, there are numbers. We know that a lot of us have been injured by the COVID-19 vaccine. And it just raises the question, can we not accept that we're here today, that many of us are injured, and we need to hear their stories and we need to privilege them? You know, when we were doing the National Citizens Inquiry, there were a couple of themes that came out that are troubling, but they need to be addressed and they need to be spoken about. And one was, is people that were vaccine injured injured really felt like they had taken one for the team. And I, I think we need to understand and appreciate that a large number of Canadians were volunteering to take the COVID-19 vaccine to protect the rest of us.
Shawn Buckley · 4:37:46
So they were doing something to protect us. And now that they're injured, we have a responsibility, a, to recognize that they were injured, to listen to their stories, but we also have a tremendous responsibility to care for them. Another thing that they shared, so you know, first, you know, they were doing this to protect others. They, they were taking one for the team, but their experience, many of them, their experience with the medical community was, is that there was a reluctance to accept that they were actually injured by the vaccine. Some of them even described what, what most of us would describe as gaslighting. Like, there's almost this refusal in the medical system to accept that they were vaccine injured. Now, we're all the same. Doesn't matter whether we're just common citizens, whether we're elected Members of Parliament, whether we're healthcare providers. We all had this experience where there was pressure on us not to question And it's reasonable to assume that the medical community has also internalized that pressure because they're there to help us and they're under tremendous strain.
Shawn Buckley · 4:39:01
And we're hoping that having ordinary Canadians sharing their stories at the Allison Inquiry LIVE will also assist the medical community in giving, giving them permission to speak. Because here's the ethical problem that we have. And, you know, we basically have a commandment to love each other like we love ourselves. And when it comes to— here we are in 2026— when it comes to those of us that have been injured by the vaccine, love includes listening to their stories, giving them a safe place for them to understand that, you know, they, they haven't lost their mind, they're not alone, We are going to listen to them, but loving them also includes then those that are vaccine injured, acknowledging that they're vaccine injured so that they can be treated properly, not, oh, it's something else, because there are protocols, there are treatments, and we do a disservice by not having this conversation, by not focusing our care on those who have taken one for the team.
Shawn Buckley · 4:40:06
We do them a disservice. By not having this conversation. So we view this as a real opportunity. This is just an opportunity for Canadians to come together to share their stories in a, in an open, non-partisan environment. And so we are inviting all Canadians, we're inviting those that are vaccine injured to apply to become witnesses. So you can go to Allison Inquiry LIVE, you can also go to coviddetestimony the Allison Inquiry LIVE, you will find us. Apply to be a witness. If you know somebody who's injured, encourage them to apply to be a witness. We are calling on all Members of Parliament and Senators to contact Dean Allison the, and apply to participate in this inquiry. It will change you. You're already listening, and thank you. You're already listening to the stories of Canadians who are vaccine injured.
Shawn Buckley · 4:41:09
We know you're listening. This gives you another forum to do it in a more formal way. We're inviting you to join us. We're inviting the public. We're inviting the public to participate in this. You know, for the vaccine injured that want to have a voice, that want to share their stories, that want to be heard and acknowledged. It's meaningful if there are people to listen. And so we're inviting you. The Allison Inquiry LIVE is going to be heard on September 8, 9, 10, and 11 from a committee room on Parliament Hill. It will be broadcast LIVE, and we're inviting all of Canadians to participate in what we anticipate is going to be a healing journey for the nation and a beginning for us to be free to basically have a conversation about something that we need to have a conversation about, not in a judging way, but just listening to each other's stories so that together we can decide how to best move forward.