CALGARY, Alberta, April 29, 2020 (Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms) — The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca) has written letters to each of the 14 Chief Medical Officers of Health, in every province, territory and federally.
“The lockdowns and social isolation measures imposed by governments on citizens risk throwing millions of Canadians into unemployment, bankruptcy or poverty, and in many cases all three. Social isolation, combined with unemployment and poverty, predictably lead to numerous adverse health outcomes: depression, anxiety, alcoholism, other addictions, drug overdoses, mental illness, obesity and suicides,” stated lawyer John Carpay, president of the Justice Centre.
“I trust that Canada’s Chief Medical Officers have a broad-based and comprehensive concern about the health and lives of Canadians, one that extends to preventing deaths and adverse health outcomes, regardless of their source or cause,” continued Carpay. “Doctors are concerned that the cancellation of non-emergency surgeries, as well as the fear that patients now have of going to the hospital to obtain help, are causing adverse health outcomes, and in some cases death.”
The Justice Centre’s letters ask the Chief Medical Officers to give serious consideration to the number of lives that will be lost, as well as adverse health outcomes, as a result of the social isolation and economic devastation that government measures against COVID-19 are inflicting on citizens.
The Justice Centre’s letters request candid and detailed responses to the following questions:
1. How many suicides are projected to take place as a result of the government having shut down much of our economy, forcing people into unemployment, bankruptcy, or poverty?
2. How many do you project will die because of the rise in depression, anxiety, alcoholism, other addictions and drug overdoses that the lockdown and associated unemployment and social isolation will cause, as the lockdown drags on for weeks or even months?
3. How many children and spouses do you project will be abused while couples and parents remain confined to their homes, in many cases unemployed, without their usual income and social connections?
4. How many children will be put in foster care because of domestic abuse, or loss of their parents’ ability to provide for them, or both?
5. How many isolated seniors are projected to become sick or die because they no longer receive regular visitors, such that nobody is able to take them to their own family doctor, or take them to an emergency unit at the hospital? How many will die at home, alone?
6. How many people are projected to die or to suffer permanent damage because their non-emergency (elective) surgery, their testing and their various treatments have been cancelled due to your singular focus on fighting COVID-19?
7. How many people are projected to suffer serious harm caused by lack of access to secondary health providers they regularly rely on, such as physiotherapists, massage therapists, optometrists, chiropractors, osteopaths, podiatrists and dentists?
8. How many people are projected to die or suffer serious harm because they believe (correctly or incorrectly) that they cannot go see their doctor, or that they cannot check into emergency at the hospital?
9. How many children, confined to their homes while schools and playgrounds are closed and athletic and recreational activities are shut down, are projected to develop diabetes or other chronic health conditions?
10. How many people will develop psychiatric disorders caused by governments having eliminated social interaction at restaurants, pubs, churches, recreational facilities and community centres?
11. Have you or your staff researched any of these questions here above?
12. If yes to the foregoing question, have you created any models, estimates or projections in regard to any or all of these causes of illness, harm and death, in the same way that you have relied on models, estimates and projections in regard to COVID-19?
13. If yes to the foregoing question, I request copies of those models, estimates and projections.
Published with permission from the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms.