Rally against lockdowns, vaccine laws, draws large crowd in downtown Lindsay

At times, the beeping of horns of support made it difficult to do interviews.

About 80 people gathered downtown in front of Lindsay’s library to protest vaccine passports, lockdowns, and what they see as “medical tyranny.”

A man who would only identify himself as Brent carried a large Canadian flag and repeatedly rushed into the intersection, urging people to beep their horns.

“We’re here for freedom and involuntary vaccines that we shouldn’t be getting to take back our lives,” he said, as he made his way back to the intersection.

“Get vaccinated,” one driver yelled out his car window, creating an uproar within the crowd.

While not a PPC rally — according to the PPC candidate herself, Alison Davidson — it was clear there was widespread support for her party in the crowd. A large stack of PPC signs stood against a pylon and many people held them or waved them.

“I’m just a tradesperson,” Davidson tells the Advocate. “It was a real leap of faith for me to jump in but seeing all this support is encouraging.”

An older woman hands the PPC candidate $40 and wishes her good luck in her campaign, while Davidson thanks her and assures her that every little bit helps.

“They don’t want the lockdowns and all the mandates. They want the freedom to choose,” says Davidson. “We should be free to decide for ourselves what’s best.”

Finding people who would comment with both their first and last name was difficult in the boisterous crowd. Lisa, for instance, helped share the news about the rally on social media and was strident in her support for the rally’s objectives.

“Literally, my body my choice, my body my temple. This is literally medical tyranny,” she says, holding a sign that read “Knock Knock Who’s There? Freedom From This Tyranny.” She called the messaging around vaccines a “disgusting form of coercion.”

Abigail Campbell, who was there with her children, said she was at the rally “because we don’t believe that forcing people to have a vaccination” is allowed under Canadians’ constitutional rights “and we don’t believe our private health history is anyone else’s business.”

Campbell says she didn’t even know the PPC was taking this stand. “I’m here because I don’t believe a 12-year-old can give consent to have a vaccine. I was told by other parents that even if I say no, my 12-year-old could go to school and nod their head and be vaccinated against my wishes and against our conscientious belief. The discrimination this is creating is ridiculous.”

While the Advocate could not yet verify whether or not this was true for the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board, an FAQ on the local health unit’s website page reads that: “Getting the COVID19 vaccine is completely voluntary.” However, the rules change from health unit to health unit. In Toronto and Peel Region, for instance, students can give their own consent.

According to a guide from the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth that explains health care consent to children, in Ontario “the law is that everyone, even people younger than age 12, can make their own decisions about their health, including choosing ‘alternative treatments,’ traditional medicines and culturally appropriate treatment.”

Lisa is also against vaccines being given to students. “Look what’s going on in the high schools right now and then it’s going to be filtering down to five years old and up,” she says, referencing that vaccines are recommended for ages 12 and up in Canada. As well, Pfizer BioTech will file the results of its trial in five- to 11-year-olds with regulators across the world and will seek approval of the vaccine in this age group.

When the Advocate pointed out that children take vaccines all the time for other things, like measles, mumps, or rubella, to name three, a man standing next to her said, “You don’t have to answer these questions.”

Lisa responded that she says all of this publicly anyway. “The COVID vaccines are “experimental.”

“It’s MRNA. It doesn’t stay local in the muscle; it literally travels everywhere affecting vital organs. The amount of injuries (from the vaccine) is really grossly unreported,” she says.

According to many medical sources, researchers have been studying and working with mRNA vaccines since the 1990s. For example, they’ve been studied for use in flu, Zika, rabies and cytomegalovirus (CMV). Health Canada points out that the mRNA molecule is essentially a recipe, telling the cells of the body how to make a spike protein. After it is made, the cell breaks down the instructions and gets rid of them. The mRNA never enters the nucleus of the cell, “which is where our DNA (genetic material) is found. Your DNA can’t be altered by mRNA vaccines.”

As for mask use, Lisa says we need “to breathe freely.”

“That’s how we keep our body clean.”

Davidson, the PPC candidate, also spoke out against vaccine passports being used for businesses. They are “not only against our freedoms but it’s morally wrong to segregate people and pit them against each other.”

“If we were 100 per cent vaccinated, we’d still have a fourth wave,” Davidson said.

While she said COVID is a virus and people do get sick and have died from it, “we have to look at the bigger picture.”

“More people die of cancer and heart disease and we don’t see them throwing billions of dollars at that. People have lost their jobs over this. It’s been so stressful on children who are in school, then out of school. All this uncertainty has been bad for the economy and bad for people’s mental health.”

Brent, the flag waver, runs down the street again near two cars. “Let’s hear those horns!”