Statements released by several politicians from around the world, including CPC leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis, claim "victory" at the World Health Assembly (WHA) regarding the International Health Regulations (IHR) failing to pass. .The World Health Organization (WHO) presented its case to ratify the International Health Regulations affording the WHO more powers during pandemic health care response globally. .Lewis took to Twitter on Tuesday evening to share her thoughts on what she called a "HUGE victory for Canadians who are about healthcare sovereignty.".The tweet included a link to a statement on her website proclaiming "Victory at the World Health Assembly" ."Engaged citizens all over the world worked tirelessly to ensure the changes to the International Health Regulations did not pass at the [WHA] last week," said Lewis. .The MP for Haldimand-Norfolk included a "timeline of how we won against the WHO overreach.".January 18, 2022, the US Biden administration proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR). There was a shroud of secrecy around these amendments and a lot of talk was generated about the Global Pandemic Treaty (which has not yet been drafted) in the following months.May 17, 2022, I launched a petition to Stop the Treaty.May 18, 2022, I questioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on why Canada would consider signing these amendments and asked for a national inquiry into our own pandemic response. Later that day, I hosted a Facebook Live event to explain the concerning parts of the IHR amendments.May 19, 2022, the CBC — which receives $1.2 billion annually from the government — ran an article criticizing my claims and had supposedly neutral experts suggest that I was misleading people, fear-mongering, and spouting conspiracy theories.May 22, 2022, I discovered that the so-called experts were not neutral at all, but boast ties to the Trudeau Foundation and even the WHO.May 23, 2022, I sent a letter to Minister Jean-Yves Duclos (the minister of Health and head of the Canadian delegation to the WHA meeting in Geneva) urging him not to sign the IHR amendments, and shared with him the overwhelming response to my petition, with over 22,000 Canadian signatures.I discovered civil society groups around the world were fighting this too. On Friday, May 20, 2022 a United Kingdom resident took his government to court to find out what they were doing with the IHR amendments and to get documents disclosed to the public. Documents revealed a lack of consensus between countries in the Working Group on Pandemic Response. (Unconfirmed sources say many African and South American nations had serious concerns with the amendments). While we cannot attribute any one incident to the lack of consensus, we know that there was mounting pressure from civil society around the globe, including the court case.May 24, 2022, it appeared Biden’s IHR amendments were no longer on the table and new amendments were submitted to the working group on pandemic response. However, these were submitted in violation of Article 55 of the IHR which requires all amendments to be submitted at least four months prior to the World Health Assembly. This notice period is necessary so that civil society can have time to review and respond.May 27, 2022 the replacement amendments were revised and published by the World Health Organization, and then adopted by the World Health Assembly (see video).Victory secured! While the replacement amendments are likely illegitimate because they break the notice requirement rule, they appear to be much milder than the original amendments. It seems the WHA felt the need to replace the old amendments with something else since they could not reach consensus. Our work to help sound the alarm contributed to the lack of consensus, prompting the WHA to drop the original amendments. We won!.Lewis concluded by saying the drafting process of the Global Pandemic Treaty must be watched closely to ensure "there are no more attempted power grabs by the WHO."."We must also be thankful that this was a window into what the WHO wants to do — reduce public consultation opportunity and harmonize and centralize pandemic response away from sovereign nations to the WHO elites." .Christine Anderson, German member of the EU-Parliament, has spoken openly about her concerns around the WHO's pandemic treaty and expressed her thorough displeasure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's handling of the Freedom Convoy protests by calling him and "idiot" and a "puppet.".She also posted a statement on her Facebook page encouraging people to watch a workshop in the EU Parliament on Wednesday with two lawyers as guests. .Anderson said she is looking forward to connecting with the two lawyers, to discuss "the legal handling of the technocratic agenda of the global elites." .She included a link to the livestream of the workshop. .Queensland, Australia MP for Mirani Stephen Andrew also posted on his Facebook page saying, "Brilliant news out of Geneva today." .Andrew highlighted a statement read by a representative from Botswana on behalf of its 47 AFRO members indicating "many African members were very concerned" about the reforms to the IHR and said "they would be collectively withholding their support." .Andrew listed several other countries that indicated they had reservations over the changes including Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran and Malaysia. ."Brazil in particular said it would exit the WHO altogether, rather than allow its population to be made subject to the new amendments," said Andrew in his post. ."In the end, the WHO and its wealthy nation supporters, were forced to back down," he said adding, "They have not given up though — far from it." .Andrew said the WHO "pivoted" and requested a new working group convene to make "technical recommendations on the proposed amendments" which he said would be re-submitted along with the Pandemic Treaty at the 77th WHA in 2024. ."There has also been lots of pushback from Republicans in the US, with a number of them introducing new bills giving the US Congress/Senate powers to override any WHO mandates or directives issued as part of any international agreements," said Andrew. .One of those bills — No WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty Without Senate Approval Act — was introduced by Republican Senator Ron Johnson who said "The sovereignty of the United States is not negotiable," according to Andrew. ."Here in Australia, we need to keep the pressure up on our own parliaments, both Federal and state, up the ante and don’t ever look sideways," said Andrew, who included a digital petition in his post and encouraged his fellow Australians to sign and share it.
