COVID Amplified Societal Issues That Need to Be Addressed, Says Group That Fought Against Restrictions

Frontline workers and first responders stand in silence to protest the province's vaccine mandates in Quebec City on Oct. 15, 2021. The Epoch Times/Sonia Rouleau

With COVID-19 now mostly being discussed in historical terms, a Quebec group that was at the forefront of challenging public health restrictions is redesigning itself to tackle broader issues in society.

“After COVID, we noticed a number of other problems that COVID amplified,” says André Fortier, an osteopath and co-founder of Réinfo COVID Québec, now rebranded as Réinfo Québec.

“We sought to widen our focus and look closer at the health topic. We’ve seen with the public health skid that there’s a misunderstanding about what health is—it’s a field where each individual is different.”

Fortier says a health-care system based on protocols, algorithms, and statistics is inadequate to properly tend to the needs of distinct individuals.

Aside from health care and health in general, the group is also interested in taking a closer look at rising societal trends, such as the implementation of digital ID and the proliferation of artificial intelligence.

This branching out coincides with a series of conferences the group has organized in 12 cities in Quebec, spanning the length of the province from Gaspésie to Gatineau.

Fortier spoke to The Epoch Times during a stop on Montreal’s south shore on July 8. He says the intent behind the tour is to allow the professionals associated with the group to be able to meet in person, and also for them to make a direct link with the public to receive feedback.

‘Heroes of the Crisis’

Fortier says Réinfo COVID was formed during the crisis to facilitate the networking of experts and professionals seeking to express different viewpoints about the management of public health matters.

The group has a list of 11,000 contacts, with around a third being healthcare professionals, he says. Others include professors and scientists in various fields, including biology or humanities.

Some of them have suffered consequences for speaking out, including professor Patrick Provost who was handed down several sanctions by Laval University for his public comments saying children are not at risk from COVID-19 and do not need the shots.

Fortier says these experts who spoke out are the “heroes of the crisis,” having done so “independently of consequences on their careers or finances.”

The group has also been accused of spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories by large news organizations. “Unfortunately mainstream media censored us extensively,” says Fortier.

He says putting the “conspiracy theorist” label on someone is a tactic used to prevent any conversation or debate on a matter.

“When we have PhDs like Patrick Provost and Bernard Massie, and many other physicians, it’s foolish [to avoid debating],” says Fortier. “You have competent and qualified people in front of you and you don’t even want to discuss... And often it’s journalists who themselves don’t have any scientific or medical training. It’s completely nonsensical.”

He says some journalists have used and abused their power to prevent informing the public under the pretext of a scientific consensus, whereas he says there isn’t any.

“We see it everyday, new information is coming out and more scientists are speaking up.”

Massie, an immunologist and a former National Research Council acting director general, participated in the July 8 conference and said the “consensus” became “concensorship” during the crisis.

He made a case for developing the immune system, which can be strengthened by living a healthy lifestyle, and pleaded for natural immunity gained from infection instead of having to “kneel down before the vaccine god.”

Immunologist and biotechnology consultant Bernard Massie speaks at a Réinfo Québec event in Longueuil, Quebec, on July 8, 2023. Noé Chartier/The Epoch Times

‘False Information’

It’s for taking positions such as these that Réinfo was heavily criticized, during a time when governments were encouraging and coercing citizens to roll up their sleeves with vaccine passports, mandates, and threats of imposing a tax on the non-compliant.

A “debunking” article by French CBC published on the group in November 2021 says that it spread “false information” in saying that mRNA injections modify DNA or that masks are toxic. It adds the group spread info related to the Great Reset “conspiracy theory” and that it promoted unproven treatments against COVID-19 such as Ivermectin.

All those areas are not absolutely clear cut, though they reflect in part the views of public health authorities.

Health Canada says that the mRNA does not come in contact with human DNA, and therefore the mRNA-based injections are not gene altering therapies.

But one study from Swedish scientists found that mRNA from the Pfizer shot was reverse-transcribed into human DNA during an in-vitro experiment.

Massie, who has conducted a sizeable body of research on gene therapy and has worked on industrial production of therapeutic antibodies and vaccines, says that the mRNA COVID-19 injections on the market are gene therapies, and he notes the reverse-transcription described in the Swedish study.

He says what’s even more preoccupying is that plasmid DNA was found in the mRNA product batches, in quantities much higher than allowed by regulating agencies. “This plasmid DNA doesn’t even need to be reverse-transcribed before integrating itself in the genome,” Massie says, providing for reference an April paper in pre-print authored by Kevin McKernan and others.

Regarding masks, Health Canada warned in April 2021 that some masks containing toxic particles had been distributed in some healthcare facilities. Notwithstanding the potential toxicity of some masks, some scientists have also warned about the over-consumption of CO2 caused by wearing them.

“Circumstantial evidence exists that extended mask use may be related to current observations of stillbirths and to reduced verbal motor and overall cognitive performance in children born during the pandemic,” says an article published in the journal Heliyon in March.

The Great Reset is not a theory but a policy proposal by World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab. Schwab has claimed in 2017 having penetrated government cabinets.

As for the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin, Health Canada says to not use it to treat COVID-19, but some physicians and scientific literature argue in its favour.

Alongside media, governments also made efforts to establish a consensus about issues relating to COVID-19 and information on the matter has recently come to light through court action or statements by stakeholders.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, overseeing social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, said in late June the U.S. government pressured his company to censor COVID-19 content that “ended up being more debatable or true.”

In early July, a U.S. District Court told federal agencies to stop communicating with social media companies with requests to remove content they deem to be misinformation. Content authorities targeted includes information about the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and about the effectiveness of various public health measures imposed during the crisis, such as lockdowns and vaccines.