0:00

When that door closed, Sean, it was like a shotgun going off in my face. What's

0:06

the matter with you, Mr. Stefen? Don't you get it? What you see is what you've

0:14

got, and you're not going to change this, and it's an intractable disorder,

0:19

and you're not going to reverse this. That's all there is to it. And Mr.

0:25

Stefen, I don't mean to say this to you, but I have to. You need to understand

0:31

you better prepare for another suicide.

0:44

Hello and welcome to True Hope Cast, the official podcast of True Hope Canada. Today's episode is not just another

0:50

conversation. It's a warning and a rallying cry. Right now, Health Canada is quietly pushing forward a plan called

0:56

the self-care framework. A policy that once fully implemented will strip Canadians of access to most of their

1:02

natural health products. Products that have saved lives, restored families, and given hope where pharmaceuticals have

1:08

failed. But the people are fighting back. The NHPPA, led by constitutional lawyer Shan Buckley, is driving across

1:14

the country on the Health Charter tour, uniting Canadians, gathering signatures, and handdeling the Charter of Health

1:20

Freedom to Ottawa. This isn't just a campaign. and it's a nationwide stand against government overreach and

1:27

awakening to protect our right to choose natural health. Joining Sha on today's

1:32

special podcast episode is a man whose story began with tragedy and turned into one of the most important health

1:37

revolutions in modern history, Anthony Stefen, founder of True Hope and creator of Empower Plus. Together, they have

1:44

faced regulators, skeptics, and impossible odds. And they're here to tell you why this moment matters more

1:50

than ever. Be sure to check out www.nhpppa.org to catch the event live. This is True

1:58

Hopecast. Enjoy the show. Welcome to the World's Greatest Health Show. My name is Sean Buckley with the Natural Health

2:05

Protection Association and I'm very pleased to have uh Tony Stfan with me.

2:12

I've known uh Tony, it's been decades that I've known you. I had to I had to

2:18

go back and check my records to um even figure out when your trial was. And uh

2:25

you have one of the most compelling personal stories I've ever run across.

2:32

And um so can you maybe let's just start with your your wife Debbie and um kind

2:41

of what went there and what you were up to at the time. Well, first off, thanks Sean for having

2:47

me on today. It's wonderful and I appreciate what you're doing. It's it's

2:52

so important. This is so critical to all of us. It really is. So, thank you very

2:58

much for what you're doing. My name is Anthony Stefen. Um, sadly, our story begins in a very

3:06

traumatic way in 1994 with the loss of

3:12

my first wife. She ended up taking her life. She was diagnosed with bipolar

3:19

effective disorder one with rapid cycling. And at that time, of course, we

3:26

were told this is an incurable disease that she was struggling with. The only

3:31

thing that was available are medications for sedation.

3:37

And sadly, it didn't work. And she ended up losing her life in January of 1994.

3:44

And you know, Sean, that was uh just the most traumatic

3:50

time in our life. Um we have a large family together

3:56

and um at the time of her death,

4:02

um two of her children, our children. Tony, Tony, I'll just back up. How many kids were there at the time?

4:09

At the time of her death, there were nine children. um nine children natural and one adopted

4:17

child. And so there's a total of 10 at the time of her death um there was eight

4:24

at home and um and when you say when you say death I

4:30

mean Debbie committed suicide. She did. She did. And uh it's the most

4:37

traumatizing thing that a family can go through. Um, every one of us I I used to

4:44

listen to uh uh after her after her demise, I used to listen at night and

4:52

hear my children crying and weeping and just the trauma was so overwhelming. I

5:01

mean, we're in a terrible, terrible place as a family, and the numbers

5:06

aren't good when you look back at how many families can actually stay glued

5:12

together and come through such such an issue. Such an issue.

5:19

Um, can I just back you up? She was put on some of and I'll say, you know, the

5:24

approved Health Canada medications, right? She was taking Prozac at the time of her

5:31

death. She had been taking it for about two weeks. And when she got on to Prozac, she

5:38

absolutely lost it. She absolutely went hysterical. There

5:43

was no sense at all. And I need to put a caveat in here. Individuals that suffer

5:50

with these mental conditions do not bring this upon themselves. They're the

5:55

victim. they're the victim in this issue and uh she was a victim and we ended up

6:04

being the victims because the children lost their mom. I lost my wife who I'm

6:11

deeply in love with and all of your dreams were shattered. Everything.

6:17

Prozac was not a good thing at all. And um I'm not going to criticize the

6:24

doctor that prescribed her with Prozac, but it's not the answer at all. I mean,

6:30

she lost her life basically. Yes. Yes. To bipolar effective disorder

6:38

one with rapid cycling, but it was the Prozac that pushed her over the edge.

6:44

And And am I correct? It it ran in her family. Bipolar disorder. It it it does

6:52

continue. I still track the family and and and visit with some of the members

6:58

of that family. Um Oh, yeah. It it's a huge issue. Her father took his life 16

7:06

years before she did and there have been multiple suicides

7:12

in that family. Um it flows downhill. It's a genetic issue.

7:19

uh it's a weakness and uh once again I'm going to say it's not the individual's

7:26

fault and um it left me running. It absolutely

7:33

left me running because I've got these other two children at home with the

7:39

other six, but these two children are diagnosed with the same disorder as

7:45

their mom was. bipolar effective disorder one with rapid cycling. If you

7:50

look it up, it says it's incurable and um they were out of control with all

7:58

this trauma heaped on top. It was a terrifying situation.

8:04

Right. So, do you want to One of one of them was Joseph and I I think he was around 15 at the time, right?

8:11

Yep. He he was 15 years old. He was 240

8:16

pounds of fury. He He really was. He He played some amateur football, but but he

8:24

couldn't stay tuned in because of the the flightiness that the disorder

8:30

brought to him. And he ended up um at the age of 15 with a federal weapons

8:37

charge. Um, he says he was everything that a

8:43

schoolyard shooting was all about. Out of control. Out of control emotionally,

8:51

spiritually, mentally. And um, my daughter Autumn, can I can we

8:58

just back up to Joseph for a minute? So, my understanding is is Joseph was being treated with lithium by his doctor.

9:06

Yeah. around 1,250 milligrams of lithium per day. Right. And lithium is kind of was at the

9:13

time the mainstream treatment for bipolar disorder. Yes. But of course it's recognized that

9:20

eventually you have to get off of it because of hpatic and renal issues,

9:26

liver and kidney issues because it does attack the organs

9:32

and and it didn't work for Joseph. Like my understanding is is like he would have panic attacks, delusions, he would

9:39

rage and that basically the entire family was afraid to be in the house with him. Oh, absolutely. My I I

9:47

remarried Sean about 8 months after Debbie's death. That was a godsend. And

9:53

I mean that literally. I'm not speaking in vanity at all. Uh we were blessed to

9:58

to have Barbara come and be a part of our family, but it it was terrifying. It

10:04

was terrifying for her. It was terrifying for me. All the children were

10:10

afraid. When Barb moved in with us after I married her, uh Joseph's bed was on

10:17

the the second floor, his bedroom. And I'll tell you what, if we heard there

10:23

was a creaking sound like he's getting out of bed in the middle of the night, we were up like like a shotgun.

10:31

Had to be because we were afraid. We were afraid that he was going to

10:36

mortally injure the other children or us. That's how out

10:43

of control he was in spite of the lithium. In spite of the lithium.

10:49

Right. So the whole family's basically on pins and needles worried that Joseph's going to cause harm, like

10:55

literally kill people. Yes. Okay. And then he often he often threatened to do so.

11:03

Um but I'm going to throw the caveat in again here. That's not Joseph. That's

11:09

not the little boy that shared and cared. Such a loving son really. And as

11:17

he's growing up, he's just a wonder boy. I remember how he shared with his brothers and sisters and they would play

11:24

together and when he hit puberty, he was off like a shot.

11:30

Boom. So, there's a hormonal relationship somewhere in the background there as

11:36

well. No question with these individuals. And at the time, can you tell us what's

11:42

happening with your daughter Autumn? Well, Autumn's in and out of the psych ward like her second home.

11:49

And uh she had gotten to the point that her doctor says, "If you come back here

11:54

again, I'm going to have to certify you for institutionalization."

12:00

And the chances of getting out of that are a rare rare experience.

12:08

But she was in a terrible place as well. Dana, her husband was having to look

12:13

after her full-time. He's trying to work to put food

12:19

back up again. I just want people to understand like so so Autumn is being involuntarily committed to psycharts.

12:27

Yeah, absolutely. Was her was her second home. That was

12:33

her second home. She would be um mania and depression.

12:38

She's doing this cycle. She would have, my understanding is basically hallucinations.

12:44

Yes. You know, she'd hear things and see things. She thought her her husband and

12:49

family members were trying to kill her and so she'd act violently. Like she is completely

12:56

I guess like suffering as much as a person could suffer.

13:01

And then she's when you're and and I know this from interviewing her. I called her as a witness and you saw

13:07

that. So, um, in in a way this interview is us reminiscing cuz I'm going to ask

13:13

you about some of the things that happened during the trial and what your thoughts were, you know, when we get there. But I remember when I, you know,

13:20

when I was interviewing her, like she basically what would happen to these people is, you know, you have these

13:26

these episodes, you're suicidal, you're manic, you get involuntarily committed, and they basically so dope you out on

13:32

these drug cocktails that you can't function. like you're drooling over yourself, but once your body gets used

13:39

to the drugs enough that you're not drooling over yourself 24 hours a day, they send you home on 24-hour suicide

13:45

watch. Yes. And that's that's where Autumn is like when you're saying her husband Dana. Um,

13:52

but I need you to back up. So Autumn's in crisis, Joseph's in crisis. The you

14:00

the doctors are telling you there's no solution. Well, let me let me go back a foot and a

14:07

half be even before there to to let you know what happened to us that instigated

14:13

the major change.

14:18

I'm going to say catharsis, but but there was a step in there.

14:24

Barbara realized and she came to me and she said, "I can't do this.

14:30

There's no way that we're going to hold this family together with the situation

14:36

that we have. We're not going to make it, Tony. And so I am going to look for

14:42

some help here. And I don't know how she did it. I'm too busy with my head under

14:47

the hood just trying to keep things at a somewhat quasy

14:53

level ke, right? But she starts digging in at the uh University of Calgary

15:02

and uh she gets gets us lined up with a top psychiatrist,

15:09

one of Western Canada's wellknown psychiatrists, wonderful lady.

15:16

She is she's a wonderful lady. took us about 3 months to get there and we're all in hell literally

15:24

trying to get there. Hopefully this woman has an answer for us, right? And

15:29

so on the appointed day we drove up to Calgary to the uh UFC psychiatric

15:37

extension there and we're going to have an interview with this lady and uh we're

15:43

in the waiting room and she invites us in. Joseph, right? Yes, Anthony. Yes,

15:49

Barbara, the stepmom. Yeah, come on into my office. And we're in there and she

15:56

says, "What are you seeing, Mr. Stefan?" And I said, "This is terrifying. It's

16:04

It's absolutely hopeless the way that it is right now."

16:11

And I said to her, "There has to be a better way.

16:16

There's got to be a better way. My daughter's on five different medications in and out of the psychord like her

16:23

second home. Joseph has a weapons charge. He's extremely violent, raging

16:30

between severe depression and severe uh

16:36

ephoria, uh delusional states, psychotic states.

16:43

and he's on 1250 mg of lithium a day and and it's not working.

16:50

There must be a better answer with all of the billions and billions of dollars

16:55

in the pharmaceutical industry and the research that's taking place.

17:00

There isn't a better answer than this. And she said, "Well,

17:08

not really. uh we're going to have to find a better cocktail of medications and sedate him

17:17

with stronger meds. And I said, "What? There's got to be something better than

17:24

this." And she said, "You know what? You're not you're not

17:29

getting it." And I was very emphatic. I mean, I guess I'm very emotional. I'm on

17:34

the edge, literally, and so is my wife and the whole whole family. And she

17:40

said, "You're not getting this at all. Mrs. Stefan, would you take Joseph and

17:46

please go out in the waiting room? I need to talk to your husband alone."

17:52

When that door closed, Sean, it was like a shotgun going off in my face. What's

17:59

the matter with you, Mr. Stefen? Don't you get it? What you see is what you've got and

18:08

you're not going to change this and it's an intractable disorder and you're not

18:13

going to reverse this. That's all there is to it. And Mr. Stefen,

18:19

I don't mean to say this to you, but I have to. You need to understand you better prepare for another suicide

18:27

because you've got a propensity in your family to suicide

18:33

visav your wife suiciding and Joseph's grandfather.

18:40

And you know Sean when when she said that to me it was like somebody opened up the hope valve and everything drained

18:49

out of me. And I I wasn't mad at her. She was trying to do her best. She's a good person.

18:55

And I stood up and I said, "Hey, I I appreciate your time." And I walked

19:01

out and I said to Barb and and Joe, "We're going home." That ride home was

19:07

the longest ride I've ever taken in my life because I didn't have any hope.

19:14

There was nothing left in me. And I told Barbara what happened. and there was

19:20

nothing left in her. And my prayer was somehow that God would

19:26

help us to stay glued together through this and that he would bring an answer.

19:32

And and he did. He did. And the story is interesting how this

19:38

came about. So he he wasn't finished with you or your family. Not at all. Can you share with us how

19:46

how kind of the idea of a different way came about? Well, you know, when I realized that

19:54

there's no hope in the medications, I started praying and pleading and fasting

20:00

and searching. And I took a position working for a church

20:05

where I had all these buildings. And um

20:11

one of their liaison kind of directors

20:16

was a guy named David Hardy. And David and I got to know each other

20:22

because we would be walking through these buildings, looking at them, analyzing this and that and carpet

20:28

repair and replacement and painting and refernishing or whatever.

20:34

And I told him about what was happening with my family and

20:40

just out of the blue he said, "You know, I got to tell you, Tony, I I don't know

20:46

anything about mental illness. Never had a problem. My family's okay. My wife is okay. My lineage is okay. My children

20:52

are okay. So, I don't understand what you're going through. But I will tell

20:58

you one thing. He said, "I used to put together

21:04

nutrient-based products in the agricultural industry." And he said, "We

21:09

used to see a thing called among the in among the hog barns."

21:15

Sorry. Among the hog barns, we saw this thing called ear and tailbiting syndrome. And

21:23

what happens is the ad animals literally

21:28

become so extremely violent. They're all kind of caged in there and they will attack one

21:37

another, tear off an ear, tear off a tail, they'll gore each other or

21:42

whatever they do. these massive big hogs. And he said, "We learned very

21:47

quickly that you could arrest this syndrome, this ear and tailbiting

21:53

syndrome by applying calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, nutrients."

22:01

And we would do this, Yeah. And we would see calm hogs.

22:09

You have to forgive me. I picked up a little cold ear. But when he told me that, it was like an

22:17

epiphany. It was like something saying, "Listen up. You got to do this. You got

22:23

to do this." And I heard those words. It just vibrated through me.

22:29

And that was the beginning of the correction that was going to

22:34

come, the beginning of the blessing that God was about to give to us.

22:40

So as so as I understand it, so you're you're sharing the problems with your family

22:45

and uh and David Hardy says, "I don't know anything about humans, but when we see this aggressive behavior

22:54

in pigs," cuz he's referencing Joseph there. He's like, "Well, we know it's nutritional and we solve it with the

23:00

nutrition." And the little light bulbs go off for both of you. I wonder if there's a nutritional basis to mental

23:08

health problems. Exactly. And you know, David was driven and so

23:13

was I. He had a keen interest in this thing and he set aside a lot of work to

23:20

get to get involved and so did I. Well, I didn't have much work and we were both living in poverty.

23:27

We used to laugh because the wolf is at the door all the time. But we're looking

23:33

for these answers and no question we were led. We were led

23:39

down that road. There was some inspiration there that did not come from him and did not come from me.

23:47

And eventually we put together this supplement. Wasn't for sale.

23:52

No. Can I just back up cuz I I've heard the stories like you guys are reading every journal publication all

23:59

information you can on what nutrients help mental health and I heard you guys would argue about well we need this we

24:06

need that and you guys kind of come up with okay finally we agree on what we

24:12

need exactly I'll tell you how dedicated we were we ended up going and visiting with

24:19

a very famous man named Walter Mertz he was the head of the USDA human nutrition

24:26

labs and he'd written a number of volumes about minerals and their effect

24:32

upon the human's cellular mass. And we got into this book and we read and we we

24:38

actually looked them up and David and I went and spent about four days with him

24:43

and what we learned was amazing. It's all here. It's all here right now

24:52

at that point. I mean, I'm talking here um 30 years ago, 29 years ago. It was

25:01

there then and it's still here today. But he warned us, too. He said, "You're

25:08

not going to get along well out there when you start to talk this way because

25:14

there's a jetream of competition." There's a jet stream of competition out

25:20

there that doesn't want to hear this. Big dollars,

25:26

meaning doesn't want to hear that nutrition can solve mental health. Exactly. The mainstream the mainstream

25:34

medical system. No condemnation. There are some wonderful people in that system

25:40

that are dedicated to saving and helping and eliminating suffering. I got I just

25:45

I want us moving along because I want to get to the trial. So, what happened? So, you guys come up with a a list of what

25:52

you need. What happened next? Well, we started putting it together,

25:58

you know, and it's not like you cook cook it up and put it in your bathtub, but we looked for things that were

26:07

in a chelated format. David understood that. He said when you kate it, the body

26:13

can uptake it better than taking an elemental mineral. Like for instance, if

26:18

you want to take calcium, you don't take calcium carbonate. If you're looking at the bottle and it says calcium

26:26

carbonate, no, you're only going to it's only 5% bioavailable. It has to be in a

26:32

chilated form. And so we and I'll just I'll just help the viewer.

26:37

So a chilated form is so an organic the calcium would be bound to an organic

26:44

molecule so that the body can absorb it otherwise it just goes through you. So that's what you mean by a chilated form

26:50

is the mineral is attached to um a chilate that your body can absorb so you

26:55

can actually use it. Yeah. Because you can't eat rocks like

27:00

we all know that we need iron. They've discovered in uh ADHD

27:07

issues with children and adults when they pull pull blood drips from them,

27:13

they say, "Oh, you're iron deficient. You're iron deficient. You're iron deficient."

27:18

But you're not going to go get a knife and scrape the iron oxide off your

27:24

muffler, put that in a capsule, and eat it because it's not going to go anywhere. It must be in a bio

27:33

available format that your body can uptake in the cellular mass head to toe

27:40

100 trillion cells in this universe that we're riding around in called our body.

27:46

It has to be bioavailable and we knew that and David had known

27:52

that before from his work in the agricultural industry.

27:58

So, we we gleaned and we gathered and we looked at this and we we got different

28:04

forms of minerals from different companies, even things that weren't on the shelf.

28:11

And we put this together and Joseph says that he was patient zero.

28:21

And we put him on it. He was patient zero. Yeah, that's that's where you start. You start

28:27

at zero and you go up from there. If your bank account's empty, you're starting at at zero and you're going up,

28:34

right? Well, patient zero in about 30

28:39

days looked like a totally different person. It was a godsend. I wept. So did Barbara

28:49

because it was just a miracle. Like his principal called us a number of times,

28:54

"What are you doing over there? The kid's not causing fights and battles in the back of the school room anymore.

29:02

And he's behaving himself and he's actually being kind to the

29:08

other students. He lost that warrior type thing that

29:13

front to him and it all slowed down. He said he was able to think, starting to

29:21

do homework, starting to become productive. It was absolutely amazing the flip over.

29:28

He did a backflip and um that principal down there started

29:35

telling everybody in town about it. My phone rang off the wall. Hi, Mr.

29:43

Stefan. This is so and so and okay if I talk to you for I said just speak on

29:49

you're okay. I don't know you, but yeah, I live in your town there, but I heard about what happened to your son. My wife

29:57

has been depressed for 20 years. She hardly gets out of bed. Do you think

30:02

that what you did to your son would work for my wife? I said, I don't know. I

30:09

don't know, but we can try it. And it works, Sean. Yeah. So, just organically, you and

30:16

David find yourselves kind of people reaching out for help,

30:21

but you guys did it in an organized fashion where you basically had people track how they were doing, right?

30:28

We had them fill out little forms like we pulled down these psychiatric measurement tools like Oh, yeah. You've

30:36

got one for ADHD. You've got uh different forms for, you

30:42

know, bipolar, MDD, major depressive disorder. and and we made these little

30:47

forms and we'd have these like the wife would fill it out for her son or her

30:53

husband and whoever in the family could help. We got them to help support and

30:59

pretty soon we've got some data and it's impressive.

31:04

It's impressive and people are changing. They're all

31:09

doing the backflip nutrition. It had such a profound effect. And what

31:16

about Autumn? Well, Autumn was extremely resistant.

31:23

There must be resistance. There has to be opposition and all good things.

31:28

Well, Dad, you're crazy. What are you doing? You told me you took Joseph off

31:34

his meds. Well, he had to come off his meds because he couldn't wake up if he was on

31:40

lithium. Sean, if if we loaded you up to what with,250 mg of lithium and you

31:48

don't have a mental condition, you're going to do a lot of sleeping. And

31:53

that's what Joe was working with. So, okay, we peeled that back. Here we go.

32:00

And um she said, "You're being irresponsible." Well, what happened about a month later?

32:08

I got a phone call from Dana, her husband. You know Dana, you've interviewed him as well.

32:15

And Dana said, "Uh, Dad, I'm in trouble. They're putting me on midnight shift.

32:21

I've got to bring Autumn down to your house for seven days. Are you okay? Can

32:27

you look after her?" And I said, "Sure, bring her down." Now, just back up. She's on 24-hour

32:32

suicide watch at the time. Bingo. called directly. He would go to work and drop her off at his parents and

32:39

they're getting exhausted also. So, it was also to give everyone a break because she was so you just get

32:46

exhausted having to watch this person every minute of every day so she doesn't harm herself.

32:51

That's right. And just all of the emotional overflow that comes from the

32:56

disorders combined with five medication. She's on held doll, Rivetrol, Epavan, Adavan, and

33:04

Coentin. That's that's strong medication. Strong

33:10

enough to knock down a horse, let alone a young woman. And so she gets dropped off at her door.

33:19

One of the first things she said, "I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. I'm not going to do

33:26

what you did." I said, "Fine. I'm not forcing you to do anything. come in. And

33:31

uh I think it was Saturday when he came. Sunday, of course, is the Sabbath and

33:38

we're all going to go to church and we're all sitting in the pews and she loses it.

33:44

She literally lost it. Sean, she started getting revved up and agitated

33:51

and um I had to say, "Let's go home right now." So, we walked home and my

33:59

friend Bill comes over. He's got about 15 years as a psych nurse and he takes a

34:05

look at her and he says, "Tony, we're taking her to the hospital."

34:11

And I said, "No, we're not. No, we're not, Bill. I'm not doing this anymore. I

34:16

already lost my first wife. I lost my grand my father-in-law to this stuff.

34:22

I'm going to put her on these nutrients." And Sean, I'm not going to tell you that I forced her to do it. Um,

34:29

it doesn't sound politically correct. I constrained her to do it. That sounds better, doesn't it? And so, she started

34:36

on the nutrients. Do you know, two days later, it was about 7 in the morning. We hear Barb and

34:44

I are upstairs on the second floor. That's where we're living. And she's in the the main floor. And I hear her

34:50

hollering, "Dad, Dad, you got to come down and and and

34:56

and and see me right now." Okay. Throw on my house coat. What's wrong, Autumn?

35:04

I'm so over medicated. And I said, "Did you take too much of that stuff?" She's

35:09

got it all here on her bureau beside her bed. Did you load up on that stuff? No,

35:15

I didn't take any more than I had to. I'm supposed to. I'm just I'm so foggy I

35:20

can't even think and I'm thinking what the heck's going on.

35:27

So this is foolish.

35:32

But we were being led. We were being led. I took her off four

35:39

of her five medications. I don't know why I didn't take her off the last one,

35:45

the Rivetrol. I didn't know anything about these meds.

35:51

This is a discovery in its birthing. Mhm. I didn't take her off the river. Not

35:57

because I was wise or knew anything. Had I done that, she would have gone into withdrawal. She was addicted to it. It's

36:04

a benzoazipene. She'd been on it for three years. She would have rolled up in a ball. I'm not

36:11

kidding you. So, I just I'm just going by feelings here. I took her off four four of the medications and then I hit

36:18

her heavier heavier not mega dosing not mega dosing there's nothing dangerous

36:25

about her doses I understand that completely and um so can I just can I just fill in

36:33

for the people that are watching is what they don't what they won't know Tony is is that you know you you and

36:40

David end up creating a company called True Hope that would manage people with

36:46

serious mental illness. And part of that is is you guys actually became experts

36:51

in the psychiatric drugs and experts in withdrawing people from the psychiatric

36:56

drugs. And when I say that, I mean at the at the criminal trial, we had Dr. Charles Pauper from Harvard University

37:04

who's the founding editor of the journal of child and adolescent psychopharmarmacology and was his editor

37:09

for 10 years. He's an expert in psychiatric drugs who basically told the

37:15

court under oath, no, he and his, you know, Harvard University psychiatric

37:20

colleagues will phone True Hope for advice on how to get people off of

37:25

psychiatric drugs. So, you guys you guys are the world experts in weaning people

37:31

off psychiatric drugs. And I'm just going from memory now. Isn't it like the conventional wisdom is you couldn't get

37:36

somebody off Epibal? Did I pick the right one? Um, epavvel, you can do it, but there's

37:44

some of them like the benzo dioazipines slowgo. There was one that he said you couldn't

37:49

like the conventional wisdom was you guys couldn't you couldn't ever get off it, but you guys figured out a way to do

37:55

get people off it and you know, so like basically there's you guys became world experts. So I'm

38:02

we'll just back up back with Autumn. You're just learning. Wait a second. There's something about weaning people

38:08

off these psychiatric drugs, but somehow you were led to not take her off the one

38:13

that would have caused a problem. Yeah, we were led. I have to put my hands up and say thank you, God, because

38:21

we didn't know what we're doing. It's a birthing process. You know, that's what we're going

38:27

through here. And I'll tell you what, Sean, we saw a miracle because the next day she woke

38:35

up, you know, maybe 50% of the drugs, you know, halflife or whatever have left

38:40

her system, she got up and she started looking after herself. Hither to before she couldn't

38:48

even shower herself. She couldn't look after her personal hygiene. I'm not, don't take my words wrong. This is what

38:55

happens. This is how bad we can get in that state. And she and she's talking and and

39:03

following me around. And she wouldn't talk before. And so on day five, day

39:10

five, she phones up her husband says, "Get down here and get me. I want to go home

39:17

now." Well, put Tony on the phone. What's happening down there? Uh, Dana. Uh,

39:26

she's uh only on one medication and she's looking really good. He freaked.

39:31

He He freaked right out. Can you meet me in Red Deer, Alberta? I

39:38

said, "Yeah, I'll drive up right now. I'm taking the day off work. This is an emergency." And I said, "Okay, I'll meet

39:44

you there." We figured the clock time out. And and so when I pulled up, I said, "Autumn, you sit in the car here.

39:53

I'm going to go visit with your husband. It's up at Gasoline Alley, you know, the big gas exchange area there. And he got

40:00

so angry. What have you done? I said, "Listen,

40:06

don't don't give me a hard time over it, buddy. You go sit in the car with her

40:12

here. Just go in there. Go sit and talk to her." He gets out about, I don't know, half hour, 40 minutes later. He

40:19

says, "I haven't talked to her in years like that.

40:25

She's making full sense and she looks good. Her hair is done. She got makeup

40:31

on. Looks like a new person. And I said, "You know what, man? She's been blessed.

40:37

You take her home." And so he did. And life changed. 45 days later she's off of

40:47

the um the benzoazipene rivetrol

40:53

and uh she's never looked back. It's been a godsend for her and that's been that's been decades.

41:01

It's been decades. She's never been back in a psych ward. She's on no psychiatric drugs.

41:06

Yeah. She went into she's been able to have more she's been able to have more children. She couldn't have children on the drug cocktails.

41:13

That's right. And she had an ADHD son done son. Sorry, done was done. All

41:19

right. Because you see, bipolar moms give birth to ADHD children. And ADHD

41:25

children become bipolar at puberty. That's what the numbers showed.

41:31

And her son was out of control. Well, so he took no he took nutrients and got all

41:38

balanced out. I'm just gonna I'm just going to move us. So So Joseph's gotten well. Autumn's

41:45

gotten well. You guys are managing a whole bunch of people. And you guys never planned on making a product as I

41:53

understand it. Like you you're just can we solve mental illness with um you know

41:59

with nutrition? um you were forced by circumstances because the the products

42:06

that you had selected, other people's products weren't consistent and so people would falter. So you ended up

42:12

making a product. Can you tell us about the product and and the company and then

42:18

we're going to get to the initial research. So maybe just take us to the initial research because you guys are

42:24

trying to share this with the world. Well, we are all of a sudden it got legs

42:29

and wings of its own and people phoning pretty soon there's well what we're

42:35

doing is we're just giving away the nutrients. We we didn't want to sell this stuff. We we didn't want to get

42:42

into business but we were forced to do it because of the immensity of this

42:48

thing. And we're refining the delivery system.

42:53

It was coarse. When we first started off, Sean, people had to chew eight 48 capsules a day.

43:01

Oh, I thought it was 32. It's actually 48. 48. 48. And we had these huge big tub

43:10

bottles. How do you want that with gravy or ketchup? I mean, it was like a full

43:16

meal deal and it was very ownorous, but it worked. And pretty soon, like you

43:22

say, we're down to 32. And then we're down to 24. And then we're down to 18.

43:29

And then we're down to 15. Now we're down to one.

43:35

And it's just figuring out how to make it b more bioavailable. That's the key. You know what? God

43:42

taught us how tomato works. You go out there and you take a tomato and you plant it in this soil and

43:48

there's all these minerals in that soil and it grows and it chilates

43:55

the elemental minerals into ionic forms. So that when you take a tomato and you

44:02

eat that, you can you can absorb probably 95%. It's got efficacy deluxe.

44:08

It's it's made the way that it should be. Mhm. But when you're taking nutrients, you

44:14

don't get 95% delivery. And we learned how to do this.

44:20

What that tomato does? Okay. So, I'm just going to I'm just going to fast forward us because we're

44:26

you know, you you've got the product. People are swarming to you and you're

44:31

you're you're basically everyone has to participate in this research. Now you

44:37

get you've you I talk about I I just I want to speed us along to the trial but

44:44

the the Dr. Brian Cobb can I tell the story so you you guys you guys have the initial it's just I've interviewed Dr.

44:51

Cobb as a as a potential witness at the trial. So he's a neuroscientist he was at the University of Lethbridge and Tony

44:59

and David convince him on the data they've collected that there's something there's something here. Um, and he gets

45:07

the University of Calgary involved, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan, in creating forms. And

45:12

this is for basically behavioral problem kids like ADHD kids.

45:17

And so the parents are filling out these forms while they're on on Empower Plus.

45:23

And Dr. Cobb told me, you know, so Tony and David, they drop off these forms and

45:29

he crunches the numbers and he said the numbers were too good. Like this is what he's telling me when I'm interviewing him. He says, "The numbers are too

45:35

good." So, I knew that Tony and David had basically fudged the data. So, I go and I interview I think there were 30

45:42

families. He goes and interviews every single family to learn that no, no, this

45:47

is we filled this in and this is what we saw. So, the numbers were so good. He'd

45:53

never seen anything like it. And then all of a sudden the behavioral research

45:58

unit, which is a branch of the faculty of medicine at Children's Hospital in Calgary, they see this data and they go,

46:04

"Oh my gosh, we have to do some research on this."

46:09

And so tell us about that initial research that uh was done at the

46:14

University of Calgary Faculty of Medicine Behavioral Research Unit. Well, Bonnie Kaplan, who's extremely well

46:22

published, I mean, she's a uh a clinical

46:28

uh neurossychologist and was very well known. And she decided

46:35

before I get there, she thought this was snake oil until Brian Cold talked to her. She wouldn't accept it from us. Get

46:42

out of here. And I said, we're not selling anything snake oil. But anyhow, Brian Cob, like

46:49

you say, talked to her and she decided to give it a try and she brought on a

46:55

small study. It was open, you know, there wasn't a placebo or anything. And

47:02

she saw amazing results, amazing results with childhood

47:10

um temperament issues, this kind of thing. and um she started to really get excited

47:18

and she brought on a whole a whole host of researchers wellqualified

47:24

well- named and they began to do research and then do you want me to bring in the

47:34

Yeah. So, well, let's let's get there just in a sec, but I just want the audience to understand. So, there were

47:39

two case series done by this behavioral research unit at Children's Hospital in

47:45

Calgary. And basically, eight out of 10 adults with severe bipolar got

47:52

completely well and off their psychiatric meds in a short period of time. And that was published in the

47:58

journal of psychiatry which is a blue chip psychiatric research journal. And

48:04

then the the case series on children and the and the criteria was if you were a psychiatrist in the Calgary area and you

48:11

have a you had a child you just couldn't manage on any drugs refer them to this

48:16

study and 8 out of 10 got perfectly well and off all their psychiatric drugs in a short period of time. And that was

48:22

published in the journal of child and adolescent psychopharmarmacology. another blue chip journal and she told

48:28

me Dr. Cabin like we just hadn't seen this type of numbers before. So the

48:34

faculty of medicine goes to the Alberta government and says look at this like this is this data is is unparalleled

48:43

Alberta government you should cough up a large sum of money for a double blind

48:48

clinical trial. So we're talking government funded research run by the behavioral research unit which is this

48:54

is all they do is they run research. This is their reason to be so the and

48:59

the Alberta government agreed this these results are so outstanding that we need

49:05

to run a double blind clinical trial paid for by the taxpayer run by the behavioral research unit of the faculty

49:12

medicine at the children's hospital in Calgary. And now this trial is running. But the problem is Tony, Health Canada

49:19

found out. How did that happen? Well, we we had a wonderful break

49:26

because um Bonnie Kaplan had been interviewed by CTV News when they came

49:34

out with some preliminary data and CT National ran a story

49:41

about about the Empower Plus SL research that's taking place at the University of

49:48

Calgary. It was terrific. till the next morning.

49:54

Right. So just so and I and I don't have that video but literally on the national news CTV national news as a lead story

50:02

is about this governmentf funded research at the university hospital children's

50:08

hospital in Calgary and just how it's showing incredible promise for treating

50:15

serious mental health conditions like bipolar. So this is national news, but

50:20

the problem was Health Canada watches the national news. So what happens the

50:26

day after this? You'd think Health Canada would be doing cartwheels because

50:32

serious mental illness is so debilitating. And here there's this vitamin and mineral supplement which

50:40

through governmentf funded research is showing incredible promise. So, Health

50:46

Canada must have been calling to say, "How can we help?" Well, they must have themselves with joy.

50:54

It It was very joyful. Yes. Yeah. I picked up the phone. Good morning. Hi.

51:02

Is this Mr. Stefan? Yes, it is. Who's speaking? This is so And so from Health

51:07

Canada. Who gave you the authority to speak on CTV National News last night?

51:17

I didn't know you had to have authority to speak. What happened to our charter rights?

51:23

Right? You know, this kind of thing. Well, you don't you don't do Do you understand, Mr. Stefan? You are in

51:30

violation of section 31 and 32. You're going to shut this thing down

51:35

now. Do you understand? Yeah. That's the attitude.

51:42

That's exactly the attitude. And we weren't prepared to cave.

51:48

And it ended up with an attack on the University of Calgary, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan

51:56

by Health Canada. It ended up with us having three cease and desist orders

52:02

filed against us, you know, that were provided to us. You're going to shut this thing down.

52:08

Can we just back up about So here we have the Alberta government has has stumped up a large sum of money like

52:14

this 25 years ago. I it was like half a million dollars or something. It was quite large

52:20

and and you know the the salaries and all of that are already be being paid. So that it you know the value here was

52:28

basically you had a team of researchers researchers this is all they do is run

52:34

clinical trials. So the behavioral research unit which is highly trained in

52:41

running clinical trials is running a government funded clinical trial

52:46

on a vitamin mineral supplement and basically Health Canada shuts it down. Shuts down an Alberta governmentf funded

52:53

clinical trial. It's not there's not safety signals. They basically structured it like as if it was some

52:59

dangerous chemical drug with psychiatrists on 24-hour call and they're doing blood work and all of this. It was as safe as can be and

53:07

Health Canada shuts it down. Well, it was approved. It was approved by their IRB. It was approved by the

53:15

University of Calgary. Yeah. They were using proper ethics. It went through the ethics committee.

53:23

It wasn't just a shot in the dark here. Yeah. No, that that's my point. So, we have

53:29

this government-f funed, professionally clinical trial and how Canada shuts it

53:35

down and now they want you to shut down. Exactly.

53:40

But you can't and tell tell people why you can't. If I shut it down, my children are going

53:48

to die. This is necessary. It's necessary for life.

53:57

And it's not like we were doing it for financial gain. Well, so what even if it

54:04

was um it was all about to them competition

54:12

with the pharmaceutical in industry. That's all that's what this game was all about. It wasn't about whether Canadians

54:20

were getting better or worse. Had nothing to do with that. It's about the bottom line of pharma.

54:28

Can I? And that may sound kind of conspiratorial, but I'll tell you what,

54:34

I got my backside kicked enough that I realized what the main game here is.

54:42

Can I Can I share a story? Can I share a story? Because I I want people to appreciate that. Um, so you guys are are

54:52

running troop at the time. You guys were basically attracting people like Autumn

54:57

that were in and out of psycharts. Yes. Like you guys were attracting the worst

55:03

of the worst. I I I ran the trial. they were charged criminally and you know so

55:08

I've got names of people that depended on the product and I start phoning these people and interviewing them and and

55:15

Tony when you're a lawyer and you're you know you're going to interview a type of witness so this is you know participants

55:22

that rely on it I mean I've got a list of questions I sit down and think of what do I need to cover so that I have a

55:29

meaningful interview and can determine whether or not I want them as a witness. do they have something to bring to the

55:35

table? And I and you know I I take that very seriously and there's a question that it didn't

55:44

even dawn on me to ask but 100% of the participants 100%

55:52

of the people that were relying on on Empower Plus that I called to interview

55:59

volunteered something that it would never dawned on me to ask. And what

56:04

every one of them volunteered was, you do know that I had a suicide plan in

56:11

place. So basically, these are people that are normal cuz cuz all of them had

56:16

been in and out of the psych ward involuntarily, but they they now were no longer going

56:22

in and out of the psych ward. So they're either working full-time or they're going to school full-time and they're

56:27

normal. Like the thing that I learned through the trial is is if Empower Plus works, it works. It's like a light

56:33

switch is goes off. You're on now. You're not you're you're normal. So for

56:40

them, they had gotten their lives back. But everyone volunteered. And this is while they're normal that they put

56:47

together a suicide plan how they were going to take their life if they were to

56:52

get close to running out because they said, "I won't go back. I I I'd rather

56:58

kill myself than go back to that." And I still to this day can't understand

57:04

how much these people were suffering so that they would take their life before

57:09

they got there. And and we know and we'll talk about it

57:14

that a number of people got there and took their lives. So, so when you're saying, you know, your children, I mean,

57:21

you had thousands of Canadians that relied on this product for their

57:27

very lives. Absolutely. And Health Canada's telling you to stop.

57:34

Why are they telling you to stop? Well, I remember David and I drove out

57:40

to Burnaby BC and we visited with the Western Regional Director,

57:45

Dennis Shel. Yes, Dennis Shel. And he said, you know, it's not that the

57:51

product isn't a good product, but you cannot use it

57:57

for what you're using it for. And I and I remember saying to him, "Well, Dennis,

58:03

is it a dangerous product?" "No, no, no. We've looked at the safety on this

58:08

thing, and there's not a question of safety." Well, I said, "Is it efficacious?" Well,

58:14

it's a very good vitamin mineral mixture, but you can't make the claim.

58:20

You can't even suggest that it could be used to assist people with mental

58:25

conditions. Censorship. That's all it is.

58:32

Censorship over lives. It wasn't the lives that counted to

58:38

them. It was the bottom dollar, the bottom line.

58:44

Well, let let's talk about um because what people don't understand and it's funny like I I started in this field

58:51

acting as council. I was Health Canada's lawyer against a herbalist named Jim

58:56

Strauss in 1994 and then I started my own firm and I ended up acting for him and you know I came to understand that

59:04

this is a life and death issue. So, I've spent now over 30 years running

59:09

interference when Health Canada's attacking companies like True Hope and attacking practitioners. And most of

59:15

it's out of court. But almost all of it is over making

59:20

sharing truthful health information. They don't care that you could cure cancer or cure anything else. You just

59:27

can't tell anyone. Yeah. You can't you can't. And if you can't tell anyone, then no one can know. and

59:33

it's problem solved and they they put they try to put company and I've seen them destroy companies like it's it's

59:40

actually seldom that when you know a company like True Hope is attacked that they survive.

59:46

So you guys survive. So they're telling you you they actually are telling you to

59:51

stop selling the product. Not just making claims about it, not just shut up, but they actually want you to stop

59:58

selling. Like that's the cease and desist. you you go out of business and you go home and basically you let

1:00:06

thousands of people in Canada die, let alone internationally. Am do I am I missing anything here? Not at all. And

1:00:13

and the second question that needs to be asked is what happened to the Charter of

1:00:18

Human Rights section two that allows freedom of speech?

1:00:25

You got to ask that question because we're supposed to be living in a free dominion here where we have the right to

1:00:32

freedom of expression and opinion and they're trying to sequester all of this

1:00:37

using regulatory affairs and different regulations that are saying that you

1:00:44

could be fined go to jail or whatever. But one has to focus on what happened.

1:00:50

So they tell you to cease and desist and you can't.

1:00:56

But you guys get psychiatrists and doctors and people to write letters to

1:01:01

Health Canada before they really get out of hand explaining that lives are at

1:01:06

stake here. Yep. Right. And and those were entered as an exhibit. Like just so everyone knows,

1:01:14

Health Canada charges True Hope criminally in an effort to get them to stop because horror of all horrors back

1:01:21

in the the early 2000s, True Hope is selling without a license. Can you

1:01:27

believe it? Well, the whole natural health product industry, nobody had a license. Like, so out of, you know, over

1:01:32

80,000 products, the only people charged with selling without a license is True Hope.

1:01:38

So, so horror of horrors, you guys are doing what everyone else is doing because there was no licensing system.

1:01:45

They're charging you criminally and and entered as an exhibit. Like, I don't

1:01:51

even remember how many like letters and phone calls and all of this like Health Canada and the Minister of

1:01:57

Health are being flooded by psychiatrists saying, "My patient is going to die

1:02:03

if you take this product away. I've tried all your approved drugs on the patient. they don't work. Doctors are

1:02:09

writing and saying the same things. And people are writing saying, "I've taken

1:02:14

all your approved drugs. I'm only alive. I'm normal. Like, I'm working." Did any

1:02:19

of that have an effect on Health Canada? Like, they're getting flooded with communications because people know

1:02:26

they're they're now begging for their lives because they know Health Canada wants you guys to take the product away.

1:02:32

Did that have any effect on Health Canada? No. None. truth didn't work.

1:02:40

Didn't matter. Didn't matter if it was helping or if it was a good product. That's not what it's about. You're

1:02:46

you're getting in the way of the pharmaceutical bottom line. And and just

1:02:52

so everyone knows, like this is public record. You can get the transcripts of these court

1:02:58

proceedings. You can verify that these letters are a court exhibit. Like this

1:03:03

is public record. just hundreds of doctors and psychiatrists and people

1:03:08

pleading for lives that depend on this product. Like this is this is what's so compelling about your case, Tony, is

1:03:15

there's there's a public record of all of this, including a court decision. But Health Canada ignores that and they

1:03:22

raid you guys. Tell us about that. Well, one morning I woke up to a phone call

1:03:31

um and there was staff members and they said, "Get into the office right now.

1:03:37

There's a raid going on." A raid. And so I drove out there. The our offices were

1:03:44

at that time located in Raymond, Alberta. And it's about a 20 minute drive. So, I got there and I remember

1:03:52

walking in the door and the uh commander in charge of the RCMP for that raid

1:04:02

uh is in there. There was I I believe probably eight or nine RCMP

1:04:09

um SWAT, whatever. And we've got about eight Health Canada agents and they're

1:04:15

tearing the place apart. This is a raid. We're removing all this information.

1:04:22

Um, yeah. And I got to know the uh I I'll never forget the uh commanding

1:04:29

officer. He said, "I want to see some of this illegal drug." I said, "Well, first

1:04:36

off, it's not an illegal drug. It's vitamins, minerals, and amino acids."

1:04:43

Well, I need to see a bottle. I said, "Well, we're not selling it here." people order through our system and it's

1:04:51

shipped from the What are you telling me? This is being imported. Yeah, absolutely. I'm telling you that. Well,

1:04:58

I want to see a bottle. And I said, "Okay, there's a lady here that takes it that used to suffer with bipolar. I'll

1:05:06

go ask her for her bottle." Shirley, do you have your bottle here? Can the officer look at it? And it was amazing

1:05:13

because he took this bottle. He's I want to see this. Let's see. Vitamin A,

1:05:20

vitamin B1, B2, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc. He said, "Hey, this

1:05:29

sto this stuff looks just like that product, those those uh gummies that my

1:05:36

wife gives to my children every day with their breakfast." I says, "Yeah, it's like that. It's

1:05:42

vitamins, minerals, amino acids. He looks like he's got shock and horror

1:05:48

on his face. And he says, "What? I need to know what we're doing here." And I

1:05:55

said, "So do I." But they they seize your computers and

1:06:01

basically disrupt your operations. They did. And then they phoned the

1:06:06

clients to warn them off about the danger of this product.

1:06:11

And then they start Yep. Then they start seizing shipments at the border.

1:06:17

Yep. And And what happens? They're creating

1:06:24

a major hazard. People are going suicidal.

1:06:29

Uh clients are smuggling product into Canada.

1:06:34

They're going across the the US border and picking it up.

1:06:40

uh the natives at the Kanosawaki, the Mohawks started bringing product into

1:06:45

Canada. Yeah. It was just it was just a terrible state of terror for those innocent

1:06:53

people that needed this product. Yeah. So, just so people understand, so

1:06:58

so you guys had your call center and you would manage people because they needed advice. They they there there were

1:07:05

protocols in place, but they the product was made in the US and it would be shipped into Canada. So, Health Canada

1:07:11

stopping it at the border. A product that people are telling Canada they rely on for their very lives and and

1:07:19

basically people died, didn't they? Exactly.

1:07:24

In fact, maybe you could because you interviewed him at trial. Uh Ran Leez.

1:07:33

Hey. Yeah. No, I'll tell the story. And just so everyone knows, there's a court transcript. So, he testified under oath.

1:07:40

Ron Lashines was actually a heavy hitter in the mental health field. If I recall

1:07:45

correctly, he was assistant deputy minister in the government of Alberta.

1:07:51

And he basically changed all of Alberta's mental health programs.

1:07:56

And you know, he wrote a book on the Pinoa asylum, very critical about how people were treated. and and he was

1:08:03

extremely involved and an expert in the treatment of mental health and he became

1:08:09

president of the Albert of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association. And they looked into

1:08:14

Empower Plus and determined that many of their members their lives depended on it. And every time one of their members

1:08:23

committed suicide because they lost access to the product and he testified

1:08:28

in court about this. He would hold a press conference about the death in an

1:08:33

effort to convince Minister of Health who then was uh Anne Mlelen to basically

1:08:40

relent and allow access to the to the product as a matter of life and death.

1:08:47

So that this is what he testified in court that he would hold a press conference every time there was a

1:08:52

suicide. And my understanding, Tony, is is basically about 300 people dropped off of your lists.

1:08:58

They did. They disappeared. They disappeared never to return. So we don't know how many people suicided.

1:09:07

Uh it was it that was a terrible terrible day. It really it was an attack

1:09:13

on the weakest of the weakest of our society. People that need more help than

1:09:19

any other person and they they attacked them. It was terrible. What What was it

1:09:25

like a troop? cuz you guys must have been getting calls from participants. So

1:09:30

what was that like? Well, there was a lot of fear, a lot of people crying on the phone.

1:09:38

They were fearful of their husband dying, their wife, their children that needed the product. What can we do?

1:09:46

And we did the best that we could. But that carried on for quite a while. They

1:09:52

had a strangle hold on Canada and upon the rights of of the innocent, the

1:09:58

weakest of the weakest. You know, can I can I tell the the 1800

1:10:06

crisis line note stories? So,

1:10:12

you guys were doing everything you could and and you didn't even have to encourage people. Their lives depended on it. So, you know, participants and

1:10:19

family members and doctors were were calling Health Canada, calling the Health Minister Anne Mlen's office and

1:10:26

in a criminal trial, they have to disclose things like their emails. And so, we learned through the criminal

1:10:34

disclosure that they weren't concerned about people. They, you know, they're

1:10:39

actually complaining. We're getting so many calls that we can't function. So they created what was called the 1-800

1:10:46

crisis line. So if you phone the minister of the health minister's office or you phoned Health Canada, as soon as

1:10:52

you said True Hope or Empower Plus, they would hit a button without asking for your consent and you would be

1:10:59

transferred to this 1800 crisis line that was staffed with, as they explained, mental health experts. Um,

1:11:07

and publicly they they made this sound good. It's like, well, we know there are people concerned, so we've we've got,

1:11:13

you know, mental health experts and you can call. Like, the public messaging was wonderful. But the problem for Health

1:11:19

Canada in the criminal trial was, well, they were mental health professionals

1:11:24

and mental health professionals make notes when you phone them. So, we we knew from this disclosure

1:11:33

that there were all these notes that were taken by these mental health

1:11:38

counselors at this 1800 crisis line. And so, I'm asking the crown, "Well, give me

1:11:44

these notes and I don't get them. I don't get them. We have pre-trial conferences. I'm asking, can I get these

1:11:50

notes? Can I get these notes?" And they're not I'm not getting them. Yeah. So, and Tony knows he was there at the

1:11:56

trial. The first day of trial, I tell the judge in court, I don't have these these 1800 crisis

1:12:03

line notes yet. And the crown, oh, they're coming. They're coming. And and just so so I'm going to say publicly the

1:12:10

crown on this file, I thought he acted ethically. He was just that it was his

1:12:16

job. He he played fairly. He didn't play like I I have total

1:12:21

respect for the crown on this file. And I don't say that on many, you know, on

1:12:27

on every trial and Tony knows that. So, um, so when the crown's saying they're coming, they're coming, the crown is

1:12:33

just relating what the crown is being told. This is no responsibility for the crown council in in Calgary for things

1:12:41

that are that are happening in Ottawa. So, second day of trial, I say, you

1:12:48

know, bring up I don't have these yet. Well, they're coming. They're coming. and Tony, I don't remember it was the third or fourth day, but it was one of

1:12:53

those days. I say, "Well, I don't have these 1800 crisis line notes." And the crown says,

1:13:00

"Well, they're undiscoverable." Which I think was a madeup. I didn't know that was a word, undiscoverable.

1:13:06

And the explanation was, and again, this is just what the the crown lawyer would be being told. The explanation given

1:13:12

was, well, they were in some assistant deputy minister's office. why they would be in

1:13:18

assistant deputy minister's office. I don't know. It already doesn't ring true. But anyway, they were in some

1:13:24

assistant deputy minister's office and that that person changed ministries

1:13:30

and they've gone missing in the move. Like, you know, nobody knows where they are. So, they're undiscoverable. So,

1:13:35

you're not going to get them defense. Well, the judge, remember, the judge goes ballistic. He did. And the judge is angry. and the judge

1:13:42

makes it clear if I don't get them well before the end of the trial that the judge will entertain, you know, having

1:13:48

the case dismissed. Well,

1:13:53

we learn and and you know, I I don't know. I don't know, but what a coincidence, Tony. So, these they've

1:14:00

been looking for them for months. We've been asking for them for months. We've been asking for them during the trial,

1:14:05

but the day we're told un they're undiscoverable and the day the judge goes ballistic saying I may throw this

1:14:12

out if if they're not discovered soon, they're discovered that day. Like we find out before the end of the court day

1:14:18

that the undiscoverable documents, well, they've been discovered and as we

1:14:24

speak, they're being faxed from Ottawa to Edmonton. This is 2006. like we

1:14:30

didn't have, you know, I don't think we even had email yet. So these undiscoverable documents are

1:14:35

being faxed from Ottawa to to Edmonton and I should have them to my hotel room

1:14:41

before midnight and you know late in the night I did get them and set them aside. I thought I would read them the next

1:14:48

morning and they're a court exhibit. This is public record. I think it's like I don't know is it like between 8 and

1:14:55

900 pages? I forget now. Like it's just this crazy volume. Huge. It's huge.

1:15:00

Oh yeah. Huge. This crazy volume. And I I can tell you I started reading them during breakfast

1:15:08

and I had to set them down because I started weeping. Yeah. Because it's 800 pages

1:15:15

of vulnerable Canadians begging for their lives. There's no other way to describe it. It's 800 pages of

1:15:22

vulnerable Canadians, some of whom we can comfortably say are no longer with us

1:15:29

begging for their lives. And and Tony, I don't know how anyone, you know, with

1:15:36

two heart cells cannot act on that. But Health Canada didn't act on that. And I

1:15:41

know why they didn't want us to get it because it was just so damning. Now, we

1:15:48

learned though, well, we know from their actions, Health Canada didn't relent. Like, finally, the Minister of Health

1:15:53

relented and allowed access to this product, but Health Canada didn't relent. Do you want to share with the

1:16:00

audience what happened in court with the inspector Miles Brusso when he was being cross-examined about

1:16:07

like you guys have all this information that people are being hurt and yet you're proceeding anyway. Do you want to

1:16:13

share what your experience of that was? I'm going to defer to you because it'll be more accurate because you were

1:16:20

actually doing the interview and I'll tell you what that just when I heard

1:16:25

what he said it blew me apart. But if you're okay, I'd like you to look Well, and and and

1:16:32

I remember the whole courtroom just kind of it was almost like time stopped. Yeah.

1:16:37

And and nobody knew what to do with what they just heard. So, and again, you have to go and read the transcripts. Like,

1:16:43

this is a long time ago, but you know, basically there's an inspector on the stand, Miles Brusso, who, you know, had

1:16:50

been taking actions that in our opinion was causing harm and and literally being reckless towards people's lives. Um, and

1:16:57

he wasn't the top guy. He was a soldier following orders, but he was following orders. And I'm basically pointing out

1:17:03

things like these 1800 crisis line notes and all these letters and calls beforehand and saying like if you have

1:17:10

information showing that your action is actually you know I think causing death

1:17:15

right like taking lives. Did I go that far? You did. Um you know and it's your orders to follow

1:17:22

them like would would you carry on anyway? And what does he say Tony?

1:17:27

Yes, because we had a directive to do so.

1:17:33

Yes. It was basically they knew they knew that they were causing harm. They had you look at the court exhibits, it's

1:17:40

unmistakable. And he's saying, "Yeah, I'm going to follow orders even if even if I have

1:17:45

evidence that it's hurting people." And you see, this is the problem. It's kind of like during the Second World War

1:17:51

when they would round, you know, Jewish people up into a church and set it on fire. Like people follow orders.

1:17:58

There's something in our makeup. People follow orders. This this fellow isn't unusual. He's the norm.

1:18:04

But it's it's part of the problem. And when we allow a legal structure in place

1:18:10

that gives people the authority to decide to take a that they can take a

1:18:15

product away that people rely on for their health. problem is our legal our laws that we're not free to decide to

1:18:22

take things that we actually rely on for our lives. That's the problem. And there was

1:18:28

another interesting part of the trial. It was, you know, it was my education, Tony. We got Inspector Sheila Welock, I

1:18:35

think it was, on the stand. And, you know, as a lawyer, you want to you want to box people in. I get to cross-examine

1:18:41

her. I get to ask yes no questions. And so I've got a list of yes no questions kind of box. I know I'm going to get

1:18:48

yeses. I'm and but then I'll kind of have her cornered into this box and then

1:18:53

you know the delivery question. But well one of my surely I'm going to get a yes

1:18:58

questions because I didn't know yet. I didn't understand yet. This was still early on in my you know Health Canada

1:19:05

career. And one of my questions was something like well you know as a Health Canada inspector you're there to protect our

1:19:12

health. And I thought I was going to get a yes and she doesn't give me a yes. And

1:19:18

you know, I keep my poker face. I don't don't let the judge or anyone else know that just wait a second, that's not what

1:19:24

I was expecting. And I keep circling around. I'm I'm I've got to get a yes.

1:19:29

Sure. As a health candidate inspector, she's there to protect our health. That's what I believe eronously. And she

1:19:35

corrects me finally, Tony. remember she she shares with us, no, Health Canada's

1:19:41

not there to protect our health. We're there we're there to enforce the law,

1:19:49

the act and the regulations. And now I know this is true. Health Canada's there

1:19:54

to enforce the law. They're there to enforce the food and drug and regulations. It's so clear now. And in

1:20:02

the law, they're under no obligation to protect health. like it might surprise people read the Food and Drug Act. You

1:20:08

you tell me where they're supposed to get good health outcomes. Why do you think we wrote that into the Charter of Health Freedom? So that trial just

1:20:16

absolutely it it was like I don't I don't know. We we laughed, we wept. It

1:20:22

was crazy. But what did the judge do at the end of the day? So Canada's trying

1:20:28

to shut you down by having you guys convicted of a whole bunch of just

1:20:33

regulatory charges. that really I I can say are meaningless. And if anyone wants

1:20:38

to talk to me about that, like the whole industry was unregulated. Why single out your product out of

1:20:45

80,000 products? Well, it was interesting. I mean, at the

1:20:51

very end, the very uh outset of this whole thing,

1:20:58

he ruled in our in our favor. and he said

1:21:03

that had we followed Health Canada's

1:21:09

orders to shut down that we may very well have ended up in court with a

1:21:16

greater a greater thing against us which would involve people being

1:21:23

injured, people losing their lives. that we would be held accountable for

1:21:29

following their orders. It was shocking. The whole thing was

1:21:35

shocking. Yeah. So, so just so everyone

1:21:41

understands, there's a defense of necessity in the law. And what the defense of necessity and it it is hard

1:21:47

to get a court to grant you acquit you on the defense of necessity. Like you

1:21:53

will search far and wide to find a case. And in fact, this is now probably the leading case in Canada.

1:22:00

But basically, the defense of necessity is is the court says, I don't care that

1:22:06

some law may have been broken. It was legally necessary

1:22:12

for you to defy the law to prevent greater harm. If you if you had followed

1:22:17

the law, there would have been greater harm. And in my recollection, I know it's not in the written decision, but my

1:22:24

recollection is is when he delivered oral judgment, he said there would have been more deaths.

1:22:29

Yes. If you had if you had listened to Health Canada, and you you can't read the evidence in that case and not personally

1:22:35

come to the same conclusion that if True Hope would have listened to Health Canada and stopped selling, there

1:22:42

would have been a large number of deaths. And so basically the court was saying you prevent it was legally

1:22:48

necessary for you to prevent harm by doing what you did. And so um

1:22:56

basically you know Health Canada couldn't use that case as a weapon against you. Now I want you I you know

1:23:03

we're we've actually had a long discussion already but I'm not finished. I want to show you a little bit of a video, but I I want I want you to

1:23:11

explain um True Hopes never paid for research, but I think there's like now 30 published peer-reviewed journal

1:23:19

publications, all funded by government. Can you just talk about that and the types of things that the research says

1:23:26

because I want I want the Canadian public to understand why we can't why

1:23:31

True Hope can't share that with you. Well, you're actually right, but it's

1:23:37

even further than that. Here, here I have this isn't our most latest summary.

1:23:44

We have a summary of the abstracts of the medical journal publications.

1:23:50

This one shows 36 publications, but it's actually 37 now. There was

1:23:56

recently another one. So we had there are 37 medical journal publications

1:24:03

on 16 different mental disorders. I don't like that

1:24:09

terminology because those are dungeon terms. It gives the thinking the incurable. It's not incurable. These are

1:24:16

nutrient deficiencybased disorders.

1:24:22

But here you have the publications in some of the most renowned journals,

1:24:27

journals like the uh clinical journal of psychiatry. Uh there's double blind studies, art,

1:24:34

RTC's, randomized control trials. Um, you've got absolute evidence on 16

1:24:42

different disorders from 16 different universities

1:24:49

and I believe there was 58 59 researchers involved. We didn't pay 5

1:24:56

cents for it. I call that a godsend. That's amazing.

1:25:02

This research is not bought and paid for. In fact, if if we were to try and

1:25:08

provide funding to the universities involved, they would reject it. Not that we did.

1:25:14

What what research? Say that again. What countries have done research?

1:25:21

Uh you've got a major hold in um New

1:25:26

Zealand um the university in Christ Church, University of Canterbury. There's

1:25:34

English uh universities that have done this. There's a Danish

1:25:40

uh numerous universities in the US. Uh Oregon State, Ohio State, Dr. Eugene

1:25:49

Arnold, very famous Dr. Bonnie Kaplan heading a lot of the research. No pola,

1:25:58

no money exchange hands. It was out of the love that they had to find an

1:26:05

answer. You know, these research scientists do this just like doctors do. They go into the field hoping they can

1:26:12

make a change and they have. It's profound. The

1:26:18

research, there's so much hope and wonder in this thing. This is available,

1:26:23

by the way. If you go to trueuh hope.com, you can download the new one that shows

1:26:30

37 studies and have which is not which is not a Canadian

1:26:35

website because you can't put that on your Canadian website. It's illegal.

1:26:41

It's a charter two violation. Again, the right I want the Canadian audience to

1:26:48

understand. So this is research done by universities with government money where they've just

1:26:56

decided this is in the public interest for us to do and then published into peer-reviewed journals and you cannot in

1:27:04

Canada share that information. So Canadians can't learn about this

1:27:10

research because who else is going to share it other than you know True Hope or because

1:27:15

practitioners can't share it with the public either. practitioners that know, whether you're a psychiatrist or or

1:27:21

whatever, you can't share that. A doctor or psychiatrist can't share government-f funded peer-reviewed

1:27:27

research, and they can't share their success stories because Health Canada will go after you. You cannot share

1:27:34

truthful health information. All that you can share, so we have almost 100% censorship. All True Hope can say is

1:27:41

whatever their approved label claim is, which is something like supports mental health and well-being. it. I think it's

1:27:47

been tweaked, but it's something like that. Yes, it is. You're right.

1:27:52

Right. So, isn't that pathetic? Well, it's just how like what I think is

1:27:58

is like let's say I had a child that was, you know, it hit puberty and was now, you know, suffering by bipolar and

1:28:05

we've got the family history and and I know it's going to be a train wreck and the psychiatrist is telling me there's

1:28:12

no hope. like much like you were told at the University of Calgary and I'm in a health food store and I'm standing

1:28:19

beside an aisle where you know there's empower plus and nobody can share with me like there's no downside for my child

1:28:27

trying it but nobody can share with me that this actually might be the product that saves my child's life like they

1:28:34

can't be to I can't be told that's what bothers me like that that we can't no

1:28:40

one can share share health information. What I think the law is is that you have to share all health information. But

1:28:47

Tony, I want to just play a little bit of a video and this is about the ladies

1:28:53

with red umbrellas. Can you This is back when people were begging for their lives when Health Canada was restricting

1:28:58

access and it's kind of a way for us to bring it back. So like this is in real

1:29:04

time. And this is back in in likely 04 or '05 when people were, you know,

1:29:10

begging for their lives. Tell us uh how this group came together and and kind of

1:29:16

what's going on here. Like I know this is going to shock people. Well, my daughter Autumn

1:29:22

of course was very concerned. She's now been healthy for a number of years by that time. She's gained her life back

1:29:30

and she's involved in the movement of assisting people with mental health

1:29:36

conditions. And of course, the big threat came, the embargo at the border

1:29:41

where they shut the product off, people are having to smuggle. It's just a big

1:29:46

mess. So she had this impression, this inspiration that came to her

1:29:53

where she gathered a number of female

1:29:58

participants. We don't call them patients because we're non-medical.

1:30:04

They're participating in this new program. And she gathered a number of these good ladies together

1:30:12

and they all went to parliament, but they didn't get any traction.

1:30:17

Jean Creten was the prime minister blew them off and they had this impression go

1:30:25

to the store and get red umbrellas and they did and so they stood outside of parliament

1:30:31

and they were given certain allowances where they didn't throw them off the property.

1:30:37

Many MPs grew to love these women. They were there for a good number of days

1:30:42

with these beautiful red umbrellas and they became known as the red umbrellas. And they had these red umbrella pins

1:30:50

that they would give out. And many of the MPs, the members of parliament were

1:30:56

actually sporting these pins on their lapels. And it it really helped. It did. It was

1:31:04

an amazing idea, an amazing piece of inspiration

1:31:09

that sent this all across Canada. And so I'm going to play this and it's just

1:31:15

it's going to bring us back to what Tony was talking about, you know, people

1:31:21

trying to communicate with two health Canada that they needed the product. So

1:31:27

this this is an actual press conference in the press gallery in center block on

1:31:33

Parliament Hill. So you know this these are just real

1:31:38

people, you know, either they depended on the product themselves or their mother fighting for the child. So here

1:31:44

here we go. Yes. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm here today to stand with a courageous group of women who've come to Ottawa

1:31:51

hoping someone will listen to them. The issue is freedom of choice in natural health products.

1:31:57

They've been taking a simple vitamin and mineral supplement that is now being withheld from them. I just like to give

1:32:02

a brief uh background on the situation. Over the last 40 years, there's been an explosion of scientific information uh

1:32:09

about the importance of vitamins and minerals in building a healthy body. Now, faced with increasing health claims

1:32:15

about the benefits of natural health products, in 1997, Minister Alan Rock uh

1:32:20

moved to bring natural health products under a drug style directorate. Over a million Canadians responded uh saying,

1:32:28

"Hey, hands off our natural health products. They're low-risk products." The health committee uh was commissioned

1:32:33

to look into this and to hear from Canadians. After consultations, they published a report with some 53 recommendations. And then along came a

1:32:40

transition team for an office of natural health products and they recommended changes to the antiquated food and drugs

1:32:45

act. Now, I have a private members bill right now before the House, Bill C420,

1:32:51

that addresses the concerns uh about health claims for natural health products and basically would move

1:32:57

natural health products under a food directorate rather than a drug style adversarial directorate. Now, the

1:33:03

product that these ladies have been taking has been researched at the University of Calgary. there was a

1:33:08

nearly half million dollar fund Alberta funded from the Alberta Science and Research Council funded research

1:33:13

underway which unfortunately was stopped by Health Canada. Uh the research u

1:33:18

results have already been published in several peer-reviewed journals and um and discussed at psychiatric and

1:33:25

psychological gatherings across the country and even around the world. Now these ladies have come from across the country because they're concerned about

1:33:32

their future and their well-being. they feel threatened uh and their families by uh an obstruction from Health Canada

1:33:38

that's now preventing their natural health product from being available in Canada. So the question really needs to

1:33:43

be asked is why is Health Canada imposing such draconian measures uh on enforcing uh an antiquated clause in the

1:33:49

Food and Drugs Act, one that is under discussion and under review at the present time and is it justified in

1:33:56

putting these people at risk? They're here to tell their stories. Thank you. Thank you.

1:34:01

And I'm sorry. I'm going to first um I'm sorry, Autumn uh Stringham from Alberta.

1:34:06

All the way from Alberta. Autumn, thank you.

1:34:12

Um I am from Alberta and I apologize. I uh

1:34:19

I feel like um coming out into Ottawa has been a real eye opener for me. Um

1:34:27

and I I have gained a new respect for this country. I love this country and uh and what it stands for for democracy and

1:34:34

for and for freedom and I'm so grateful for that. Uh on Friday afternoon, I

1:34:40

found out that Health Canada had put a an advisory on their website about the vitamin supplement that I'm taking and

1:34:46

they said that it's a dangerous drug and that they recommend that Canadians don't consume it. And um I was really

1:34:52

concerned about that because I'm six months pregnant and I have been eating this supplement for a lot of years. Um,

1:34:58

and out of genuine concern and wondering why uh this is dangerous, I put in a

1:35:04

phone call to Health Canada where I was immediately flipped over to a mental

1:35:10

health crisis line uh where they have a script uh that says that uh you are

1:35:16

mentally ill. You need to be under the care of your physician. Please go to the hospital. If you run out of your

1:35:21

supplement, you will not have this dangerous drug anymore. We're looking out for your best interest. Um, I was upset by this and I told this

1:35:30

nurse that I had been well for many years and um, I asked her why it was

1:35:35

dangerous and she said it was information that she could not give me. So, uh, I said that I would like to make

1:35:41

a complaint about this because it I couldn't get any help. And when they um

1:35:47

put me through to another line, it was the complaint line that said uh, Health Canada is a regulatory board for this.

1:35:54

uh we have the highest standards. We're protecting the Canadian people. We're looking out for your best interest. You can leave a message, but it won't be

1:36:01

answered. Uh all of us have made calls to that line out of concern. Uh a number of

1:36:08

weeks ago, uh hundreds of shipments of this vitamin and mineral product were seized at the border and turned back.

1:36:15

And um there are about 3,000 people in this country that use the supplement, many of them for the same reasons that

1:36:21

we do. and they're all uh really scared, really nervous about it, very really

1:36:26

terrified because it seems like a rather rash decision and then with no explanation and when we call we're told

1:36:34

that we're mentally ill and we should go back to the hospital. Um I was offended by that and uh and I I

1:36:44

want you to understand why because I have been well for 7 and 1/2 years. I

1:36:50

haven't seen a psychiatrist for seven and a half years, but I was very very

1:36:56

very sick before that. Uh my family has an incredible history of mental illness.

1:37:03

I lost my grandfather to suicide when I was five and I lost my mother to suicide when I was 21.

1:37:10

Um I see an inheritance of mental illness in all of my mother's children in one degree or another.

1:37:18

and I inherited her illness full force. I spent um years through my early teen

1:37:25

years and into my 20s as an extremely ill woman and I spent my time in the

1:37:31

psychiatric units. In a three-year period, I tried 13 drugs uh many of them

1:37:37

in various combinations. I developed an autoimmune disease. I developed liver damage as a result of these drugs and

1:37:44

they didn't work for me. I'm not anti- medication, but my mother died taking medication. We've never u been anti-d

1:37:52

doctor. I loved my doctor. My psychiatrist wanted to help me, but he didn't have the tools that it took to

1:37:58

help me. My family suffered for 2 years after the death of my mother. She left

1:38:05

nine children that she had given birth to and one adopted daughter. And uh several of them were still home. Her

1:38:11

youngest children were only six and seven at the time when she took her life. And so the uh cost to our family in

1:38:19

suicide was phenomenal. And there is a cost that every Canadian pays uh to suicide. There are many many suicides in

1:38:26

this country daily. Um so this is an issue of of life for

1:38:31

me. Um

1:38:38

I'm sorry. Two years after my mother's suicide, my

1:38:44

dad was just so desperate. You see, my brother who had been diagnosed with bipolar as well. And as a young male

1:38:50

with bipolar, he was extremely violent and agitated. And the whole family felt that they were

1:38:56

physically at risk. Um, people in the community felt like they were at risk. and he's a

1:39:04

he was uh stalking weapons and and it was very very scary to be around at that

1:39:11

time. And my dad out of desperation uh was doing his work as a property

1:39:16

manager. He was in a church hallway talking to a man about carpets and toilets and regular things to do with

1:39:22

the job that he had. And he broke down and expressed his concern about his

1:39:28

family. He told about the suicide. he told about his children and his fear for

1:39:33

all of his children. And this gentleman who was a volunteer for this church said,

1:39:38

"I've been in the agriculture feed business for 20 years, and your boy sounds like a pig with ear and tail

1:39:45

biting syndrome." And he ex he explained how farmers for years and years and

1:39:50

years have used trace minerals to um get their pigs not to be agitated. And as a

1:39:58

result, they went down to the store out of sheer desperation. The medication wasn't working for him or I. I was in

1:40:04

the psych wart at that time. Uh they went down to the store, they purchased

1:40:10

uh all of the different combinations for, you know, in human grade consumable form, but they bought all the ingredients that they would have put in

1:40:16

this pig feed and they started feeding it to my son or to my hus, sorry, my brother.

1:40:22

Um, and as a result, he was off of his medication within a few weeks. And, uh,

1:40:28

I did another stay on a suicide watch, and when I got out of the hospital, my father offered to, uh, to take me into

1:40:35

his care. So, my husband drove me down, and within a week, I had discontinued three of the five of the medications I

1:40:41

was on. It took me two months to get off of the rest. And I've been stable ever since. This is my whole life and I need

1:40:49

the Canadian people to protect it because we cannot get answers from the government officials who have been

1:40:54

elected to protect our health. Um, as a result of our story, many people in southern Alberta started trying the same

1:41:01

thing and having the same success and as they documented their success, the University of Calgary picked it up and

1:41:06

decided to do some research. And the research moved forward. They went through every uh appropriate method for

1:41:14

getting permission to do this research. And after um it had been published in

1:41:20

the clinical journal of psychiatry as having some effect with mental illness, a phenomenal effect with mental illness,

1:41:27

um Health Canada decided that these vitamins were drugs and shut down the study. And and so they tell us it's

1:41:35

dangerous because it hasn't been studied, but they won't allow it to be studied because vitamins are now drugs when they work for people. I'm just

1:41:42

appealing. I came here to see the prime minister. I can't get through on the phone to Mlullen. We've been stonewalled

1:41:49

at every turn. There are 3,000 of us that are really, really afraid. So on

1:41:54

Friday when I called these women, I had never seen them before, met them, but I had heard their stories too through our

1:42:00

True Hope support and uh and read letters from them and and heard of them.

1:42:06

When we gathered together, we decided that we needed to be rational, that we needed to show that this is the new face

1:42:13

of mental illness in Canada, that there is hope. All of these women have similar

1:42:18

stories to mine and they would love to have the opportunity to share their stories and to proclaim themselves as

1:42:25

mentally well. We don't need to be brushed off by Health Canada. We don't need to be sent through to uh health

1:42:33

mental health support lines and told that we are mentally ill and need to go back to the hospital. If we were going

1:42:39

to think ourselves well, if this was a placebo, we would have done it years ago the first time a doctor gave us a

1:42:45

medication because all of us want to live. All of us want to be well. And so I appeal to Health Canada to hear our

1:42:52

stories and to give us some credit. And I appeal to the prime minister to act on our behalf. We've met so many wonderful

1:43:00

MPs. Uh we are the ladies with the red umbrellas that are standing outside um

1:43:05

near the peace tower asking for help quietly and patiently as we wait for our

1:43:11

government to notice us. And many of the MPs have come forward. We've talked to MPs from every party

1:43:19

and they have been absolutely wonderful but none of them have the ability to immediately intervene in this. And so

1:43:24

we're appealing to the prime minister and we're appealing to um Anne Mlullen to see that we are well and that we are

1:43:31

rational and that we are desperate Canadian women who are seeking to protect ourselves and our families and

1:43:38

essentially our children and I thank you for that.

1:43:45

Hi, my name is Sabina Coulson. I live in Pemrook, Ontario. Uh from the time that

1:43:51

I was a toddler, I've lived in a world of bipolar and obsessivecompulsive delusions. Uh was on medication for

1:43:58

about 16 years. For um the last six or seven years, my medical costs averaged

1:44:05

between 12 and $1,800 a month. That was not including um the cost of the many

1:44:11

times I had to be hospitalized, sometimes for months on end. Um, I feel

1:44:17

that in watching the news, I always was under the impression that healthc care in Canada is in trouble because of the

1:44:24

tremendous cost involved. And I don't understand why now that I'm able to

1:44:30

function. I'm able to work. I'm now paying taxes. I'm not a burden on the

1:44:35

system anymore. I feel that this right is being taken away from me. It's not

1:44:41

only going to reduce me back to not having any quality of life, but it's also going to take the dignity away from

1:44:47

me to be able to be a productive member of society, to not be a burden on the

1:44:52

system. And I just ask that you please let me keep my quality of life. Let me

1:44:58

continue as a productive member of society. Thank you.

1:45:03

Anybody

1:45:09

else would like to speak right now? Lou.

1:45:14

Okay. Suzanne. Suzanne. Just a few words.

1:45:20

Hi, my name is Suzanne Actton Jery and I as well would like to uh mirror what Autumn was saying. We've met some

1:45:26

fantastic MPs and ministers and we really appreciate you lending us your ears and giving us your uh your um your

1:45:33

time. We do realize how busy you are and we are here because we um are here to

1:45:39

protect our our rights and freedom. We're here um all these women peacefully

1:45:44

to ask that our access to this product to be imported into Canada is not restricted as well. I'm here to put a

1:45:52

question forth. This is a possible cure. This is science. This is a made in

1:45:58

Canada possible cure. This illness knows no boundaries.

1:46:06

Why can't Canada lead the way? Why can't Canada do what is morally right? Why

1:46:13

can't Canada support the research at the University of Calgary? We ask you, the

1:46:20

Canadian public, the MPs, to please do what is morally right. Thank you.

1:46:30

Okay. Thank you, Patricia Sha. I'm from Calgary, Alberta. I came out

1:46:36

here searching for answers, coming to my government, the people who protect me, who are essentially in charge of my

1:46:42

life, looking for answers. We have gotten so many different

1:46:47

answers. We have been getting conflicting reports. We've been told that um as participants, we can drive

1:46:54

down to the United States, purchase a 3-mon supply of our supplements, and drive them across the border. Well, that

1:47:00

seems true at some border crossings, not true at other border crossings. At some border crossings, people are being told

1:47:07

that they need a letter from from an MLEN from Health Canada to be able to bring their supplements back. When we

1:47:13

ask Health Canada about the letter, there is no letter. We're we're very confused women. We're I mean, we are

1:47:20

upset. We're fighting fighting for our lives here. And when you go to ask your government what's going on, what they're

1:47:26

doing, and you get 10 answers, that's really scary. That's really scary. I

1:47:32

love this country and I'm proud of my government, but right now I'm really scared at what they're doing. It seems

1:47:38

like everyone's getting a different answer, not just us. MPs are confused.

1:47:43

No one knows what's going on. And we just beg of you Canada to help us get these answers. We need answers from

1:47:49

Health Canada, and we need one answer, not 10 different answers to the same question. Thank you.

1:47:58

I'll speak. Sure. Hi, my name is Christy and I've come to Ottawa from Red, Alberta. Um, I'm here

1:48:05

with these wonderful women fighting for my right to take a natural supplement. The supplement consists of everything

1:48:12

that's available on the health food stores shelves today. Um, itself is not available in the health food store, but

1:48:18

um it's it's made such a difference for me. Without it, I I fear for my life.

1:48:25

Um, that's not a threat, it's a fear. I know that for a decade before this supplement, uh I I made over a dozen

1:48:33

suicide attempts and I really am lucky to be standing before you today. Um

1:48:39

the supplement has kept me well for 2 years. I have not been hospitalized. Before that, I was on a revolving door

1:48:44

in and out, in and out, in and out. I was a tremendous tax to the government

1:48:49

and um to the people of Canada. And I don't understand why something that is working for me is being taken away and

1:48:57

why we're being told to go back to the hospital when we're well.

1:49:02

So please stand up and do what's right and fight for for Canada and for our rights and our freedoms. Thank you.

1:49:14

Yeah. Okay. Hey, um MP Reed Ali would just like to say a word.

1:49:21

In the last parliament, I was the vice chair of the health committee when we did the uh review of natural health

1:49:27

products in this country. And I think we as a committee came forward with some pretty unanimous recommendations about

1:49:33

the use of of supplements and how they should be viewed by Health Canada and

1:49:38

the Canadian public. And one of our recommendations of course was that a separate food directorate be set up that

1:49:45

would include these supplements and that would not be placed under drugs. Unfortunately the government has ignored

1:49:51

that particular recommendation. And so these ladies come to Ottawa today uh as

1:49:56

a result of inaction of Health Canada and the health minister at that time uh

1:50:02

having this problem with this food uh supplement. And I think that it clearly

1:50:08

shows that there's a problem with the way things are handled in this country concerning natural health products. And

1:50:15

certainly my colleague James Lenny and myself are going to continue our efforts to try to see that this problem is taken

1:50:21

care of so that people like this, Canadians who depend upon supplements for their very life uh are not denied uh

1:50:30

that which is really their right.

1:50:36

So, uh, thank you. Um, we're, um, available for questions.

1:50:42

I just wanted to ask, you took it several years up until now.

1:50:47

How were you receiving it? Was it through the mail or Originally, it was just off of the

1:50:54

grocery store shelves, uh, where it was just a combination based on this swine feed discovery. Uh, so it was just

1:51:03

whatever I I could just go down and pick up the different ingredients. Some of it was brought in from the United States in

1:51:08

liquid form, but it was uh it was inconsistent and so um and it was hard

1:51:13

to develop a placebo with so many different tablets and things like that. So when the university decided that they

1:51:20

wanted to do a double blind placeboc controlled study in order to prove what thousands of Canadians already knew, um

1:51:27

they developed it into an all-in-one supplement and that was produced in the

1:51:33

States. It's sold in the United States and it's imported for personal use into Canada. Um and it I so I've been using

1:51:41

this program for seven and a half years. I've also had two healthy babies during those years. Um, and I'm pregnant with

1:51:48

my third, so I trust that it it isn't dangerous. And uh,

1:51:54

from the States, we can order it, but it's pretty tough to get it across the border. Sometimes it comes in. Uh, Patricia had a friend

1:52:00

who drove from Calgary yesterday to pick up her product. When she got into the United States, she picked it up. She

1:52:07

called back to the Alberta border to make sure that she wouldn't be hassled coming back through because some of the women have been reduced to tears and

1:52:13

told that it's an illegal drug. You're not allowed to have it and you have to beg and make a scene to get it. Um, and

1:52:19

so they said, "Don't even try." So this woman drove back up through BC and the

1:52:25

BC border had no trouble. Uh, she she declared it. They had no trouble getting it in. It's just mass confusion. We just

1:52:30

need an answer. I I went on the Health Canada site. this

1:52:35

this page you said they just put that there the other day. That was on Friday. Yeah, Friday. Um it does say there are risks

1:52:41

associated. It doesn't say what or a risk. Have they ever told you what that is? No, they haven't. And we've heard from

1:52:48

um different MPs that there have been different risks associated with it. They haven't told us. Apparently, we can't

1:52:54

answer. We wouldn't understand the answer if we got it. We just get the mental health crisis line. But um what I

1:53:01

do know is uh any of us could tell you the risks associated with our previous treatment. Um if I were to show you the

1:53:08

side effects of my drugs that I took on a scroll, it would hit the floor and keep on rolling. Uh there are there's

1:53:16

there's no death as a result of vitamins and minerals. And most of these ingredients have been available for at least 40 years on the store shelves in

1:53:22

Canada. If they want to call it a drug, would you be amable to having them go through the process of the testing? I know it can be

1:53:29

lengthy to do that but as long as the access isn't restricted that's uh that's an issue but I really

1:53:35

believe firmly that u vitamins and minerals are not drugs drugs are synthetic things that are put together

1:53:41

that have a lot of side effects and that can be dangerous people die from

1:53:46

medication complications often uh they don't die from vitamins and minerals

1:53:52

saying it's a drug because it makes a claim to do something is that well it wasn't a drug for the first

1:53:59

years and if uh if the fact that a vitamin and mineral actually makes a different makes it a drug. I'd like to

1:54:05

know where the logic is in that the ingredients didn't change and uh it's

1:54:10

vitamins and minerals. Can I make a comment on that? Yes, please.

1:54:16

Just on the point of the of um drugs if you know vitamins and minerals have

1:54:21

always been uh traditionally in this country they've always been public domain. They're not drugs. But of

1:54:26

course, the last 40 years has been an explosion of information about how important these things are in building healthy bodies. So the question is, why

1:54:31

should we put a low-risk product through a multi u millions of dollars of testing? Uh who's going to pay the cost?

1:54:38

It's going to drive the cost up to consumer if we do that. Now, let's do the research. That's great if they want to do it, but but uh who's going to pay

1:54:45

the cost of that uh for something that is really low risk? And then when will it become available if if ever? And

1:54:51

that's one of the questions for something that is low risk. The other thing is that as far as safety goes, the

1:54:56

Alberta Science and Research Council that approved the funding for a half million dollar study, uh they did a risk

1:55:02

assessment of the of the components of this of the product, as did the University of Calgary. It had to go

1:55:07

through a peer uh review and ethics committee before the research was conducted. And there is no there's no

1:55:13

one has ever demonstrated any risks associated with this particular product. As with most vitamin and mineral

1:55:19

products, the adverse reaction rate is so low, it uh it basically is not even on the scale. So, it's lower than

1:55:26

Tylenol or aspirin or peanuts for that matter. Their problem with it, I'm assuming

1:55:32

here, is that because it's used to treat something serious like depression as opposed to other vitamin supplements out

1:55:38

there that are just supposed to generally make you healthier. or is that we don't understand really what

1:55:43

and that bothers me because if that's true then eating an orange for the

1:55:48

vitamin C for scurvy does that mean oranges are drugs does that mean if we have an orange tree in our backyard we're a drug pusher you know you have to

1:55:56

look we're not just looking at at one supplement here yes that's our case but look at it across the board if that's

1:56:03

true then vitamin C is a drug St. John's wart treats depression, right? So, and it's not a drug, is it?

1:56:08

Yeah. No. Can I make a comment? Um, my comment, too, is that um I can't

1:56:16

claim to fully understand how these supplements have returned my mental well-being back to as normal as I think

1:56:23

I can be. Um, I also did not exactly understand how the drugs that I was

1:56:29

given were supposed to work. Now they did not help me but I do understand and

1:56:34

I did see on black and white the fact that I developed diabetes that many times I was hospitalized because my

1:56:41

sugar level was in the coma range at one time I was hospitalized my sugar went up to 59 it's supposed to be seven at the

1:56:48

highest. Um, I also know that uh my liver became enlarged and all of my uh

1:56:56

liver enzyme tests came back really abnormal and I was sent to specialist and they told me that the medication was

1:57:02

leading to cerosis of the liver. So, um I don't understand maybe fully how this

1:57:09

supplement works, but I do know that my tests are now coming back normal that I threw away my insulin under medical

1:57:16

guidance. I do not even need a special diet and that's virtually unheard of

1:57:22

with diabetic patients. So, can you explain to me what the danger is in me

1:57:27

taking this supplement? The drugs were literally killing me and and they would have led to um extremely serious health

1:57:34

risk. If I can just It's really important to understand too that um we're not asking

1:57:42

uh people to drop their drugs and go and get vitamins and minerals. uh that's that would be extremely unsafe. Uh this

1:57:50

program True Hope has set up councils people to work with their doctors and many of us have the support of our

1:57:56

physicians and uh and so we're not trying to be radical here and say drop

1:58:03

your drugs and go on vitamins and minerals. We're saying that there is a treatment that has been discovered in Canada that may well change the face of

1:58:10

mental illness for many more people than the 3,000 that are using it now. anyone

1:58:15

who says it didn't help them or it just didn't benefit. I mean, that's the case with most things. It doesn't work for

1:58:21

everybody. In the four in the four studies that have been published, I think the average is about 80% effectiveness. It's what

1:58:26

they're saying. It certainly doesn't work for everyone.

1:58:32

Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks for everyone.

1:58:42

Um Tony, I'm just honored to have you come and share your story. It's um you

1:58:49

know, very few people have had to experience the tragedy that you experienced and very few people have had

1:58:56

to you know, deal with Health Canada literally where it's life and death and

1:59:02

um you know, where there was death and and still stand through that. And so

1:59:08

we're asking everyone that we have speak to to answer the question, what's your

1:59:14

message to Ottawa? You know, what's what's your message to Ottawa? You know, you've got all this

1:59:19

experience. You you know, you understand things um that many of us don't understand. And

1:59:25

what would be your message to Ottawa? Let the people go.

1:59:31

Let the people have their rights and freedoms to

1:59:37

to manipulate their own health care within their own body to self mediate

1:59:45

instead of being restrictive and following the financial

1:59:51

the financial platitude that has come forth. I mean,

1:59:57

this case just brings it right clear. There's no

2:00:03

question if you follow this from the beginning, Sean, to the end, it's smacks

2:00:08

of control of human life insteading instead of

2:00:15

letting people have their freedom. And it it it's actually a very sad story.

2:00:21

It's a sad story for Canada and what happened. Where are those 300 people

2:00:27

that disappeared out of our database? Did we lose 300 to suicide?

2:00:34

If we did, that's terrible. That's such an attack. So, let the people go. Let the people

2:00:41

have their rights and their freedoms. We don't need to be monitored.

2:00:47

You know what, Sean? I'm going to be real silly here. I don't drink gasoline as part of my dietary

2:00:54

uh makeup because I'm wiser than that. I know that that's a very dangerous thing to do.

2:01:03

And every self-respecting

2:01:08

human in Canada is wise enough to determine what's safe for them. Just

2:01:14

read the label. listen, seek for wisdom. We don't need

2:01:20

this control. It's overt and it's it's so oppressive.

2:01:26

And when you have Health Canada agents that sit in a courtroom and say that

2:01:31

human life is of no value, that their regulatory framework is what we should

2:01:38

be giving credence to, that's that's Awitz. I'm sorry. I don't

2:01:45

I don't want to belittle anything or be seen as a radical, but it just goes on

2:01:51

and on and on until the people truly have their freedom and they can have their health back. We saw the same thing

2:02:00

with the co show. We saw the same. We're trying actually to stay away from

2:02:05

that theme. And I'll block my words out. If anyone's listening, ignore that

2:02:10

statement. But but it's time Yeah. time for people to have the right

2:02:16

and the freedom to access their health. It's that

2:02:21

simple. That's what this story is about. Praise God that we were so blessed. I'm

2:02:27

so grateful, Sean, that you are our our counsel. You were very inspired all the

2:02:34

way through. I know it was a difficulty because we all got

2:02:41

attack. How many times broken in needs to be

2:02:46

asked? Oh, yeah. No, it it was interesting. Nobody could sit through that trial and

2:02:53

and read that evidence and not be affected emotionally. So, I mean, even just all the letters and and calls

2:02:59

documented before Health Canada restricted access, like I I couldn't get my head around psychiatrists saying,

2:03:05

"Listen, my patient's going to die." And doctors saying, "My patient's going to die." like I've tried all the other this

2:03:12

is the only thing that works and people saying the same thing and it's kind of like

2:03:18

you you get damaged when you see what happened and then you realize actually as the court found as fact that people

2:03:26

died because here you have this regulatory agency that was not concerned

2:03:31

about the health of people like this this you could see the train coming this

2:03:38

was all very predictable and and it you know I I think we were all affected and

2:03:44

we're probably still affected and there's nothing we can do about it but it it certainly it certainly shows um

2:03:50

that we need to change the laws so that so that we do have the right to make our own decisions. I I think you know like I

2:03:58

think we all agree with the government making recommendations but where we find ourselves in a world

2:04:05

where we can't share truthful health information. Yeah, it's it's quite something. So So Tony,

2:04:12

on on behalf of the world's greatest health show, thank you so much for coming and participating and sharing

2:04:18

with us. It's just been an absolute pleasure and thanks for all you're doing to get information into the

2:04:25

hands of Canadians. It's a wonderful group of people throughout the Canada.

2:04:30

Good people here and we need to be free. But thank you very much for what you've done.

2:04:36

Thanks Tony.