Not the Final Word: Examination, Dignity, and Permission to Speak

Day 4 · 8:19:11 · Dean Allison

• 📖 The inquiry was meant to start a years-overdue conversation on pandemic handling, evidence, harms, and future safeguards—not revenge.
• 🔗 Conversation leads to questions, investigation, evidence, better treatment and policy; citizens must listen, share, and demand dignity.
• ✨ Thanks to testifiers, unheard applicants, and families; fearful Canadians now have permission to speak—the silence must never return.

Chair casts the week as the start of accountability and ongoing storytelling, not an endpoint.

← Resist Censorship; Independent Media Drove Massive Reach | Work Not Done: Keep Listening Until the Injured Are Heard →

Transcript

Dean Allison · 8:19:11

So why, so why can't we drive that? Why can't we drive that to 20, 50 to 100 million views, right, as we continue to reshare, uh, people's stories? You know, a free society requires journalists to ask uncomfortable questions. That's why what I see happening. But responsibility does not rest with the politicians or doctors or journalists. It rests with the citizens as well. So I think now more than ever, Canadians need to hear and help people tell their stories. So listen to them and share their experiences. Ask questions, demand evidence, and insist that our institutions treat every Canadian with dignity. This inquiry was never intended to be the final word. It was intended to begin a conversation that should have begun years ago. And some of you told me that we, we should have started this ages ago, but there still needs to be a serious examination of how the pandemic was handled, what governments got right, what they got wrong, what evidence decisions were based upon, what harms occurred, and what must be done differently in the future.

Dean Allison · 8:20:13

This examination should not be about revenge. It should be about accountability, learning, and ensuring that mistakes are not repeated. Most importantly, we need to continue talking about these experiences because silence does not help people find answers. Conversations lead to questions. Questions lead to investigation, and investigation leads to evidence, and evidence can lead to better treatment better policy, and hopefully help for people who desperately need it. To everyone who testified during this inquiry, thank you for your courage. To everyone who applied to testify but to whom we could not hear you, uh, during these four days, your story still matters. To the families who stood beside someone who is suffering, thank you. And to the Canadians watching who have been afraid to speak about what happened to You have permission to speak.

Dean Allison · 8:21:15

The silence has been broken. Our responsibility now is to make sure it never is imposed again.