“The investigation into the protest remains active and on-going, with charges pending..” – a statement from the Niagara Regional Police this week on the anti-mask, anti-lockdown rally in St. Catharines, Niagara this past April 10th, 2021
A Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper
Posted April 14th, 2021 on Niagara At Large
COVID-19 to Planet Earth – “I AM NOT A HOAX. Want to play a stupid political game of chicken with me? Good Luck.”
Let me begin with one stark fact.
This past Sunday, April 11th, Ontario recorded, in just one 24-hour period this past weekend, 4,456 new cases of the COVID-19.
That case count was a record breaking. It was the highest number of one-day cases that we know about across Ontario since this killer virus began sweeping through our part of the world more than 12 months ago.
Four-thousand, four hundred and 56 new cases in one 24-hour cycle running through Saturday, April 10th, to Sunday, April 11th!
That is a raw number that comes from Ontario’s medical science community. It is not ‘political.’ It is not some fabrication of some ‘left-wing extremists’ or ‘the deep state’.
It is not “a hoax.”
Here are a few other numbers that are not a hoax.
Since March of last year, COVID-19 has killed more than 23,000 Canadians, including more than 7,500 in Ontario. More than 560,000 of our neighbours across the border in the United States have so far died from this highly infectious plague.
West Lincoln Mayor and Niagara Regional Councillor David Bylsma. The face of a totally irresponsible public figure, choosing to perform as one of the worst role models possible in the middle of an almost unprecedented public health catastrophe.
And the latest modeling from health experts across Ontario and Canada warn that the number of cases and fatalities across Canada could, by the end of this April, spike even higher.
At the same time Ontario was chalking up that record number of COVID-19 cases – on Saturday, April 10th – hundreds of Niagara residents gathered at a strip mall in St. Catharines, most of them not wearing masks, for a rally calling for their right to say ‘No’ to mandatory mask rules and the latest plea from government authorities to stay home, as much as possible, during a third wave of a pandemic that is proving to be more dangerous than the first and second ones.
“Freedom” was one of the words they chanted over and over again.
Between a group of speakers calling the pandemic a “hoax,” calling a vaccination a form a “biological warfare” and calling the wearing of masks “bullshit,” David Bylsma, the Mayor of West Lincoln and a Niagara Regional Councillor who is also a leader in Canada’s Christian Heritage Party, led the gathering in a chant of “no more lockdowns.”
Freedom? No more lockdowns? And I’ve had a number of these people say to me in conversation – “What about my rights? I’ve got my rights!”
One of the posters on social media, promoting what should have been called a pro-COVID-19 rally.
Well what about the rest of us who are just as tired and just as depressed about staying home as they are about wearing masks, about being stuck at home, about not being to go on a vacation or go about our regular lives?
What about our right to protect ourselves and our families from reckless, irresponsible selfish people like them?
What in hell do screwballs at rallies like the one last Saturday, April 10th in St. Catharines think they are doing?
They can call this highly infectious virus a hoax all they want. Donald Trump tried that from his high office in Washington, D.C.
Guess what. The virus didn’t give a damn. Within the span of one year, the virus killed more people in Trump’s country than were killed during the First and Second World Wars, and more than a decade of combat in Vietnam combined.
And it is doing a pretty good job of killing people in Canada too?
And what are these nuts freeing or liberating?
They are not liberating themselves as much as they are liberating this killer virus and the even more infectious and dangerous variants spreading around now.
This was not an anti-mask or an anti-lockdown rally. It was a pro-COVID-19 rally.
Watch a very brief video one of these nuts at the St. Catharines rally placed on Facebook, included below, and click on it to freeze the images along the way and you will see that these irresponsible clowns, most of them not wearing mask, brought children to this event. In at least one image, you can see a mother with a child in a stroller?
A logo for a number of these anti-mask lunatics
How God-damn disgusting is this?
They can scream about their individual rights and freedoms all they want, but why do I or another member of my family, or any of you have to stand behind any of these lunatics in a cash line at a grocery store?
To hell with these ignorant, selfish people spreading their dangerous nonsense.
I hope that our Niagara Regional Police or other appropriate authorities slap them with the highest fines and punishments available.
We are suffering through a communal health catastrophe and there should be zero tolerance for those who knowingly assault the common good.
They are the true enemies of the people.
My understanding is that a maximum fineruns as high as $100,000, possibly enough to bankrupt some of these dangerous idiots. I say go for it!
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
To watch a brief Youtube clip of the April 10th, 2021 rally, click on the screen below. To look for people with children at this maskless rally, and others, click on and off to freeze frames. Hopefully police will identify some of these dangerous idiots and fine them –
Here is another recent story Niagara At Large posted on this story that you can click on here – https://niagaraatlarge.com/2021/04/12/niagara-mayor-bylsmas-role-in-maskless-anti-lockdown-rally-is-deeply-troubling/ .
And here is another – https://niagaraatlarge.com/2021/04/11/st-catharine-mayor-calls-anti-covid-lockdown-protest-irresponsible-dangerous/ .
Links for a few other stories are listed below –
https://www.iheartradio.ca/610cktb/news/bylsma-removed-from-emergency-operations-team-1.14978509 .
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/nation-cancel-culture-and-the-christian-mayor .
NIAGARA AT LARGE Encourages You To Join The Conversation By Sharing Your Views On This Post In The Space Following The Bernie Sanders Quote Below.
“A Politician Thinks Of The Next Election. A Leader Thinks Of The Next Generation.” – Bernie Sanders
Niagara At Large 
Estimated that the 1918 Pandemic killed 675,000 US citizens & 50 million worldwide. While our health and medical knowledge and communications have improved greatly in the last 100 years, collective human behaviour and awareness are lagging far behind.
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Hmmm, lets see, population of Grimsby is @27,000.
Canadian deaths 23,000.
Put into context, soon enough to wipe out Grimsby next door to his riding and already enough to wipe out Midland, Brockville, Fergus or Collingwood. Enough to wipe out almost 1 in 5 people in St Catharines.
Already enough to wipe out Bylsma’s riding of WEST LINCOLN. I wonder if West Lincoln got wiped out if he would give a s**t.
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