That was a case where I was asking the court

to find us a fact that Health Canada had killed people

because they took a product off the market after patients

and doctors and psychiatrists begged them not to.

And I mean, I called one witness, I called Ron Lashes,

who was the, uh, during that crisis, was the president

of the Canadian Mental Health Association in Alberta.

And he would hold press conferences after every suicide.

I mean, this truly was life and death.

And it took me years to understand

that Health Canada is not there to protect our health.

Greetings. Hello. Good day.

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Thank you so much for joining True Hope Cast,

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My name is Simon, and I'm your host.

True Hope Canada is a mind

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We have a really special guest with us today, lawyer

and president of the Natural Health Product Protection

Association, Sean Buckley.

Sean has decades of experience dealing with Health Canada

to help keep natural health products available

to all Canadians.

Sean's reputation has reached Canada's Parliament,

national media, influential Civil Liberty organizations,

and tens of thousands of Canadian citizens.

His expertise combines detailed knowledge

of our Constitution and the Food

and Drug Act with 25 years experience successfully defending

natural health stakeholders from

prosecution by Health Canada.

Okay, Sean, thank you very much for being with us.

Welcome to the show. How you doing?

I'm doing well and really glad

to be here. Thank you. Awesome.

Well, before we, um, find out a little bit about you,

I would love to jump straight into, um,

what the Natural Health Products Protection Association

or the N-H-P-P-A is and what you guys do

and what you guys are are doing going forward.

Okay. So, uh, the Natural Health Products Protection

Association, which I'll just abbreviate to N-H-P-P-A

'cause that's quite a mouthful.

Um, we formed actually just

before the Bill C 51 fight years ago

because there wasn't an independent watchdog out there.

So our, our intention was to take,

you know, really cogent and serious

and non alarmist legal analysis of

what was coming down the pipe

and things Health Canada were doing

and act as a watchdog

for the natural health product industry.

But we kind of morphed more into a, a consumer organization

because it was consumers that, that started supporting us

and, and getting all excited.

And so we're still doing the watchdog role,

but when things arise, we try to equip people to take action

and encourage them to take action.

So it's kind of a morphed into a dual role and, uh,

and we're really just thankful for the support

that we've gotten over the years.

And that was birthed out of the, um, kind

of public interest in regards to the, the C 51 bill?

No, actually, and this is the thing is, so we formed,

it's, uh, you know, there's a gentleman in Kalos,

Peter Helgason, who at the time was working

for Strauss Herb Company.

And, uh, he encouraged me and, uh, and true hope Patty

and Stewart come and, and, uh, help us out.

And the three of us put together the N-H-P-P-A

and got out off the ground.

We, none of us knew

that Bill C 51 was going to be introduced.

And so we're actually in the process of forming.

We don't have offices, we don't have

organization, we don't have phones.

And all of a sudden this bill gets introduced

and, you know, we're in this fight.

So, uh, yeah, so from day one, yeah, from day one. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So yeah, it was, uh,

it was really quite something.

I was kind of fortunate that,

that you kind of had the ball rolling.

'cause if if, if that came about

and nothing was happening, it could have been a big hurdle.

Yeah, no, no. The timing was, uh, was fortuitous.

Okay. That's great.

Um, why don't you tell us a little bit about your journey,

um, into law

and how you found yourself working within this kind

of particular category.

Right. Okay. Well, I might skip my journey into law.

Okay, sure. 'cause that's, we all make bad decisions,

so, but, um, I, I started practicing law

and in Kamloops,

and at the time, uh,

the firm I was at had the federal contract

for the Federal Crown.

So if, you know, something came up in the Kamloops area

that, that needed some attention, they dealt with it.

And there was a herbalist in town named Jim Strauss

who was suing the federal government

because they had taken a bunch of their herb of his herbs.

So he was a herbalist

and he had ordered a bunch of herbs from the Strai states,

perfectly legal for him to import.

But Health Canada had a real bee in their bonnet

because he was helping people.

And so they seized these herbs and he was suing them.

And I got the file.

So I was, uh, acting for Health Canada

against this herbalist.

And, um, it, it's interesting

'cause it speaks to the character of Jim Strauss.

So I have his matter thrown out of court

because he's in the wrong court.

So his case basically ended that day

and he takes me out for lunch

and, you know, so we just developed, uh,

started a friendship at that point.

When was this? What year is this?

Uh, this was 1994. Okay.

So, um, and then I leave that firm and I start my own firm.

And I can't tell you if it was one year later

or two years later, it wasn't that long.

And he got charged by the province

for practicing medicine without a license.

So Health Canada, Canada had failed to shut him down.

And, and if I can just segue about a funny story Sure.

That just came to mind about Jim.

'cause he, you know,

health Canada had raided his little store

and it, it was just a little

herb shop called Natural Way Herbs.

And they had, you know, they were just tormenting him.

And on their first visit they said, well, you have

to have a sign between the front where people are come

to purchase stuff in the back where you formulate.

So he put a sign up saying, you know,

only employees allowed.

And the next time Health Canada showed up,

he wouldn't let them back there.

And he kept pointing at the sign, only employees allowed.

I love it. So yeah, he was, he was a really,

really nice gentleman.

So he got, starts

with practicing medicine without a license.

His, um, his flagship product was the Strauss Heart Drops.

And they came about, um, because of his history

and then a health problem, he had us, he grew up in Austria

and just, you know, and, uh,

his family had been traditional healers for four centuries,

and he was trained by his grandparents, like he described

to me, literally getting dragged out into the forest,

you know, pick the herbs and being taught on them

and tasting them, which is really fantastic.

Like now when we formulate, you have a lab tell you

how much active ingredients you have,

but when you didn't have that, what do you do?

Yeah, you do things like taste.

And, uh, so he, he doesn't, didn't practice as a herbalist.

He was actually an electrical engineer working for BC Hydro.

And he has a heart attack.

He's rushed to the hospital

and he's informed that he needs to have, you know,

double bypass to survive.

And he didn't like that idea.

So he left and he formulated these heart drops

and never did have a bypass surgery.

I think his heart attack was in 82,

and if I'm, if I have my dates correct, you know, he

probably died about 10 years ago in a, in a care facility,

you know, quite aged.

Yeah. So, yeah.

And then he decided, well, I better start selling these.

And he was, um,

let's just say he was vocal about wanting to help people.

So he drove around in a white van with red letters,

we cure heart disease.

And in the province of British Columbia,

that's practicing medicine without a license.

I see. And making a treatment claim.

So they, the Health Canada had failed to shut him down.

So they were going after him.

And, and in preparing for the trial, this is

'cause you asked kind of how did I do this journey?

Yeah. When he first hired me, it was, you know,

just another file, okay, I am gonna defend you.

And, um, but on the facts, we were dead in the water.

I mean, you can't make treatment

claims unless you're a doctor.

He was making treatment claims

and it was like, well, how do we defend this?

And I thought, well, let's go

after the legislation for violating freedom of expression,

because we have, you know, the right to freedom

of expression in our charter.

And here we have only doctors being allowed

to make treatment claims.

So I, I served the Crown with notice

that we were gonna ask the court to strike down that piece

of legislation that protected the doctors

and made a decision that, you know,

I'm gonna have better luck getting a judge

to strike down the legislation

for violating freedom of expression.

If I can show that what Jim was saying was truthful.

And obviously there's no clinical trials

or anything like that at the time.

So I go to his shop

and I ask him, you know, is there, you know,

how are we gonna show that you're, you're telling the truth?

Like, sure, we have your story, but that's just your story.

And he brought me out thousands of letters

that people had written to him.

And first you have to understand,

he wasn't asking people to write him letters.

You know, some companies, they, if somebody's really happy,

they're, they try

to encourage some positive he wasn't doing that.

These are just people that wrote him

because they felt compelled to,

and when I'm going through all these letters back at the

office, literally they were identical.

I had heart disease, I took your heart drops, I got,

well, thank you.

Lots of god bless yous in there. And that is pure hearsay.

I can't enter that evidence at all,

but I can call the people that wrote the letters.

And that's not hearsay. They're then telling their story.

So I, I started phoning people and, uh,

because there were so many to, to choose from,

I was able to cherry pick.

So I had on the day of trial,

five middle class professionals,

which I want middle class professionals

because a middle class professional judge

is gonna find them credible.

Yep, that makes sense. They had all had heart disease.

They had all had bypass surgery.

Every single one of them had had at

least one bypass surgery.

One or one or two of them might have had two

bypass surgeries already.

They'd all continued to plug up

because the medical system wasn't addressing the problem

that was causing them to plug up.

And they all needed another bypass surgery.

And some of them were, a couple of them were too weak

to survive the surgery.

So the doctors just basically said, we'll, go home and die.

And a couple of them, they had had so many complications

with the first surgery

or surgeries that they were no longer,

they just simply weren't willing to go through it again

to buy a little more time.

None of them had been into natural health.

Um, but they're motivated to look for answers now.

And, and one way

or another, they all came across the heart drops usually

because a naturopathic doctor or

or another practitioner referred them to them.

They all got well,

and they were all working at the time of trial.

Most, some of them hadn't been able to work for years.

So that was kind of my road

to Damascus conversion experience,

because when I was acting against Jim Strauss

for Health Canada, you know, health Canada, and,

and I'll just say that when I left the firm, um,

to start my own firm, I actually spoke with Health Canada

and said, you know, is it okay to me for me

to talk about this stuff?

And I had been given the permission.

And you know, I think actually they were hopeful

that if I, you know, worked with Mr.

Strauss, that, you know, he might become more

reasonable as they saw it.

Right. So, um,

but when I was working for El Canada, I mean,

literally they viewed him as a rogue herbalist.

And can you imagine the danger here?

You had some, you know, just guy

treating people for serious health conditions

and Health Canada has not approved that therapy.

Oh my gosh, this, and I saw the world that way.

So like, that's such an interesting segue

into Health Canada.

What are they doing? What's their primary objective?

What should their primary objective be?

Because just listening to that story,

it doesn't really sound like Health Canada going

after Jim in that way, really has, especially

with the evidence that you have as well.

Um, the anecdotal evidence from, from those individuals,

it doesn't really sound like Health Canada has got the

health of Canadians as their primary motivation

to be in existence.

Yeah. Well, you have no idea.

And, and I will answer that question

because it's such an important question,

and I'll just finish my little explanation.

So I was viewing the world

really the way Health Canada viewed it,

and the way a lot of people in our society

who just assume the government is there to help you.

Um, but, you know,

after I prepared for that trial, I,

the danger was completely different.

There was no question in my mind the danger wasn't

allowing him to sell the heart drops.

The danger was taking them off the market,

literally, you would cause deaths.

Like it became clear, this is a life and death issue.

And after, you know, we were successful on that file,

other companies started coming and, and now I'm motivated.

And it's just, it's spooky how often it's life and death.

So, um, you guys, you've spoken about True Hope in the past.

I mean, that was a case where I was asking the court to find

as a fact that Health Canada had killed people

because they took a product off the market after patients

and doctors and psychiatrists begged them not to.

And I mean, I called one witness, I called Ron Lashes,

who was the, uh, during that crisis, was the president

of the Canadian Mental Health Association in Alberta.

And he would hold press conferences after every suicide.

I mean, this truly was life and death.

And it took me years to understand

that Health Canada is not there to protect our health.

They portray this image

because that gives them some moral authority

to basically convince people that they're doing good.

And my first experience, like,

or one of the first kind of times where I,

I had basically had to realize I had

to start thinking about them differently was

during the True Hope criminal trial.

So for those who don't know, true Hope has a, a supplement

to treat bipolar disorder and,

and some other mental health conditions.

And Health Canada had tried

to take the product off the market for a while and,

and succeeded causing a lot of, of

literally death in mayhem.

And then after the Minister of Health struck a deal

with True Hope to permit True Hope

to continue selling into Canada.

So we've already resolved the problem.

After that, they charged crew hope, true Hope criminally

to in one more attempt to drive the product from the market.

And I've got this Health Canada inspector on the

stand, I think it was Ms.

Wheelock, and I'm wanting to make a point

as I cross-examine her.

And so I've got a bunch of setup questions

that I'm expecting her to answer.

Yes. And one of them was something to the effect, well,

you know, health Canada's there to protect her health,

and I'm just expecting a yes.

And she says no, or some, or she disagrees.

In any event, she wasn't,

there's no way she was giving me a yes.

And you're having one of these moments where you're going,

well, okay, I I've gotta press that.

She's not giving me the answer. And she wouldn't.

And she basically explained, no, we are there

to enforce the law.

Well, when you think about it, you know,

parliament passes the Food and Drug Act and regulations,

and who enforces that?

That's why Health Canada is there.

Health Canada is there to enforce the law.

Nowhere in the Food and Drug Act

or the regulations does it say that we're trying

to get good health outcomes.

They are not given any compassionate discretion.

They are not given any discretion to bend regulation

or law when to enforce it would cause death

or immense suffering.

So the first point to understand is, is they are not there

to protect health because Parliament didn't put

them there to protect health.

They're there to enforce the law.

And that's really interesting, especially with the,

the whole true hope thing.

Because I've listened to a bunch of your videos online,

and when you talk about the case, I mean,

you're talking about, you know, doing these cross

examinations with, um, health Canada officials.

And they are, they're in full knowledge that they're,

they taking away

and blocking product at the border from, you know,

from America to Canada.

The products were made in America, unputed in Canada,

their full knowledge that there's a big chance

that people are gonna get sick and even

and even commit suicide and die if they do this.

If, am I right in saying that these,

these particular inspectors at the border knew this

and acted basically, they were just like their responses.

They, they're just doing their job even though they knew

that they could have serious

ramifications for a lot of people's health.

It's, uh, it doesn't bode well for what we're facing today

with, you know, our lockdowns

and let's scare everyone into taking vaccines

and the whole thing that, um, it seems that

employees will do whatever they're told

because it's not their responsibility

because they're being told to do it, it's their job.

And I think, you know, history, we're like, we're gonna have

to live this several more times as a species, I think

before we figure out that people have to be responsible

for their own actions and take responsibility.

So, but another thing about Health Canada's purpose,

and it's more subtle,

but if you want to ensure that you have access to

natural treatments, is, um, you know,

the whole purpose of our food and drug legislation,

and it took me well over a decade to figure this out.

But the whole purpose is not to license treatments

that are safe and effective.

I mean, our law is written that they will only,

you know, those are the tests.

Basically. The benefit has to outweigh the harm

before you'll approve anything.

But the whole purpose of our food and drug laws

and audience listen carefully,

it has nothing to do with health.

The purpose of our food

and drug laws are to protect intellectual property rights.

And they're very effective at that.

And because the purpose is to

protect intellectual property rights, it means that

you will not have access to remedies that are safe

and effective that did not have patent protection.

And so here's how it works, is to get approval

to treat any serious condition,

and I'll use the word serious,

because right now it only applies to serious conditions.

You have to go through the new drug approval process.

It has been a while since I've had anyone talk

to me about the cost of that.

But the last time I had an expert on the stand,

an expert in the, the drug approval process, uh,

it was actually Mr. Bruce Dales who,

I mean Russia brought him over

to help set up their drug regulations.

The guy knows his stuff,

and he explained under oath that, you know,

back then it was roughly about a billion dollars

to go through this process.

This is an application process.

Yeah. The new drug approval process. Yeah.

And well, I mean, you have to do, I mean,

your stability studies, you have to do, um, your,

you know, animal safety studies,

which there's several layers to that.

And then you have to, uh, do your human safety studies

and then your large double blind clinical trial efficacy

studies and, and the processes.

I mean, even the, you know, application fees are nosebleed,

you know, a a small company would never even think of that.

And that money is pretty much just going straight

to into Health Canada.

Health Canada would not survive without the, the fees.

I, I expect probably about two thirds

of their budget comes from the pharmaceutical companies,

which is a huge conflict of interest, which it makes, yeah.

They're there to protect intellectual property rights,

which serves the pharmaceutical companies.

And they basically exist

because of the fees from the pharmaceutical companies.

They know where their bread is buttered.

But back to how, um,

we're protecting intellectual property rights

because it is so expensive, you'll only see, I, you know,

I'm in my mid fifties in my lifetime.

There's never been a product that, through that process,

that did not have a patent, you know,

with a decent patent, life still left.

And I will never see it in my life,

and you'll never see it in your life.

Which means that the only legal treatments

for Sears health conditions are products

that had a patent when they went

through the drug approval process.

Well, guess what? Products have patents,

not natural products, novel chemicals.

The chemicals are usually based on natural molecules,

but they've been tweaked so that they can be patented.

So you may have the natural molecule, you know, in a plant

that would work better and safer.

I mean, wiped Willa Bar comes to mind, right?

I mean, how many people are being told

to take a baby aspirin every day,

even though a fair percentage of them do have, you know,

digestive problems and bleeding and stuff.

Whereas, you know,

there's clinical trial evidence showing you get the exact

same benefit with white willow bark without any

of the bleeding side effects,

but your doctor's never gonna tell you

to use white willow bark.

And what's happening with, uh, our drug regulation and,

and why it's important

to have this interview right now is this.

So I've explained that basically the system is geared,

so only chemicals can be used

to treat serious health conditions that's being expanded to

moderate and even minor health conditions.

So this is with this self-care framework, what's

so scary about it is that when you read it,

what basically they're going to phase in slowly is to

impose the same standards of evidence that you have

for chemical drugs onto natural,

what we call now natural health products,

which Health Canada is doing everything they can

to get us using the term self-care product

to control the language.

If all of these products are self-care products, well,

why wouldn't we have a single set of regulations for them?

And we also are going to lose the ability

to use traditional use evidence to support a health claim.

So right now, one of the, one of the things that you can use

to support, uh,

some health claims when you're licensing a natural health

product is traditional, traditional use

and traditional references.

And, you know, like I like scurvy as an example.

Like surely to goodness, even the British naval records

will conclusively prove that, you know,

you give people limes and you cure scurvy.

But if, you know, for whatever reason scurvy became a

problem, again, it would be illegal.

You and I couldn't, you know, we'd say, Hey, let's, let's

dehydrate limes so, and throw it in capsules

and make it really easy to take.

And well, we would never get through the process

because we don't have an intell, we don't have a patent.

And you couldn't use that past evidence that

No, we're gonna, we're gonna lose that ability.

That's wild. So, so we're, we're going

to be moving into a world

where natural practitioners are gonna find

that they have access to fewer and fewer and fewer tools

because the, the treatments will be taken away.

Like they're not gonna be able to make the claims.

And again, this is just

to protect intellectual property rights.

What do you think the end goal dream of Health Canada is?

I mean, quite clearly, just from a very few examples of,

you're speaking about for 25 minutes,

that they quite clearly don't really have the health

of Canadians as a priority,

and they're making a lot of effort, spending a lot

of taxpayers money to take our ability to go

to a natural health food store or go

and see a traditional practitioner for things that,

you know, we, we need help with.

What's the, what do you think the

goal is of like Health Canada?

What, what's the, what's their dream?

Well, I, I don't think anyone can answer that question.

I, I can't, I can't speculate.

I can say, I mean, a lot

of the Health Canada people I've interacted with, I mean,

they're true believers in what they're doing.

And, you know, some of them, you know, really believe

that they're protecting people.

And the odd time they are, I mean, I,

the odd time it, it's a rare day when I have a file

and I think they're actually doing some good,

but, you know, there's the odd company

that's adulterated products

deliberately and things like that.

And, and, uh, but it's our whole concept that's flawed.

I mean, when you have, when you're regulating remedies

and you're saying, only remedies we approve of can be used,

I mean, that in itself is quite a concept.

So it literally means that if you have, you know, an illness

that is either is gonna kill you

or that is debilitating you, you are suffering

and the legal approved treatments don't work

for you, you are out of luck.

Like it basically, you don't have control over your body.

If you can't choose how you're gonna treat yourself

or how you're gonna prevent yourself from getting sick.

I mean, they might as well put the tags in our ear like

cattle and let's stop pretending that, you know,

we're sovereign human beings because we are not.

And does that, does that not really, um, connect

with the fact where, you know,

we obviously have these rights of, um,

like non invasive treatments.

I wanna use like the PCR Covid test for an example.

Like, you know, if you go to an,

if you fly internationally into a Calgary right now,

you are supposed to get this test

before you're allowed, allowed to leave or go to a facility.

But, you know, there are, um, there are aspects in our,

in our rights where we can reject to actually do, do

that test because it's, you know,

it's an invasive, it's an invasive thing.

Does that not really connect with the fact that I would like

to have the right to be able to choose

a natural health product over, over this like, very, very

serious pharmaceutical drug,

which in some aspects can be very, very helpful.

But the side effects and the whole, whole idea

that Health Canada is like pushing us all towards this one

sided one option, it's literally this with side effects

or death or a life of pain

and suffering, does, is there no like link

or connection regardless to those legislations that,

you know, I I I feel like I should get to choose what I

do and don't put in my body?

Yeah. Well, I, I think we've all learned over the last 12

to 14 months that rights are absolutely meaningless

if people are not willing to stand up

and demand that they have the rights.

And as it turns out, Canadians are not willing to stand up

and demand that they have rights.

So, you know, it's, it's quite astounding

what we are experiencing as far as that goes.

And, you know, we're not, we are basically taught,

like right now, we're in a, a total climate of fear and,

and fear is the wrong emotion to be in,

in making important health decisions.

But, um, even just, you know, the concept, so back

to this concept that you're only allowed to take things

that the government says you can take, you know, we,

we'd all agree with a, a government body saying,

actually we think this is dangerous

and you shouldn't, shouldn't do it.

But to be actively making sure

that alternatives are not on the market

because they aggressively go

after products that haven't been approved.

No natural products can be approved for serious conditions.

So it's the minute you're treating, you know,

heart disease like Mr.

Strauss was, or bipolar disorder, like true Hope does,

or, you know, arthritis, like I'll leave the company

out 'cause I haven't talked to 'em.

But I mean, just the list goes on and on and on.

They, they are aggressive at taking these

things off of the market.

And, you know, the idea that people like it's you

that suffers when you're, you have an illness

and Health Canada inspectors don't share your suffering

and the idea that they get to decide how you treat yourself,

people have to start thinking about that and,

and asking if they're okay about that.

I, it's not just in an area of health.

Our whole approach to government

and rights has been turned on its head.

You know, the com you're from the UK

and we have uk um, civil law tradition.

Well, that tradition was that

rights are vested in the individual

and the government, you know,

through the elected representatives can restrict that.

So, you know, parliament can pass a bill saying, yeah,

you can't break into somebody's house,

you can't steal their car.

We'll, we'll put limits on what we can do through agreement,

but if it doesn't say

we haven't restricted ourselves, we're free.

Whereas the civil tradition across the

channel, it was the opposite.

The rights vested in the government,

which would then grant you access.

So even in the area of natural health, I mean,

Germany has a list of approved products.

If it's not on the list, you can't, you can't,

that's pure civil law tradition.

But what's happened over the last 20 years is,

and not just in the area of health,

but Canada, we have completely moved our thinking

more towards the civil system where the government

grants US rights

and uh, our whole tradition has been

undermined in a blink of eye.

I don't recognize our legal approach anymore.

Yeah, that's wild. It's a,

it's a very difficult thing to get your head around.

And I, I'm, what worries me is that a lot of people, a lot

of people have no idea that, you know, our freedom

to choose natural health products

and therapies is under attack.

And it's been under attack for a long, a long time.

And it's under attack from a well-funded, um,

aggressive approach.

Um, like in real simple terms, what do,

what do people like really need

to know apart from like, some of this information?

Like what are the simple facts that people need to know

to get, you know, enraged and engaged?

Oh, well now your guess is as good as mine.

'cause I have to tell you, I am, you know,

continually amazed at how the majority

of people will just simply do nothing.

So, you know, obviously we need to share what's happening

and, you know, often I do that with basically life

and death stories and how important this is just

to drive the point home, right?

But, um, I dunno,

and maybe what's happening with

with Covid will start waking people up

because most

of us hadn't have not experienced anything like this before.

And it's certainly clear that, you know, this concept

of rights and freedoms is not what we thought it was.

So, I mean, I, I feel like, you know, writing a letter

to the Prime Minister asking, well what,

what is the parole process?

I, you know, I know I haven't been convicted of anything,

but, you know, I've been really good

and I wanna be able to get outta my house.

Yeah, right. Like, and I'm saying this jokingly,

but you know, a lot of, a lot of people who do, you know,

horrible crimes don't get punished as much as we have.

That's a very interesting point. So, yeah, absolutely.

Um, I mean, what can, like, what, I mean, I, I was aware

of a lot of this information,

but I can pretty much guarantee that 99% people, 99.9%

of people have no idea about it.

What can, what can I do like right now to, to get involved?

Okay, so one thing that I would like you to do is,

and you've mentioned the, the NHPA and,

and so if anyone listening just, you know, our website is

nhpa.org and give us your email address.

We have a, we have a page where you can do that.

And the reason why we want your email address,

we actually don't send out a lot of emails,

but when something comes up where we need to educate you

and give you action on, then we're gonna let you know

and try and equip you to plug in.

If, and there's other health organizations

that you can join, plug yourself in so

that when something comes up, you at least have the option

to choose whether or not you're gonna get involved or not.

Another, another thing that is very important

for your listeners who have never heard of the Charter

of Health Freedom, when the bill C

51 fight had died down,

although Bill C 51 was, you know,

a really significant attempt by the government

to totally torpedo natural health products

and move us away from the rule of law in the area

of natural health, it was really only part

of an ongoing process.

And the amount of energy that went into defeating

that effort of the governments was profound.

And yet we were no farther ahead.

We had just kind of put things on hold for a while.

And so groups from across the country

got together for two meetings.

So we had, you know, industry representatives,

we had consumer groups, we had practitioners.

And the question was, how do we stop this?

And the answer that we came up with was,

we basically need a bill of rights, a health bill of rights

that has precedence over ordinary legislation

and entrenches actually health rights

that the courts already say that we have.

And actually brings the question of health, this balancing

of, of benefit over, you know, cost

into a legal framework.

So we, we, um, ended up writing over time

what was called the Charter of Health Freedom.

And we have the Charter of Health Freedom,

I think you can get to it, you can

through the N-H-P-P-A site,

and we've got a bunch of videos on it.

So your, your listeners a can get a copy of it and read it,

but it is in legal e So for example, you know, what comes

to mind right now is that part of it

that says it takes precedence over other bills.

But we just took that wording out

of the Canadian Bill of Rights.

So it's written, you know, as a statute and,

but we do have videos to explain now

what your listeners can do is,

is we have been slowly collecting petitions and we started

before there were electronic petitions, you actually have

to print the thing out

and get it, um, get people to sign it and send it in.

But I think we are already, um, the second largest

petition in like 30 or 40 years, we haven't filed yet.

'cause once you file, they stop counting. Right.

So we wanna file them all at once. Okay.

But where that's helpful is it just,

it will help us get some momentum

to get that pushed forward.

So, but plug yourself into a group,

educate yourself about some of the initiatives

that are out there and get involved. Have you had like a

Good response with that?

The email sign up for the N-H-P-P-A?

Um, well it actually, it depends on what's happening.

So when things are relatively quiet,

we are relatively quiet and no.

And then when, you know, something blows up, all

of a sudden everyone's interested

and, you know, we get support.

So it's, it's really, um,

situational we find it's quite interesting.

Okay. Well we'll make sure that we put all the, um, links

to all of the information in the show notes

so people can, can get a hold of that.

And we're gonna look to try and connect those.

Um, you do I think like 15, 16 kind

of two minute videos explaining that Mm-hmm.

That, that charter really well.

So we'll make sure that people get hold of that

'cause it is really, really valuable information.

I was watching your talk on censorship science

and belief at the, I think it was a couple of years ago,

the whole Life expo.

And it's really interesting 'cause you talk about the idea

of censorship kind of around Health Canada

and all these things, and I think censorship is a, you know,

a really hot word, um, with a bunch

of other ones over the last, uh, last 12 months.

But can you kind of touch on, on what that,

that kind of means in regards,

Regards to that? Oh, sure, sure. And

this, it's a very important point,

so thank you for bringing that up, is,

so I've already explained how really

to treat a serious health condition, you have

to have a patent and get through this process.

Well, we've designed our law so that it's basically illegal

to make any treatment claim.

So let me just repeat this.

It is illegal in Canada to make any treatment claim

except a claim approved of by Health Canada.

So let's use, you know, true hope as an example.

I mean I had, uh, during their trial,

Dr. Charles Popper on the stand, who is a psychiatrist that,

that taught psychiatry at Harvard University

to medical or no to doctors.

He wouldn't even teach medical students.

He was well above that.

He set the standards for people to become child

and adolescent psychiatrists in the us He was the founding

editor of the Journal of Child

and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, just,

I'm just rattling off so you guys understand big deal.

He is a, he's a big, he is a big deal.

And I had to subpoena him to get there.

But I mean, he basically, he basically explained

that this is, this is total life and death.

I mean, I asked him what would happen if you took

that off the market and he was clear there would be deaths.

Like this is important.

Now, true Hope, I don't know how many

published peer-reviewed journal articles there are now 35.

35, okay. So 35.

And most of the research is funded by universities

and governments, not the company independent.

So just so your listeners understand this, so universities

and governments have gotten involved

to fund research into this product

independent of the company.

So even, you know, like the Alberta government came up with,

you know, half a million dollars to have the, um, faculty

of medicine at the University

of Calgary run a double blind clinical trial

because the, the preliminary research was so staggering.

The government saw the need to actually use taxpayers money

to fund research.

So your, your listeners have

to appreciate there's all this research out there.

It's illegal for true hope to tell you about it.

If they send you a copy of, you know,

a research article you phoned

and said, well I'm having, oh,

well there's some published research.

They're breaking the law on sharing published research

because it is connected to the sale of their product.

So it's against the law for companies to share

truthful peer reviewed research on their product with you.

They're allowed their Hearth Canada proof claim,

which is something like supports mental health

and well, you know, and wellbeing.

So, you know, imagine I've used the, I've, you know,

personalized it,

although I, I don't have a son with bipolar,

but let's say, you know, one of my kids had bipolar disorder

and it was, you know, a, a particularly bad case

and all of the approved drugs weren't working.

And you know, the prognosis was is that, you know,

my son's gonna be dead shortly

because the lifespan of people that with severe bipolar

where the treatments aren't working is short.

And I'm in a health food store

and I pick up a bottle of beam power plus, which, you know,

is in my opinion probably the most effective

treatment for bipolar out there.

I'm not an expert, but this is what experts have told me

that use it, you know, psychiatrists and doctors.

So, but I pick up that bottle in the health food store

and it might be the only thing

that will save my child's life

and I see supports mental health and wellbeing.

Well, I put it back on the shelf.

I, because I don't know any more to explore it

because they can't put it on the bottle

or Health Canada will seize them from the stores.

And so you will never know there's product after product

after product out there that could, you know, make a life

and death difference for you

or somebody else throughout your life.

And you will never know

because it's illegal for you to be told.

And that just goes to show the extreme power

of language and words.

And if that's being controlled

by a particular government entity, then it's really,

really unfair and it's really, really controlling.

'cause yeah, we're super limited or any natural health

product is, or practitioners super limited in regards to

what they can say on their website,

what they say on their product,

even though they actually have research for it.

But to be, as you say, like, you know, you go

to Nature's Fair down the road here in Kamloops,

there'll be a bunch of like multivitamins there that,

that are available, but they're so restricted in regards

to like what they can say.

Even though we, you know, empower Plus has got significant

research in regards to it's use for A DHD, bipolar, anxiety,

depression, all these really, really important things

that people are experiencing more and more each day.

And it's super, it's super difficult to get

that product into the hands of people

who really need it when you are viciously limited

by what you can say about it.

Mm-hmm. No, I mean when you think about it, the one area

where you want to promote freedom

of expression is the area of health.

Can you think of a more important area where, where,

you know, we should be free to express ourselves

and to share information and have a dialogue.

But if we go back to the purpose of our drug regulation

and law is to protect intellectual property rights,

it breaks down if we have freedom of expression.

So, you know, let's just use blood pressure as an example

because it's, you know,

we made nattokinase illegal in Canada

and for your listeners,

nattokinase is just an enzyme from a type of soy

that is really good at reducing blood pressure and,

and a few other things.

And it's got a long safe track record.

Well, there was a new blood thinner on the market Pradaxa.

And unlike, you know, your traditional rat poison warfarin,

you know, you take too much warfarin and you're bleeding out

and you go to the emergency department

'cause you're gonna die if you don't.

And well they give you a shot of vitamin K

and you're fine, your blood starts clotting again.

They did not have an effective antidote for Prodaxa.

And so here it's showing up in our media reports

of er doctors being frustrated

that they can't save you when you show up bleeding out from

Prodaxa and let's do something.

So we're, we're actually, it's when people are dying

with a new drug and obviously the doctors are all being

encouraged to use the new drugs

because we don't do a comparative when we approve a new drug

like Prodaxa Health Canada doesn't ask,

well is it better than what we already have out there

is like what you could already have treatments out there

that are better and safer,

but we're still gonna approve that one

and then the reps will encourage the doctors to use it

'cause it's still a patent and it's more expensive.

So, but Health Canada takes kinase off the market at this

moment in time and just full stop.

It's funny, I was acting for a company at the time that,

you know, every company that was selling Nattokinase was

sent the letter saying, you get, you recall it immediately,

almost like it was nuclear waste, you know, let's recall it

and quarantine it and you know, get the army out.

This is serious stuff.

And this company was concerned.

We actually hired a medical doctor to do a risk analysis

and the doctor said, no, it's too risky for you to recall.

You can stop selling. Um,

but so what the company ended up doing was they didn't

recall it got in a world of hurt with Health Canada,

but they educated the stores to educate the customers

how to get it from the states.

Because the irony was a company can't sell it,

A company can't speak to you truthfully,

but anyone could legally order it

for personal use from any other country.

And obviously this, it was totally legal in the states.

So let but, you know,

doctors were begging Health Canada don't do this.

'cause I'm, we're talking medical doctors we're successfully

treating high blood pressure

or using nattokinase rather as a blood thinner as opposed

to the more dangerous

And actually seeing success in that in their

Clients and seeing success. So,

you know, I am convinced we've caused a number

of deaths, but we were actually talking about

being able to, to share.

I mean if, if you could somehow get approval

for Nattokinase in Canada, you actually couldn't tell people

that it's a safe alternative to some

of these other drugs you're taking.

And we just, we can't even have that dialogue.

'cause it's illegal. If you're not selling a product,

you can share the information, but why would you?

Yeah, it's, and it's a really wild thing is the fact that,

you know, pharmaceutical drugs are, can be very dangerous.

They have a lot of side effects to them

and they quite,

quite clearly statistically kill people every year.

But, you know, looking at natural health products,

you can go back 50 years of the available research

and you won't find any evidence

of a natural health product causing a death.

I, I think you're right.

So, and like my information is outdated,

but it's probably a good, 10 years ago I did an access

to information request to find any deaths

that Health Canada had reported to them caused

by natural health product.

And I learned they could only go back

to 1965 when they started this, um, adverse

drug reaction database.

But going back that far, they couldn't point to anything.

Now that doesn't mean that there hasn't been a death,

but it does mean that the deaths are so few, as, you know,

to not really be on any radar.

And, um, I know

that years ago there's a professor in New Zealand, uh,

professor Ron Law who

is an expert in doing statistical analysis.

And I, I met him at a conference in Toronto.

He was lecturing on how all the western democracies hide the

least leading causes of death, which are all tied

to the pharmaceutical industry

and the mainstream medical system.

But he was hired to do, uh, an, uh,

risk analysis using stats can figures.

And back then, and it's likely still the case that

as a Canadian, as a Canadian UR are

dramatically more likely to be bitten by a shark than

to be seriously harmed, let alone killed

by a natural health product.

You're more likely to be struck by lightning.

Yeah. And that's, that's just something that has

to be put on the table when we're having a conversation

about harmful chemicals that, you know, go through

somewhat sometimes very questionable safety studies.

You can use antidepressants as an example of that

where they just kind of like, use eight

to 10 different studies, find a, find two

that work cherry pick it, put that forward and there you go.

You you're good to go. And then yeah, it's a very,

very strange policy. But,

But it makes tremendous sense when the purpose is is

to protect intellectual property rights.

And, you know, you touched on something saying cherry

pick the two studies.

I mean, our drug approval process

is the largest fraud ever perpetrated on the Canadian

public pre covid.

So just so your listeners understand, um,

what, what I'm trying to say, I'll,

I'll just share a story from a, a true Hope civil file

where there's a, a, uh,

psychiatrist on the Stanford Health Canada.

He was their hired gun expert

and he ran a company that got, um,

psychiatric drugs through this new drug approval process.

So he's an expert in getting th psychiatric drugs

through this new drug approval process.

And I'm cross-examining him

and he actually starts complaining about how hard it is

because he says, you know, for a new antidepressant,

well we have to have two clinical trials that we submit

to Health Canada showing the drug works.

And when they say showing the drug works, what they mean is,

is showing that, you know, there's a

large enough statistical separation between, you know,

the positive effects shown

by the drug versus the group taking the sugar pill.

And I mean, it doesn't mean a drug works,

but we pretend that because it's not unreasonable.

But there's a whole art and science to this.

But just so they understand, that's

what it means when you have a clinical

trial showing that drug works.

Like mean you, you gotta get over this one little line.

You, you just have to be over it and not much over it.

So you have to show two of these trials.

And he says, but right outta the gate

for new antidepressant, we run eight trials, minimum

of eight because we have to run eight to get two

that we've got this magical statistical separation.

The other six could show

that the sugar pill works better than the drug,

but they don't have to give those to Health Canada.

And you know, and again, there's no comparison done

by Health Canada, well is this drug better than drugs we've

already approved for that condition?

'cause it could be worse and 20 times more dangerous.

And they still approve it knowing full well

because it costs more

that the pharmaceutical companies are gonna tell the doctors

how good it is and encourage them to prescribe it

as opposed to the other drugs.

But the whole thing is an absolute farce.

Yeah, it's absolutely absurd that, you know, those studies

that are done and put forth

to Health Canada are actually done

by the pharmaceutical companies instead rather than,

you know, the these pharmaceutical companies, um,

paying all the money to Health Canada

and the Health Canada sends this off to independent. Yeah,

It's, that's something I suggested in lectures is is that,

you know, if we were actually concerned about whether a

drug works Yeah.

You don't let the pharmaceutical company run the trials.

Makes no sense. You, they just, there's a fee.

They pay it to the government,

the government hires independent researchers to do it

and structures the trial design and publishes it

before the trials run

so people can comment on whether it's a fair design and

That to be public information as well.

Public information. Absolutely. Yeah.

The more things are hidden, the more suspect things

really should be the amount of

Yeah. But the whole

system is a game

to basically protect intellectual property rights.

And so as soon as we start talking about well, you know,

doesn't make sense there,

we're not getting health outcomes, blah, blah, blah.

It makes sense when that's the Goal,

you're, you're forgetting the whole purpose.

Okay. Like it makes perfect sense. Yeah.

When you understand what the purpose is.

Wild. Yeah. I mean we could,

we could go on this topic for a long, long time.

I just wanna kind of wrap up in regards to what keeps you,

what keeps you going with such energy to, to do this?

'cause you're obviously going up against a, a big

well funded opposition

and actually one of our reps specifically asked me

to ask you what keeps you so energized

and looking so young and so good.

Uh, it's funny, the love of my life is looking at me and,

and she's probably thinking, no,

but you have so much trouble because I, when we run trials

and stuff like that, it really, you literally, you know,

give a part of your soul Oh of course.

To get through it. And, uh,

and you have to put up with stuff

that you don't have to in other things.

Like they tend to be dirty trials, meaning that, you know,

the, the crown lets the,

or the judge lets the crown lawyers get away

with things that they shouldn't.

And, um, you know, the odd time you have to put up with

some really crazy things.

So for example, you know, during the one True Hope trial,

it was being run in Calgary, the civil trial, um,

I, I was staying in a hotel that had an office in the room,

like basically brought my computers and printers and set up

because the trial ran for a month

or six weeks or whatever it was.

And so, and uh, basically we would,

we would take a, leave the office to go to court and,

and at the time my, I used two computers always.

They would share a monitor in that,

but they had different operating systems

for different programs and I, we would shut them off

and we would make a diagram.

This was, you know, before everyone had cameras in their

cell phone, we'd make a diagram of

where everything was on the desk

because dollars to donuts every day when we came back,

although the hotel had instructions

and no one was to get in there, not made cleaning, nothing

the computers would be on and, and things rearranged

and that would happen at my office.

Phones tapped the whole thing

and you'd have to put, you have to put up with that

and it really wears on you.

Yeah. I mean, when you're going up against such a

well-funded organization with such an extreme goal, that,

that type of thing doesn't really surprise me. It,

It's interesting, I, when I first started practicing law

and did a lot of criminal work, uh,

there was a judge up in Williams Lake, judge De,

who had come from Rhodesia

and he was practices practicing as a lawyer there.

And, and he would defend communists and people like that

and, and lawyer friends would just go missing

and never show up again.

And, and he got the call saying, today's your day.

And, and he just left.

Like they, I obviously they must have bug out bags

and the whole thing, they just left the

country and he never went back.

And uh, I remember thinking like, that's just crazy.

Like, thank God I live in Canada

and then when you learn no, there's no difference, um,

that, you know, we're probably more corrupt.

Like it would surprise listeners Google, you know,

country corruption index

and like Canada is,

there's probably not an African country rated

more corrupt than Canada. Yeah.

Usually it comes to down to,

Yeah, we're usually, yeah, we're right near the top

as most corrupt and,

but we're taught that this is just a wonderful place

and it is until you get on the wrong side

of the power interests.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, apart from, uh, the N-H-P-P-A, how can people, uh,

connect with you and keep

up to date with what you guys are all

Doing? Well, really

it is through the N-H-P-P-A. Okay.

So, um, the N-H-P-P-A is, um,

and we've been, we've been actually fairly quiet

for the last little bit because we're not sure what to do

with this C thing

because our mandate is to protect access

to natural health products.

And, you know, just to be honest, between you

and I, I still am not sure what's going on.

Okay. Like, you know, let's just ignore

what the media is saying is, I'm just not sure

what the ramifications of this, you know, are gonna be

and where we're totally going yet.

So, but I I, I'm always worried when people are put in a,

a state of fear and hysteria, which is clearly what,

what's happening and, you know,

where it's becoming really difficult

to trust any information.

I mean, even information that I would gravitate to, I,

I think that there's disinformation on almost every

side out there right now.

Yeah. And, uh, it's just a very difficult time.

So, you know, we're kind of having discussions about what

to do and we're watching the Self-Care framework seems

to be just on hold right now.

Um, largely I think because of Covid and,

and Health Canada is just having other priorities. Are

You able to kind of keep an eye on that in case, you know,

it kind of slips under the cup, slips under the carpet?

Well, while all this is going on?

Well, they'll have to, they'll have to amend regulation

or introduce new regulation to do some of the scary bits.

So hopefully we'll catch that. We don't,

You know. Yeah. The,

uh, the idea of, um, fear within a, in a society

for whatever reason is, you know,

it's an ancient playbook Mm-Hmm.

In regards to taking away freedoms and rights and liberties.

So I think it's the responsibility of everybody who's

in Canada, around the world to make sure that you're get,

make sure that you're informed,

and when you kind of look into it a little bit,

things just don't seem right.

If you really like checking with your gut,

I think people can really, like, you know,

connect a few dots and,

and hopefully ask a few more questions.

It's, it's interesting. I just, uh, a friend

of mine had given me a book on Churchill

and his family during the, uh, battle of Brit

called The Splendid and the Vile,

and it's really their personal account.

So there might be like, well, there's this state

and here's, you know, what happened in the bombing rates

and blah, blah blah, and, and how people are reacting.

And one thing that jumped out at me,

which I just found really help helpful is, you know,

there was just this total initial panic when the Loof Wafa

started bombing London and other cities.

Um, but after a while people got brave

and, uh, off the day they stood their ground.

It took some time. But, um,

and I think we're gonna do that too. I think people

Will, I share that sentiment for sure.

I think after, after day one

of those bombings a million people signed up for the Army.

Yeah. And I think it's, uh, I think

that's a really important point.

And I think that's, if we're going

to get anything positive out of this at, at the end, it

or often takes, um, a big tragedy to create opportunity.

I'm pretty sure there's a Chinese proverb

where they, they mean the same thing.

Tragedy and opportunity mean the same thing.

Yeah. So I think, I think this is a real time for people

to, um, really do whatever they need to take

to get themselves healthy mentally

and get out of a state of fear

and, uh, start really focusing on kindness

and just pay attention and, and understand.

It's really difficult to actually know what's going on

because like I say, it's, I mean, we all gravitate to,

you know, news that confirms what we believe.

Um, but we all have

to be very skeptical of everything right now.

Yeah. I was having a very

interesting conversation with Dr.

Hugh Wilburn, who's gonna be on the show soon,

and he was talking about how, you know, the news

and everything we see on the internet

and on the TV is very, very distant

and very far away from us.

And, you know, there can be a lot of manipulation in

between the two of them, but when you're able

to maybe be a bit bit more present

and go out into your actual reality, into your real world,

into your town, into your city, um,

and start doing some simple things for your own physical

and psychological health,

the world can seem a lot less scary.

Yes. Yep. Awesome. Well, we're gonna end on that.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Sean.

I hope we get you back on the show

to talk about some other stuff in the future.

Um, for more information about anything we've spoken about

in this episode, don't forget to check the show notes.

Please don't forget to subscribe if you haven't.

Thank you so much for listening. This is True.

Hope Cast the official podcast for True Hope Canada.

We will see you next week.