Reality Check Radio: New Zealand journalist and film-maker Alistair Harding [director of ‘We Came Here for Freedom’ – a two-part film about the 2022 Wellington parliament occupation protest] compares notes with legal mind Bruce Pardy on the pandemic experiences of New Zealand and Canada. Alistair recalls instances in which the New Zealand government was found to be breaking the law and was able to “simply change” the law “overnight” to serve its agenda (in this example, misusing emergency use authorization laws for New Zealand’s vaccine rollout). He also talks of the loss of “faith” in the country’s legal and legislation systems as a result. Sound familiar? Alistair and Bruce unpack the challenges of confronting the premises on which our countries are now governed (based on authority rather than evidence). Is there a silver lining? Bruce claims a bitter victory for clarity. More people, he says, now see the erosion of freedoms in our societies that COVID-19 unmasked. The era has, at least, produced a vision of what freedom and a free society is or should be.
The similarities between NZ and Canada’s Covid responses
