Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 28, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba Read the Winter issue at: winnipegfreepress.com/fp-features Available in your Free Press (subscribers) on March 29 and at Manitoba Liquor Marts - while supplies last! SPRING 2025 ISSUE OF DON’T MISS THE COMING SOON! TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2025 B2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS I CANADA Navy identifies sailor who died after small boat capsized in Halifax harbour HALIFAX — The Royal Canadian Navy has identified the sailor who died Fri- day after a small military boat capsized in the north end of Halifax harbour. Commodore Jacob French, com- mander of Canadian Fleet Atlantic, said Monday that Petty Officer 2nd Class Gregory Applin of Shoal Cove West, N.L., was one of two sailors who were thrown into the cold water at around 10 p.m. French said the second sailor, whom he did not identify, survived the ordeal but Applin could not be revived in hos- pital. “This is a tragic moment for us, tra- gic for the entire Navy family,” French told a news conference outside Ad- miral’s Gate, which leads to sprawling HMC Dockyard on the Halifax water- front. He said a military investigation will determine what happened, and he declined to speculate about what went wrong. Applin was a 38-year-old weapons engineering technician aboard HMCS Montreal, which had just completed so- nar performance trials in the harbour when the small, open craft — known as a special operations rigid-hull inflat- able boat or RIB — was dispatched to take some personnel to shore, about 1.6 kilometres away. The temperature of the water late Fri- day night would have been just above freezing, but French said the waves were less than a metre high and the out- door temperature was around -7 C, with the wind chill reaching about -10 C. French said the boat flipped after its passengers were dropped off at the Mill Cove jetty on the northwestern side of the Bedford Basin, a huge body of water at the north end of the harbour. The commodore said the unidentified sailor in the boat with Applin was driv- ing the seven-metre craft. French said the driver was a small boat coxswain from Naval Fleet School Atlantic who had plenty of experience on the water. After the boat overturned, French said it was likely that neither person aboard could get to its VHF radio to call for help. Instead, the coxswain used his cellphone to dial 911. The Res- cue Co-ordination Centre in Halifax immediately dispatched a harbour pilot boat to rescue the sailors, but French said it was unclear how long they were in the water. The coxswain was released from hos- pital on Saturday morning. “It’s a good thing that call was made because it triggered all the right re- sponses,” French said, adding that nighttime transfers are routine for the Navy. “We have no reason to believe there is anything unsafe technically about the RIBs.” The two rescued sailors were met by paramedics at the jetty and they were taken to the QEII Health Sciences Cen- tre in Halifax. The military’s investigation will be handled by the Canadian Forces Na- tional Investigations Service, which typically takes between three to six months to complete an investigation, French said. Applin had served in the Navy for 19 years. — The Canadian Press MICHAEL MACDONALD Alberta doctors criticize COVID-19 report as ‘anti-science’ E DMONTON — The organization representing Alberta physicians is calling out a government panel’s COVID-19 report as “anti-science.” Dr. Shelley Duggan, head of the Al- berta Medical Association, says the report sows distrust by going against proven preventive health measures while promoting fringe methods. She says the report is “anti-science and anti-evidence,” and its recommen- dations have the potential to cause harm. “It advances misinformation. It speaks against the broadest and most diligent international scientific collab- oration and consensus in history,” she said in a statement Monday. Duggan said the $2-million price tag could have gone toward badly needed hospital beds or medical treatment. The report, released without notice on Friday, comes from a panel appoint- ed by Premier Danielle Smith in 2022 to look at how data was collected and used to respond to COVID-19. Smith has been a staunch critic of pandemic rules and vaccine mandates. The 269-page report calls for the government to halt COVID-19 vaccines without the full disclosure of risks and to end their use for healthy children and teens. It recommends legislative changes to give doctors more freedom to prescribe alternative therapies in future pan- demics, saying health authorities were too restrictive when it came to off-label medication uses. The report points to drugs like the anti-parasitic ivermectin and anti-mal- arial hydroxychloroquine, which are not approved for the treatment or pre- vention of COVID-19 by Health Canada. The report also casts doubt on the province’s approach to public testing for COVID-19, saying methods may have led to “inconsistent determina- tions regarding the actual infection rate in Alberta,” that in turn may have influenced government policies. During the pandemic, the province enforced a variety of measures to stop the spread, including closing business- es and schools, and restricting gather- ings and public events. The report said the stringency of those measures had a “small relative effect on the growth of infections.” It recommends future pandemic re- sponses focus on “minimizing severe disease and mortality over extensive case detection,” and for Alberta to de- velop “a screening tool to help estimate individual risk.” The panel advises giving more cre- dence to infection-acquired immunity, saying they found no quality evidence that vaccines provided better protec- tion from severe disease than natural exposure to circulating variants. Duggan said in an interview the vast majority of studies show that the COVID vaccines are safe and that they prevented a lot of deaths during the pandemic. She added that misinformation has real consequences, pointing to con- cerns about vaccine hesitancy at a time of measles and other outbreaks. “When we have another pandemic, we are going to need the public to be able to trust the science that we are giving them,” she said. Her predecessor at the medical asso- ciation, Dr. Paul Parks, said on social media that the report was “fully a slap in the face” to all the health-care work- ers who struggled to care for Albertans during the pandemic. The government confirmed in Au- gust it had received the report. In a statement Monday, Health Min- ister Adriana LaGrange’s office said no policy decisions have been made in relation to the work of the panel, which included “health professionals from di- verse practice areas. “Their recommendations offer a per- spective on how the government can be better positioned to protect the health and safety of Albertans in the future,” it said. Health policy analyst Lorian Hard- castle said the report fuels the vac- cine-skeptic fire and public health would be worse off if the government follows its recommendations. Hardcastle also said she takes no issue with reviewing the risks and bene- fits of pharmaceuticals and the overall pandemic response, but it should be evi- dence-based. “There is this pattern of the gov- ernment trying to give credence to its ideological views by creating these so- called expert panels to write reports that give legitimacy to their ideologies.” It comes after a previous $2-million COVID-19 report from former Reform Party Leader Preston Manning, which recommended in 2023 the government give more consideration to “alternative scientific narratives” in future health emergencies. Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called the report “authoritarian” and “quackery.” “Does (Danielle Smith) believe in this kooky stuff, or was she pandering to an audience?” he said in an interview. “The review of this report is pretty straightforward: throw it in the trash.” Dr. Gary Davidson, who led the re- view, was the former head of emer- gency medicine for the province’s cen- tral zone and chief of the emergency department at Red Deer Regional Hos- pital. Appearing on a podcast Friday, Davidson said there is no such thing as consensus in science. “Science is about questioning every- thing, experimenting and proving whether it’s true or not,” he said. The Canadian Press was unable to reach Davidson for comment Monday, but the government provided a written statement from him. “I’m proud that Alberta’s government had the courage to review the data and decision-making we relied upon for our COVID-19 response and trust that these recommendations will help ensure that Alberta better protects the health, well-being and rights of Albertans dur- ing the next public health emergency.” — The Canadian Press LISA JOHNSON TATAN SYUFLANA / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES The 269-page report calls for the government to halt COVID-19 vaccines without the full disclosure of risks and to end their use for healthy children and teens. ;