As you know, the Justice Centre has provided me legal counsel for several years while I’ve simultaneously fought to keep my nursing license and my Charter right to free expression.
The BC College of Nurses and Midwives, like an increasing number of regulatory bodies in Canada, believes they have the right to control and suppress their members speech—in their personal lives—if it doesn’t align with current prevailing orthodoxy.
It doesn’t matter that I had an impeccable record of more than a decade, with zero patient complaints. It doesn’t matter that I kept my politics at home. All that mattered was my being a heretic.
Strangers off the street were handed a grenade to throw into my life because they are intolerant of diverse viewpoints. The grenade was handed to them by the BC College of Nurses.
At the outset of this battle, I certainly was a vocal opponent of a prevailing orthodoxy. Three years in, there’s been a shift in Canadian sentiment, away from the hard-left ideologies that once enjoyed a complete chokehold over our culture. That chokehold is loosening.
This is evident from a growing contempt for Prime Minister Trudeau; it is evident from the thousands of us who’ve shown up to protest so-called public health policies, or what our children are being taught in public schools; and it is clearly made evident by the volumes of regular Canadians who’ve reached out to people like me with words of encouragement, gratitude, and support.
Finally, it is evident from the resurgence of public discourse on free speech that Canadians are remembering who needs their right to speak protected in the first place: it is the people sharing ideas that others desperately do not wish to hear.
However, there is still a problem: Most Canadians remain too afraid to stick their heads above the parapet. And why shouldn’t they be afraid? We still have Trudeau and we still have woke mobs that—despite being nothing more than a tyrannical minority—wield the immense power to ruin the lives of dissidents.
It has to stop.
I’m not sure I can impress upon you how surreal it is to be subjected to 21 days of scheduled disciplinary hearings simply for telling the truth. To be a nurse on trial for her livelihood for raising alarm bells over harm befalling women and children.
The mere act of subjecting me to this lengthy process is at its core a warning for all regulated professionals: Shut your mouth. Toe the line. Two plus two is five because we say so.
Before my hearing began each day, the panel chair would announce we were there for the disciplinary hearing of Amy Hamm following an amended citation issued by the BCCNM.
Why amended?
My original citation contained an accusation that I had spread medically inaccurate information or, in other words, medical misinformation. The college later dropped that charge, quietly and with zero explanation and zero acknowledgement of my request for a public retraction and apology.
This is not the first time I’ve heard of regulators wanting to hang their hats on charges of medical misinformation but soon realizing that no expert would be able to testify to or verify that accusation. And so the regulator is left to punish us via an interminable and humiliating public flogging.
It took more than three years for me to take the stand and explain myself. More than three years to defend myself with my story and the expertise of our witnesses, Dr. James Cantor, Dr. Kathleen Stock, and Dr. Linda Blade.
I believe the BCCNM hoped that I would crumble under the pressure before getting the chance to speak. Because when I spoke, it felt as though everything was finally turning in the right direction.
What most infuriates those who live by and incessantly chant the trite mantras of their ideological tribe is when you repeatedly speak the truth in response. There is a reason that one of the mantras of Canada’s woke, tyrannical minority is “no debate”; that is because they are flummoxed and outraged to be confronted by a cognitive dissonance that is the unavoidable side effect of living by lies.
You may have seen, if you tuned into my hearing, that my regulator’s counsel, Barbara Findlay, required a recess during my cross examination after announcing that she was confused. She went on to end the day early so that she could adjust her strategy for cross examining me the following morning. The college also flatly declined to cross examine our final two expert witnesses.
I am confident that because of the legal support the Justice Centre has provided, my persecutors will be seen for who and what they are by the panel holding my future in their hands. They alone can rule on the facts of my case; and it was a daunting struggle to put the facts on the record to begin with.
Without the Justice Centre, I would have been defeated: either by fear, or destitution. I would have ended up enshrouded in an intolerable self-censorship, having abandoned my own conscience and principles.
This is not a fight I could have done alone.
And to the woke mobs, the captured regulators, and the totalitarian bullies, I say this:
Your repugnant combination of malevolence, cowardice, and stupidity will be remembered for generations.
The truth is going to win.
About that very personal note: As a direct result of my fighting for women and freedom, I am have dealt with repeat financial losses, and now face extreme financial uncertainty. It would mean so much to me and my sons if you became a paid subscriber here, or even if you made a one-time donation.
I have plans to write here far more often, and experiment with video content too.
All of my content is free, because I want it to be accessible to everyone. I appreciate every one of you.
Amy
Damn fine speech, Amy ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for everything you have done for all of us, Amy! I hope to live long enough to see a medical library or school of Nursing named after you. And yes, as soon as I found out you were on Substack I signed on with a sustainer sub as a small tribute to the immeasurable good you have done for the future.