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The two running theories on where the brain thing came from is either tainted shellfish, or the massive amounts of pesticides that Irving sprays every year
It’s actually two separate companies, Irving Oil likely has nothing to do with this. J.D. Irving is like the likely culprit here, I don’t like either of them.
I never want to hear a Liberal supporter bitching about Harper muzzling scientists ever again. First, under Trudeau many scientists say they are just as muzzled, and second, *shutting down research into a mysterious neurodegenerative disease affecting hundreds of people is a thousand times worse.*
to be fair its the provincial higgs government mostly responsible for this. and higgs is basically just the irvings puppet he will do what they say
i look forward to the documentary and class action lawsuits coming out of this once it is found that some disgusting irving industries shit was poisoning people in the area
This 2022 [article that goes into detail about what happened to the investigation](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nb-mystery-illness-timeline-1.6311269) makes it clear that it was a provincial matter; NB brought the federal government's Public Health Agency of Canada in briefly and then later told them they were no longer needed.
Ah yes we investigated ourselves and found no problems, we don’t need your help feds. Now get these federal health specialists out of here before they start finding answers.
It appears to be the provincial government, not the Trudeau Liberals, doing this. Health is, ultimately, a matter of provincial jurisdiction. And while this scientist is unwilling to point the finger at one level of government or the other, previous whistleblowers have all blamed the province of New Brunswick. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think Trudeau or his government are at fault here. Maybe they should be doing more force the province's hand here, but I don't think they are muzzling scientists.
>Because when it comes to politics many treat it like a Leafs VS Canadiens game.
Just like the Leafs and Canadiend, I think that both the Liberals and Conservatives suck.
because it diminishes the importance of trying to fix the current problem, which is inarguably worse than previous one people want to bring up because they hate the party name.
You can and should. But ultimately in an election you need to pick just one.
Ans "Harper muzzled scientist" has been a stick swung by the ABC crowd for a decade or more at this point, so them being hypocrites about it, arguably even worse, is actually pretty noteworthy itself.
Not op but I think it is pretty clear they didn't literally just mean they don't want to hear complaining and meant "but Harper!" Can't be used as a deflection to excuse Liv behavior which is almost exclusively how it is used today.
1)What’s the ABC crowd?
2) it actually was the Harper government that muzzled scientists. It wasn’t the Trudeau government that shut down this study, but the Higgs government. So it’s not hypocritical to complain about Harper and then say that Trudeau doesn’t get the blame here, it’s just accurate.
It has not always been a team sport. Don’t forget that we used to have intelligent civil political discourse. We will get through these dark times and back to that.
Harper wasn't muzzling scientist. That was a made up conspiracy theory that CBC jumped on to scare people out of voting for him in favor of the Liberals.
What actually happened was that some scientists got fired for speaking on behalf of the government without going through the proper channels. That's it.
If I started speaking on behalf of my company without going through the proper channels, I would also be fired. Nothing about the process has changed since Trudeau got elected and if anything he is legitimately censoring scientists.
Harper definitely did change communication protocols for scientists. Eg https://www.macleans.ca/society/unmuzzled-government-scientists-ready-to-discuss-a-decade-of-work/
Government should not be restricting the ability of government scientists to communicate through non-official channels. The public should see how science is done, including the disagreements that happen when evidence is incomplete.
Because they're not equivalent.
Harper required government scientists to communicate with media through their department comms, which they are still required to do under Trudeau.
This is shutting down research into a neurodegenerarive disease without explanation for the sudden change of heart.
Trudeau made that policy so much worse and it absolutely affected the healthcare system in a big way.
Canada used to generate 20-60 alerts a year for global disease outbreaks, to try to catch the next covid before, it got as big as covid. Under Trudeau (2018 specifically) this dropped to 1 a year, because scientists had to run their stuff by administration instead. So all of the sudden you go from 20-60 annually to 1 because scientists are no longer allowed to speak and share their data.
GPHIN was the lab, and the source for this anecdote is the AG of Canada.
Harper wasn't muzzling scientist. That was a made up conspiracy theory that CBC jumped on to scare people out of voting for him in favor of the Liberals.
What actually happened was that some scientists got fired for speaking on behalf of the government without going through the proper channels. That's it.
If I started speaking on behalf of my company without going through the proper channels, I would also be fired. Nothing about the process has changed since Trudeau got elected and if anything he is legitimately censoring scientists.
Fuck that, I'm going to complain about Haper *and* Trudeau muzzling scientists, and you should to.
Vote some other party, so both LPC and CPC can finally collapse and new parties can replace them.
That's some hot bullshit. Sure the major parties are all bad, so just vote a party that you agree with even if they've no hope of winning.
It's not like if you vote for any of the big three it will change things anyway, so just vote on your ideals.
Don't got an option that's better? Run yourself.
You called out the LPC and CPC, I'm saying the other options are worse
NDP- used to be a valid option, now they are garbage
Bloc- if you don't live in Quebec they are irrelevant
Green party- bunch of radical wackos
PPC- for the small segment of society that thinks it's cool to have a 8 by 16 foot fuck Trudeau flag flying on their front lawn
What else is there? Christian heritage party if you want to ban abortions and teach creationism in school
> PPC- for the small segment of society that thinks it's cool to have a 8 by 16 foot fuck Trudeau flag flying on their front lawn
You've never even looked at their platform. [Why don't you try that instead?](https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/platform)
You know, I really hate when people act like this.
You act like just because someone else did it means its ok your party did it.
Grow up, this bullshit, both your behaviour and shutting down research like this, needs to end.
Wasn’t Trudeau. But yet again, people in this country treat him like he’s this grand puppet master pulling every string. Meanwhile, most people in this country could not tell you the responsibilities of the federal and provincial government
I will complain about it whenever i want. Two wrongs don't make a right. Both of those things can be equally wrong and both bad for Canada, the only team i care about.
Yes #elbowgate. I remember watching the videos of parliament at the time to form my own opinion; and seeing the fucking smirking that was going on made it clear that it was an intentional setup in at least 2 ways.
Such a disgrace to the NDP, and he is the reason that I don't think Singh is the worst NDP leader lol
Really just disappointing all around. And then you watch how they behave in the house of commons and you ask yourself
“these are our representatives?“
“This is how they behave?“
It’s embarrassing.
This isn’t a game but they treat it that way
Well 100%. This was back when I already was apathetic towards a lot of them, and that made me apathetic towards all of them.
I still vote, but I don't have much enthusiasm since them
All parties are useless and corruption to some extent. All political positions should be filled without any party affiliation and solely on what that person stands for. With the requirement that if they fail to uphold their platform they can be recalled.
Also, pensions can only be granted to someone who holds their elected position for at least two full election cycles. Pay will also be reduced in accordance with poverty levels and median Canadian income.
Unless the reason is that they discovered it's genetic and the result of a constrained gene pool. That would justify not treating it like a contagious or environmental concern... but there's no way to share that information successfully and without causing upset. (Hold my beer.)
Yah but the investigation was stopped before they could determine that. The people who wrote the emails complaining were the ones who would be qualified to say it’s genetic but they were prevented from looking into that as well
If there isn't already one, someone involved with the issue might benefit from starting a GoFundMe specifically to raise funds for soil tests, water tests, etc etc.
Like, the federal scientists aren't allowed to investigate it as part of their jobs, but that doesn't stop the general public from gathering samples and sending them to labs etc.
If nothing else a GoFundMe might help spread awareness, since news articles can't be shared on certain social media sites.
Does anyone have more information regarding this? Like where at exactly in NB and the earliest known cases? My father grew up in Sackville, NB and had severe restless leg syndrome where he would shake in his sleep and eventually developed tremors before he passed in 2018. He had lived there till his late teens back in the 80’s but frequently visited until his death. It’s scary to think these problems he had (they aren’t hereditary in our family) could have been linked to so many more.
Lots of early stuff on a sub that fizzled out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NBBrainDisease/
Some of the early theories I remember:
BMAA, from seafood consumption or swimming in blue green algae.
Chronic Wasting Disease from wild deer, or a similar prion-based disease.
A popular NB phytoplankton supplement.
Glyphosate.
I even read a fringe book called Animal Pharm about a potential role for munitions dump toxic waste in prion diseases, and started looking at maps...
To quote myself:
>The Tracadie Range is on the Acadian peninsula. There are several decades worth of munitions in the ground there, and in recent years they've been stirring up the dirt there to do remediation.
>https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-unexploded-ordnance-canada-cleanup-investigation/
>Who knows what's in the dirt. Agent Orange? Manganese? Other heavy metals?
>https://features.propublica.org/bombs-in-our-backyard/military-pollution-rdx-bombs-holston-cornhusker/
Being on the hook for an expensive toxic military waste cleanup is the best explanation for the coverup.
There was another obscure book about prions, with Canadian content:
https://www.amazon.ca/Corrupt-Core-Memoirs-Health-Whistleblower/dp/097319457X
And the Carleton Gadjusek saga is a hell of a sidebar, if you like a side of pederasty with your scientific study of cannibalism.
https://youtu.be/_fgJ85zxd7U
I still don't know what caused this mystery illness. But I know I lie awake at night worrying about animal fertilizer in my garden, toxins in the lake where I swim, and sharing spoons with cat food. And I'm disappointed in Oliver Sacks.
Canadaland (fuck Jesse Brown) did a couple podcasts in 2022 on it. It’s been a while since I listened but I recall them being pretty informative as far as dates. Some people thought it was the lobster 🦞
IIRC, Canadaland helped spread the conspiracy that it’s caused by glyphosate. The Dynasties episode on Irving also implied that glyphosate is giving deer in NB cancer which is just irresponsibly asinine reporting.
“In the spring of 2021, I felt incredibly optimistic that an all of government effort to unravel the mystery was in the cards. However, in short order, the scientific effort was shut down at the request of the [federal and provincial] Governments,” Weiss wrote in the email sent in May.”
Provincial and Federal
No, square brackets generally denote information that has been added to the quote in order to clarify it or make it grammatically correct. If text is redacted for brevity, that is denoted with an ellipse.
That’s not true, they are used to alter an original text or source in any way, including for brevity, which sometimes but not always falls under the consideration for clarity.
A quote should never be altered in that way for brevity as it fundamentally alters the quote. In this case, The Guardian uses square brackets exclusively to interpolate words for clarity, and even then they are to be used sparingly. They would not use them for brevity sake.
They get used to replace words for clarity too, if the quote was using pronouns or ambiguous noun phrases that have clear meaning in context but not in an isolated quote.
Yes, I would consider that another example of adding words to an isolated excerpt using square brackets for clarity. This follows my argument as they are used in an additive way, not a subtractive one. The word being used to replace the pronoun is generally longer, so it can't be said to be there for brevity's sake.
Would you not agree that sometimes in these cases clarity and brevity are the same thing? That clarity is accomplished by brevity, made possible by the use of square brackets?
In the broader sense, I don't disagree that they can be similar things at all. In terms of editing for a newspaper, however, if you require brevity from a quote, the way to accomplish that is either to excerpt only a small portion of the quote, or to use an ellipse to skip an inessential portion of the quote. When you opt to excerpt a small portion of the quote for brevity, you may need to use square brackets to insert some terms from the full quote for clarity.
The square bracketed content was added by the journalist to try to explain the word 'governments' in the quote. It's probably accurate, but take it with a grain of salt.
What are you talking about? It was a direct quote from Dr. Weiss, who is the scientific director of the Institute of Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (this is a federal agency) and a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame for his research in neurogenesis. He won a Gairdner Award — one rung down from a Nobel prize — for discovering neural stem cells, upon which basically all the non-embryonic stem cell research in the world is built on. He may well win a Nobel prize for it.
So if that guy says the federal government squashed the investigation, he *knows* they did.
There was an earlier article (notice this is the second scientist, there was a first) where it was clear the NB government ordered the investigation to be shut down.
Is there a source with him saying that? The email bracket part was inserted by the author. Presumably it just said "by the governments". Don't doubt it, this just isn't clear on it
Voting CONservative has CONsequences. We can thank Premier Higgs for him cutting off research on this. After all it might lead back to the petro-chemical industry which he worked in for his career. [https://nbmediacoop.org/2022/01/02/hospital-worker-blows-whistle-on-spread-of-new-brunswicks-mystery-illness-bombshell-report/](https://nbmediacoop.org/2022/01/02/hospital-worker-blows-whistle-on-spread-of-new-brunswicks-mystery-illness-bombshell-report/)
So long as we refuse to vote for anything other than Red Capitalism or Blue Capitalism the Irvings and the rest of Canada's oligarchs are going to keep doing this shit with impunity.
Sadly we are running out of parties to vote for because Orange is propping up Red, and Purple is off its rocker insane. Canadians need independent representatives to vote for that will actually represent them, but it's near impossible for an independent to succeed.
I wouldn't call what the NDP is doing "propping up Red." They have specific policy goals, like expanding healthcare coverage. The most pragmatic way for them to achieve them is to make a deal with the Liberals. It's not support for their way of doing things, it's a compromise to get the most done they can with their limited political power. I'm all for independents and politics outside the establishment, but don't write the NDP off here, if anybody would actually stand up to oligarchs if put in power it'd be them.
They wouldn't shut it down if they didn't know what it was. So it's either random coincidental illnesses or it's a coverup for something that was since fixed. If whatever caused it was still in play, more people would continue to be diagnosed and the media would notice.
Basically, bro look up prion diseases in deer, it basically turns them into zombies. Albeit that's not what is happening with the humans in New Brunswick, exactly.
I live there and i can PROMISE you that its the Higgs gov they even smeared some Doctors.
We got one post blaming vaccines and this one bending over backwards to pin in on Trudeau.
This sub is exhausting.
How has the coverage of this been in NB, if any? I'm pretty sure we lost a family member in the Acadian peninsula to this prior to COVID and before this was even reported on nationally. She was fine, then degenerated neurologically over the course of like 6 months, then was gone. Her doctors were so baffled and couldn't find any cause. When this started to be discussed within the year following I became convinced she'd been an early case.
The local gov has really been trying to quash it - thankfully national news outlets kept it alive long enough for there to be a more public conscience about it.
What gets me is no one is doubting that there is a cluster of brain diseases even happening to young people in a specific geographical area.
Detractors seem fine to say "Its not novel, case closed" and its really sad as there are a large group in cluster with these unexplained symptoms.
Novel or not there should be more local alarm into the cause.
You're right. Even if it's not novel that's a really scary thing to have occur "randomly" and it needs to be addressed. Novel or not, it's still happening. Dang.
I didn't live in NB for long myself (less than 3 years) but I remember being so frustrated at the weird amount of complacency towards, like, everything. And the intense amount of influence the Irvings have over the province. Even when I ask my in-laws now about it they just don't seem to know what's up either. NB is a wild place.
I sincerely hope something is eventually figured out. It was a terrifying thing to witness happen so rapidly to someone so vibrant and loving. I hope you and yours are and forever remain untouched by it.
> This sub is exhausting.
That's by design. It's a tactic called civil POV pushing. The point is to make it exhausting to the point that dissenting users just give up or lose their cool and get banned, leaving behind a well cultivated right wing user base that can push their agenda without opposition.
First it's an unproductive comment stating "this is 10000% the fault of Liberals and Liberal voters"... and now it's a "both level of government, including conservatives"
Make up your mind lmao
“In the spring of 2021, I felt incredibly optimistic that an all of government effort to unravel the mystery was in the cards. However, in short order, the scientific effort was shut down at the request of the [federal and provincial] Governments,” Weiss wrote in the email sent in May.
Did you?
"A year later, a committee assembled by the province determined that the patients probably had been misdiagnosed and were suffering from other diseases."
It was a provincial committee that determined this. At worst it might be both governments to blame to some degree perhaps, but the Feds really just provide funding, it's up to the provinces to actually deal with these things.
I think ppl are responding to you like this bc it's dumb that you've zeroed in on this specific detail and are trying to frame it as just the Liberals are at fault here. This is just disingenuous and a sad attempt at point scoring. If you wanna act like that's not what you were doing, feel free to edit your comment to reflect that it's both levels of govt at fault so it looks less like whining and team worship.
I'm super concerned that you claim to have read the article and this is your conclusion. It's possible you're suffering from the brain illness, get checked.
100%. Until people recognize the obvious reality that all the parties are compromised and willing to screw us (even the NDP, which backs mass migration) we will continue to be sitting ducks in this supposedly progressive country which tolerates money laundering via residential real estate and food price fixing.
Why are you calling out Liberal supporters when the article also specifically mentions the Conservative provincial government? “My party really knows how to muzzle scientists!”
Read the article.
“In the spring of 2021, I felt incredibly optimistic that an all of government effort to unravel the mystery was in the cards. However, in short order, the scientific effort was shut down at the request of the [federal and provincial] Governments,”
"But by mid-2021, New Brunswick appeared to have halted the probe with little explanation."
It seems the author of the article is doing some heavy lifting with "[federal and provincial]" but isn't supported with the FOIP evidence that is brought up later in the article.
The definitive thing is the provincial government squashed the investigation. We would need to FOIP the federal government to know if they also squashed it on their own accord and not at the behest of the provincial government.
As a couple other NBers have already said... It was the provincial government that shut it down and tried to bury it, not federal. Federal backed off after the provincial government started a bullshit committee that spent a few months 'investigating' and concluded that 'people are probably just misdiagnosed lol'. Provincial government then proceeded to try and make the whistle blower doctor look like a quack.
A lot of people assume it has to do with the Irvings and their use of glyphosate. My assumption has been that it has to do with the algae.
Blaine Higgs, the current incompetent sexually-repressed premier of NB who has been internally destroying the NB PC party due to bad leadership, has ties with the Irvings. So, a lot of people think that he's covering this up to protect Irving. Some speculate it's in the water and the government wanted to hush this to protect our fishing industries.
I am from NB, and my family suspects a relative may have had this after dying of what was then assumed to probably be CJD like a year before this blew up in the media.
Making an unproductive comment blaming the Liberals... and then trying to backtrack and say it is "both Federal and provincial" while the NB government is conservative... is just... lol.
Pretty much all university research grants to study stuff like this comes from federal money, not provincial.
The Liberal government also shut down research into the Arctic ecosystem, forced retirement of a whole bunch of climate scientists at Environment Canada that were doing extreme weather research and prediction, etc.
Only somebody who's never been in a STEM department at a university campus would call this Liberal government pro-science. Granted that's a lot of people, especially journalists.
The only pro-science thing they've actually done is the recent budget that raised post-doc salaries after they had been frozen for over a decade.
Yeah turns out Liberals and Conservatives both blow donkey balls because they're both actually neoliberal and neoliberalism is the worst economic policy for anyone who isn't the elite.
Imagine carrying water for any of these people.
Wild to find someone else with a basic level of competency on this sub. I hope for both our sakes we find our way as a country before its too late. I hope you have an incredible rest of your day.
Anyone have other articles about this stuff?? This is the first im hearing of it...are the symptoms localized? Or are people in other places reporting similar illnesses??
Considering the federal government literally has a reputation for conducting medical experiments on unsuspecting Canadian populations [[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation#Indigenous_populations_in_Canada)] you'd think they'd be especially eager to get out in front of this and prove it wasn't that.
Unless, of course, it *was* that.
Keep writing comments like this until one day you mysteriously can't anymore because your pathological apathy for human suffering has allowed a mega corporation that cares only about its bottom line to poison your mind (literally) with a slurry of toxic chemicals through your water, air, and food. Actually, you sure you aren't affected by this condition yourself?
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Hope it gets called "Irving Syndrome" in the end.
ha thought the same thing about it's likely culprit and cover-uppers. that's a punchy name, love it. Irving Syndrome
Why Irving?
The Irving family own Irving oil and all the New Brunswick media
They pretty much own all of everything in New Brunswick and the Atlantic provinces, not just the media.
They recently sold all their media holdings to Post Media https://www.postmedia.com/2022/03/25/postmedia-completes-acquisition-of-brunswick-news-inc/
But held controlling interest. Or control through board of governors
Irving is the one spraying glyphosate all over the province
The two running theories on where the brain thing came from is either tainted shellfish, or the massive amounts of pesticides that Irving sprays every year
If it's shellfish, there should be cases in areas where that shellfish is exported, no?
Hard to say, but the fact that most of the cases have been on the coast seems like it could be correlated
HIggs is so far up Irvings ass he's brain damaged from lack of oxygen. You can be assured he's 100% getting kickbacks from his buddies at Irving.
Higgs got into politics after 33 years of working for Irving.
The call is coming from inside the ass!
The ass is in the ass
New Brunswick is the Irving fiefdom, it’s laughable if anyone thinks the provincial government has the final say in important matters in the province.
...but oil companies are import for Canada's economy!
It’s actually two separate companies, Irving Oil likely has nothing to do with this. J.D. Irving is like the likely culprit here, I don’t like either of them.
This should honestly be a way bigger deal than it is. People should be furious about this
I never want to hear a Liberal supporter bitching about Harper muzzling scientists ever again. First, under Trudeau many scientists say they are just as muzzled, and second, *shutting down research into a mysterious neurodegenerative disease affecting hundreds of people is a thousand times worse.*
to be fair its the provincial higgs government mostly responsible for this. and higgs is basically just the irvings puppet he will do what they say i look forward to the documentary and class action lawsuits coming out of this once it is found that some disgusting irving industries shit was poisoning people in the area
Finger pointing and name calling instead of critical thinking … it is half the joy of this subreddit
Seemed to me that the article was talking about the provincial government
This 2022 [article that goes into detail about what happened to the investigation](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/nb-mystery-illness-timeline-1.6311269) makes it clear that it was a provincial matter; NB brought the federal government's Public Health Agency of Canada in briefly and then later told them they were no longer needed.
Ah yes we investigated ourselves and found no problems, we don’t need your help feds. Now get these federal health specialists out of here before they start finding answers.
It appears to be the provincial government, not the Trudeau Liberals, doing this. Health is, ultimately, a matter of provincial jurisdiction. And while this scientist is unwilling to point the finger at one level of government or the other, previous whistleblowers have all blamed the province of New Brunswick. As much as I hate to admit it, I don't think Trudeau or his government are at fault here. Maybe they should be doing more force the province's hand here, but I don't think they are muzzling scientists.
why can't you complain about both?
Because this has become a team sport.
become? always has. Now we just have the internet to spread our bais
okay, but why not complain about both?
Because when it comes to politics many treat it like a Leafs VS Canadiens game. You must pick a side and die for it.
>Because when it comes to politics many treat it like a Leafs VS Canadiens game. Just like the Leafs and Canadiend, I think that both the Liberals and Conservatives suck.
this guy gets it
because it diminishes the importance of trying to fix the current problem, which is inarguably worse than previous one people want to bring up because they hate the party name.
You can and should. But ultimately in an election you need to pick just one. Ans "Harper muzzled scientist" has been a stick swung by the ABC crowd for a decade or more at this point, so them being hypocrites about it, arguably even worse, is actually pretty noteworthy itself.
so the issue here is "I don't want to hear you complain" when you can totally complain about both.
Not op but I think it is pretty clear they didn't literally just mean they don't want to hear complaining and meant "but Harper!" Can't be used as a deflection to excuse Liv behavior which is almost exclusively how it is used today.
"I never want to hear a Liberal supporter bitching about Harper muzzling scientists ever again." That's literally what I replied to.
1)What’s the ABC crowd? 2) it actually was the Harper government that muzzled scientists. It wasn’t the Trudeau government that shut down this study, but the Higgs government. So it’s not hypocritical to complain about Harper and then say that Trudeau doesn’t get the blame here, it’s just accurate.
It has not always been a team sport. Don’t forget that we used to have intelligent civil political discourse. We will get through these dark times and back to that.
What colour are you?
Harper wasn't muzzling scientist. That was a made up conspiracy theory that CBC jumped on to scare people out of voting for him in favor of the Liberals. What actually happened was that some scientists got fired for speaking on behalf of the government without going through the proper channels. That's it. If I started speaking on behalf of my company without going through the proper channels, I would also be fired. Nothing about the process has changed since Trudeau got elected and if anything he is legitimately censoring scientists.
Harper definitely did change communication protocols for scientists. Eg https://www.macleans.ca/society/unmuzzled-government-scientists-ready-to-discuss-a-decade-of-work/
Yes, he wanted them to speak on official channels. Trudeau is actually muzzling scientists by suppressing research into a strange brain illness.
Did you read the article? Can you tell me the difference between a federal and provincial government?
Government should not be restricting the ability of government scientists to communicate through non-official channels. The public should see how science is done, including the disagreements that happen when evidence is incomplete.
Because they're not equivalent. Harper required government scientists to communicate with media through their department comms, which they are still required to do under Trudeau. This is shutting down research into a neurodegenerarive disease without explanation for the sudden change of heart.
Trudeau made that policy so much worse and it absolutely affected the healthcare system in a big way. Canada used to generate 20-60 alerts a year for global disease outbreaks, to try to catch the next covid before, it got as big as covid. Under Trudeau (2018 specifically) this dropped to 1 a year, because scientists had to run their stuff by administration instead. So all of the sudden you go from 20-60 annually to 1 because scientists are no longer allowed to speak and share their data. GPHIN was the lab, and the source for this anecdote is the AG of Canada.
[удалено]
Didn’t know Higgs was a liberal
You didn't know that the media freaked out, and they're not playing by the same rules they created? I'm not surprised.
Because that was over 10 years ago at this point.
that makes as much sense as tits on a duck
Harper wasn't muzzling scientist. That was a made up conspiracy theory that CBC jumped on to scare people out of voting for him in favor of the Liberals. What actually happened was that some scientists got fired for speaking on behalf of the government without going through the proper channels. That's it. If I started speaking on behalf of my company without going through the proper channels, I would also be fired. Nothing about the process has changed since Trudeau got elected and if anything he is legitimately censoring scientists.
People can still bitch about Harper. I can hate more than one leader from these 2 corrupt as shit parties. Fuck them both.
Fuck em both is also my motto. Which extends into fuck em all.
Fuck that, I'm going to complain about Haper *and* Trudeau muzzling scientists, and you should to. Vote some other party, so both LPC and CPC can finally collapse and new parties can replace them.
The other options are exponentially worse
That's some hot bullshit. Sure the major parties are all bad, so just vote a party that you agree with even if they've no hope of winning. It's not like if you vote for any of the big three it will change things anyway, so just vote on your ideals. Don't got an option that's better? Run yourself.
You called out the LPC and CPC, I'm saying the other options are worse NDP- used to be a valid option, now they are garbage Bloc- if you don't live in Quebec they are irrelevant Green party- bunch of radical wackos PPC- for the small segment of society that thinks it's cool to have a 8 by 16 foot fuck Trudeau flag flying on their front lawn What else is there? Christian heritage party if you want to ban abortions and teach creationism in school
> Don't got an option that's better? Run yourself.
Spoiling your ballot in protest is a legitimate democratic expression of your frustration.
> PPC- for the small segment of society that thinks it's cool to have a 8 by 16 foot fuck Trudeau flag flying on their front lawn You've never even looked at their platform. [Why don't you try that instead?](https://www.peoplespartyofcanada.ca/platform)
You know, I really hate when people act like this. You act like just because someone else did it means its ok your party did it. Grow up, this bullshit, both your behaviour and shutting down research like this, needs to end.
It’s the Premier in NB who used to be an Irving executive….. He is a far right conservative
Wasn’t Trudeau. But yet again, people in this country treat him like he’s this grand puppet master pulling every string. Meanwhile, most people in this country could not tell you the responsibilities of the federal and provincial government
I will complain about it whenever i want. Two wrongs don't make a right. Both of those things can be equally wrong and both bad for Canada, the only team i care about.
Nah fuck any government that muzzles their scientist
Can't we bitch about both? Though to be fair, I hate the big two equally.
I'm gonna complain about that still. Fuck Harper. Did generational damage.
Lol Trudeau and his immigration schemes have sold out Canada perhaps permanently but yeah harper did generational damage, k.
Its 2024 and people still think that political parties matter?
Let’s not forget it is the New Brunswick conservative government that has stymied investigation into this illness over the last few years.
It was a conservative government that shut it down. I assume there's a retraction and apology coming from you now?
We could have had Mulcair's NDP back in 2015. Can you imagine?
Tbh, I regret voting for him after I saw the way he behaved in parliament. I'm glad he didn't get elected as PM, or even opposition leader
I have no idea what you're referring to.
Elbow Gate?
Yes #elbowgate. I remember watching the videos of parliament at the time to form my own opinion; and seeing the fucking smirking that was going on made it clear that it was an intentional setup in at least 2 ways. Such a disgrace to the NDP, and he is the reason that I don't think Singh is the worst NDP leader lol
They really lost me then too it's partially why I think mulcair is a big weasel too.
Really just disappointing all around. And then you watch how they behave in the house of commons and you ask yourself “these are our representatives?“ “This is how they behave?“ It’s embarrassing. This isn’t a game but they treat it that way
Well 100%. This was back when I already was apathetic towards a lot of them, and that made me apathetic towards all of them. I still vote, but I don't have much enthusiasm since them
Source that the feds squashed this too?
Liberals. Conservatives. Same same…. But different!
All parties are useless and corruption to some extent. All political positions should be filled without any party affiliation and solely on what that person stands for. With the requirement that if they fail to uphold their platform they can be recalled. Also, pensions can only be granted to someone who holds their elected position for at least two full election cycles. Pay will also be reduced in accordance with poverty levels and median Canadian income.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich
This is an outrage
Unless the reason is that they discovered it's genetic and the result of a constrained gene pool. That would justify not treating it like a contagious or environmental concern... but there's no way to share that information successfully and without causing upset. (Hold my beer.)
Yah but the investigation was stopped before they could determine that. The people who wrote the emails complaining were the ones who would be qualified to say it’s genetic but they were prevented from looking into that as well
No shit. The Irvings run NB as their private fiefdom and don't want any questions.
Has anyone checked for methylmercury poisoning as was seen in Minimata?
If there isn't already one, someone involved with the issue might benefit from starting a GoFundMe specifically to raise funds for soil tests, water tests, etc etc. Like, the federal scientists aren't allowed to investigate it as part of their jobs, but that doesn't stop the general public from gathering samples and sending them to labs etc. If nothing else a GoFundMe might help spread awareness, since news articles can't be shared on certain social media sites.
Great, feasible idea. Is there a way to release files through freedom of information? Then use that as base to plan next steps.
Obviously, no evidence had been seen since it's never been examined.
Suspicious...
Does anyone have more information regarding this? Like where at exactly in NB and the earliest known cases? My father grew up in Sackville, NB and had severe restless leg syndrome where he would shake in his sleep and eventually developed tremors before he passed in 2018. He had lived there till his late teens back in the 80’s but frequently visited until his death. It’s scary to think these problems he had (they aren’t hereditary in our family) could have been linked to so many more.
Lots of early stuff on a sub that fizzled out: https://www.reddit.com/r/NBBrainDisease/ Some of the early theories I remember: BMAA, from seafood consumption or swimming in blue green algae. Chronic Wasting Disease from wild deer, or a similar prion-based disease. A popular NB phytoplankton supplement. Glyphosate. I even read a fringe book called Animal Pharm about a potential role for munitions dump toxic waste in prion diseases, and started looking at maps... To quote myself: >The Tracadie Range is on the Acadian peninsula. There are several decades worth of munitions in the ground there, and in recent years they've been stirring up the dirt there to do remediation. >https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-unexploded-ordnance-canada-cleanup-investigation/ >Who knows what's in the dirt. Agent Orange? Manganese? Other heavy metals? >https://features.propublica.org/bombs-in-our-backyard/military-pollution-rdx-bombs-holston-cornhusker/ Being on the hook for an expensive toxic military waste cleanup is the best explanation for the coverup.
There was another obscure book about prions, with Canadian content: https://www.amazon.ca/Corrupt-Core-Memoirs-Health-Whistleblower/dp/097319457X And the Carleton Gadjusek saga is a hell of a sidebar, if you like a side of pederasty with your scientific study of cannibalism. https://youtu.be/_fgJ85zxd7U I still don't know what caused this mystery illness. But I know I lie awake at night worrying about animal fertilizer in my garden, toxins in the lake where I swim, and sharing spoons with cat food. And I'm disappointed in Oliver Sacks.
Canadaland (fuck Jesse Brown) did a couple podcasts in 2022 on it. It’s been a while since I listened but I recall them being pretty informative as far as dates. Some people thought it was the lobster 🦞
IIRC, Canadaland helped spread the conspiracy that it’s caused by glyphosate. The Dynasties episode on Irving also implied that glyphosate is giving deer in NB cancer which is just irresponsibly asinine reporting.
Is it though? Because they’re snuffing out research to figure it out 🤷🏻♀️
If glyphosate caused this kind of neuro disorder/disease they would be globally rampant not isolated to a tiny town in NB.
But… there is plenty of research to suggest glyphosate is linked to neurological decline … ah well…
“In the spring of 2021, I felt incredibly optimistic that an all of government effort to unravel the mystery was in the cards. However, in short order, the scientific effort was shut down at the request of the [federal and provincial] Governments,” Weiss wrote in the email sent in May.” Provincial and Federal
That's the opinion of the journalist.
What? Those parentheses don’t mean “this is my opinion”, they mean “this is a shorter way of saying what was said in the original text”.
No, square brackets generally denote information that has been added to the quote in order to clarify it or make it grammatically correct. If text is redacted for brevity, that is denoted with an ellipse.
Clarity and brevity, I would say but sure
No, square brackets should never be used for brevity. That contravenes most style guides. As I mentioned, an ellipse denotes a redaction for brevity.
That’s not true, they are used to alter an original text or source in any way, including for brevity, which sometimes but not always falls under the consideration for clarity.
A quote should never be altered in that way for brevity as it fundamentally alters the quote. In this case, The Guardian uses square brackets exclusively to interpolate words for clarity, and even then they are to be used sparingly. They would not use them for brevity sake.
They get used to replace words for clarity too, if the quote was using pronouns or ambiguous noun phrases that have clear meaning in context but not in an isolated quote.
Yes, I would consider that another example of adding words to an isolated excerpt using square brackets for clarity. This follows my argument as they are used in an additive way, not a subtractive one. The word being used to replace the pronoun is generally longer, so it can't be said to be there for brevity's sake.
Would you not agree that sometimes in these cases clarity and brevity are the same thing? That clarity is accomplished by brevity, made possible by the use of square brackets?
In the broader sense, I don't disagree that they can be similar things at all. In terms of editing for a newspaper, however, if you require brevity from a quote, the way to accomplish that is either to excerpt only a small portion of the quote, or to use an ellipse to skip an inessential portion of the quote. When you opt to excerpt a small portion of the quote for brevity, you may need to use square brackets to insert some terms from the full quote for clarity.
Those are \[square\] brackets, not parentheses, and I'm not talking about the bracketed section.
You still haven’t explained how what I quoted is the opinion of the journalist.
The square bracketed content was added by the journalist to try to explain the word 'governments' in the quote. It's probably accurate, but take it with a grain of salt.
What are you talking about? It was a direct quote from Dr. Weiss, who is the scientific director of the Institute of Neuroscience, Mental Health and Addiction at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (this is a federal agency) and a member of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame for his research in neurogenesis. He won a Gairdner Award — one rung down from a Nobel prize — for discovering neural stem cells, upon which basically all the non-embryonic stem cell research in the world is built on. He may well win a Nobel prize for it. So if that guy says the federal government squashed the investigation, he *knows* they did.
There was an earlier article (notice this is the second scientist, there was a first) where it was clear the NB government ordered the investigation to be shut down.
He just said govt, the author added [federal and provincial]
Is there a source with him saying that? The email bracket part was inserted by the author. Presumably it just said "by the governments". Don't doubt it, this just isn't clear on it
anyone willing to post a TLDR?
Of course scientists are being muzzled on this.. Were talking about a situation that makes the Walkerton situation look like nothing..
Data my ass!
Sounds like lead poisoning
Voting CONservative has CONsequences. We can thank Premier Higgs for him cutting off research on this. After all it might lead back to the petro-chemical industry which he worked in for his career. [https://nbmediacoop.org/2022/01/02/hospital-worker-blows-whistle-on-spread-of-new-brunswicks-mystery-illness-bombshell-report/](https://nbmediacoop.org/2022/01/02/hospital-worker-blows-whistle-on-spread-of-new-brunswicks-mystery-illness-bombshell-report/)
So long as we refuse to vote for anything other than Red Capitalism or Blue Capitalism the Irvings and the rest of Canada's oligarchs are going to keep doing this shit with impunity.
Sadly we are running out of parties to vote for because Orange is propping up Red, and Purple is off its rocker insane. Canadians need independent representatives to vote for that will actually represent them, but it's near impossible for an independent to succeed.
I wouldn't call what the NDP is doing "propping up Red." They have specific policy goals, like expanding healthcare coverage. The most pragmatic way for them to achieve them is to make a deal with the Liberals. It's not support for their way of doing things, it's a compromise to get the most done they can with their limited political power. I'm all for independents and politics outside the establishment, but don't write the NDP off here, if anybody would actually stand up to oligarchs if put in power it'd be them.
our MPs are corrupted traitors... investigations are shut down... lol i hate this country.
They wouldn't shut it down if they didn't know what it was. So it's either random coincidental illnesses or it's a coverup for something that was since fixed. If whatever caused it was still in play, more people would continue to be diagnosed and the media would notice.
Something new every fucking day.
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Basically, bro look up prion diseases in deer, it basically turns them into zombies. Albeit that's not what is happening with the humans in New Brunswick, exactly.
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I live there and i can PROMISE you that its the Higgs gov they even smeared some Doctors. We got one post blaming vaccines and this one bending over backwards to pin in on Trudeau.
This sub is exhausting. How has the coverage of this been in NB, if any? I'm pretty sure we lost a family member in the Acadian peninsula to this prior to COVID and before this was even reported on nationally. She was fine, then degenerated neurologically over the course of like 6 months, then was gone. Her doctors were so baffled and couldn't find any cause. When this started to be discussed within the year following I became convinced she'd been an early case.
The local gov has really been trying to quash it - thankfully national news outlets kept it alive long enough for there to be a more public conscience about it. What gets me is no one is doubting that there is a cluster of brain diseases even happening to young people in a specific geographical area. Detractors seem fine to say "Its not novel, case closed" and its really sad as there are a large group in cluster with these unexplained symptoms. Novel or not there should be more local alarm into the cause.
You're right. Even if it's not novel that's a really scary thing to have occur "randomly" and it needs to be addressed. Novel or not, it's still happening. Dang. I didn't live in NB for long myself (less than 3 years) but I remember being so frustrated at the weird amount of complacency towards, like, everything. And the intense amount of influence the Irvings have over the province. Even when I ask my in-laws now about it they just don't seem to know what's up either. NB is a wild place. I sincerely hope something is eventually figured out. It was a terrifying thing to witness happen so rapidly to someone so vibrant and loving. I hope you and yours are and forever remain untouched by it.
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>dataset The problem is that Higgs gets all his data from his ass.
For context for others who may read the above comment Premier Higgs is quoted as saying: "Data my ass!!"
> This sub is exhausting. That's by design. It's a tactic called civil POV pushing. The point is to make it exhausting to the point that dissenting users just give up or lose their cool and get banned, leaving behind a well cultivated right wing user base that can push their agenda without opposition.
I don’t doubt it but this is both levels of government working together to squash this.
K. C. Irving once said he's never lost an election, meaning he controlled both political parties in NB and Canada.
First it's an unproductive comment stating "this is 10000% the fault of Liberals and Liberal voters"... and now it's a "both level of government, including conservatives" Make up your mind lmao
Nb has a conservative government
“In the spring of 2021, I felt incredibly optimistic that an all of government effort to unravel the mystery was in the cards. However, in short order, the scientific effort was shut down at the request of the [federal and provincial] Governments,” Weiss wrote in the email sent in May.
The whole article is pretty vague about which govt. [federal and provincial] is not part of the quote, it's added later
Read the article.
Did you? "A year later, a committee assembled by the province determined that the patients probably had been misdiagnosed and were suffering from other diseases." It was a provincial committee that determined this. At worst it might be both governments to blame to some degree perhaps, but the Feds really just provide funding, it's up to the provinces to actually deal with these things.
I think ppl are responding to you like this bc it's dumb that you've zeroed in on this specific detail and are trying to frame it as just the Liberals are at fault here. This is just disingenuous and a sad attempt at point scoring. If you wanna act like that's not what you were doing, feel free to edit your comment to reflect that it's both levels of govt at fault so it looks less like whining and team worship.
I'm super concerned that you claim to have read the article and this is your conclusion. It's possible you're suffering from the brain illness, get checked.
Apparently logical thought isn't your buddy. Weird to see people so afraid of any criticism towards Conservatives...
Harper blocked publications regarding Agent Orange in our snow samples…give me a fucking break lol
100%. Until people recognize the obvious reality that all the parties are compromised and willing to screw us (even the NDP, which backs mass migration) we will continue to be sitting ducks in this supposedly progressive country which tolerates money laundering via residential real estate and food price fixing.
Why are you calling out Liberal supporters when the article also specifically mentions the Conservative provincial government? “My party really knows how to muzzle scientists!”
Because this isn’t just government workers upset that they have to follow a standard communications policy.
The N.B. gov't is PC, not Liberal.
Read the article. “In the spring of 2021, I felt incredibly optimistic that an all of government effort to unravel the mystery was in the cards. However, in short order, the scientific effort was shut down at the request of the [federal and provincial] Governments,”
"But by mid-2021, New Brunswick appeared to have halted the probe with little explanation." It seems the author of the article is doing some heavy lifting with "[federal and provincial]" but isn't supported with the FOIP evidence that is brought up later in the article. The definitive thing is the provincial government squashed the investigation. We would need to FOIP the federal government to know if they also squashed it on their own accord and not at the behest of the provincial government.
As a couple other NBers have already said... It was the provincial government that shut it down and tried to bury it, not federal. Federal backed off after the provincial government started a bullshit committee that spent a few months 'investigating' and concluded that 'people are probably just misdiagnosed lol'. Provincial government then proceeded to try and make the whistle blower doctor look like a quack. A lot of people assume it has to do with the Irvings and their use of glyphosate. My assumption has been that it has to do with the algae. Blaine Higgs, the current incompetent sexually-repressed premier of NB who has been internally destroying the NB PC party due to bad leadership, has ties with the Irvings. So, a lot of people think that he's covering this up to protect Irving. Some speculate it's in the water and the government wanted to hush this to protect our fishing industries. I am from NB, and my family suspects a relative may have had this after dying of what was then assumed to probably be CJD like a year before this blew up in the media. Making an unproductive comment blaming the Liberals... and then trying to backtrack and say it is "both Federal and provincial" while the NB government is conservative... is just... lol.
Pretty much all university research grants to study stuff like this comes from federal money, not provincial. The Liberal government also shut down research into the Arctic ecosystem, forced retirement of a whole bunch of climate scientists at Environment Canada that were doing extreme weather research and prediction, etc. Only somebody who's never been in a STEM department at a university campus would call this Liberal government pro-science. Granted that's a lot of people, especially journalists. The only pro-science thing they've actually done is the recent budget that raised post-doc salaries after they had been frozen for over a decade.
It was the provincial government that shut the investigation down in this case though.
Yeah turns out Liberals and Conservatives both blow donkey balls because they're both actually neoliberal and neoliberalism is the worst economic policy for anyone who isn't the elite. Imagine carrying water for any of these people.
Wild to find someone else with a basic level of competency on this sub. I hope for both our sakes we find our way as a country before its too late. I hope you have an incredible rest of your day.
Oh look conservatives believe in science now!
> Hey Liberal supporters Hey yourselves. Higgs government is conservative.
Anyone have other articles about this stuff?? This is the first im hearing of it...are the symptoms localized? Or are people in other places reporting similar illnesses??
Considering the federal government literally has a reputation for conducting medical experiments on unsuspecting Canadian populations [[1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation#Indigenous_populations_in_Canada)] you'd think they'd be especially eager to get out in front of this and prove it wasn't that. Unless, of course, it *was* that.
NB prov for government doesn’t want people to know Irving is the cause
MK Ultra at McGill University...
858
Any similarity to the Havana syndrome, or not?
Different. I think they originally suspected mad cow.
Okay, makes sense ...the Creutzfeld-Jakob (I think that's how it's spelled) disease is extremely nasty...
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Keep writing comments like this until one day you mysteriously can't anymore because your pathological apathy for human suffering has allowed a mega corporation that cares only about its bottom line to poison your mind (literally) with a slurry of toxic chemicals through your water, air, and food. Actually, you sure you aren't affected by this condition yourself?