Anti-Maskers and Anti-Vaxxers Unite for “Choice” and “Freedom” in Niagara Falls, Ontario
A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper
Posted November 22nd. 2021 on Niagara At Large
Signs like this began appearing earlier on, as governments and health authorities moved to limit travel from our homes during periods of high case counts
Some people in Niagara and other regions across Canada and the United States seem determined to keep liberating the virus.
That may not be their intention.
From what comes out in their rhetoric, their mission is to liberate themselves from any more lockdowns and from all of the mandates around mask wearing and taking the vaccine.
So it was that hundreds gathered at Oakes Garden in Niagara Falls, Ontario this November 20th to, in so many words, let their freedom flags fly.
They marched up Clifton Hill where, with a statue of King Kong waving and a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not sign looming in the background, they chanted; “Together united. We’ll never be divided.” They carried signs reading (just to quote a few); ‘No Vax Mandates, ‘My Body, My Choice’, ‘Freedom is Mandatory’, ‘Hands Off’ and ‘The Lying Media is the Virus’.
Some of the rally goers brought their children and there was at least one sign in the crowd that gave a nod to the young ones. ‘Leave Our Kids Alone’, it read, leaving one to wonder if any of the parents here are going to allow their kids to get the jab now that the vaccine is being rolled out for children ages 5 to 11.
We may soon have a situation in our grade schools where at least some children may be going to school unvaccinated while the rest are. Will school boards allow children to ateend class without a COVID-19 vaxxine when, in the past, school boards have made vaccination for polio, small pox and other infectious diseases mandatory? It will be interesting to see how this works.
A video of the Niagara Falls rally was produced by rally organizers and posted on the internet. To watch it, click on the screen immediately below –
To the extent that I have gone out over all these many months of pandemic to pick up some groceries or other essentials, most of the people I meet are abiding by the mask mandates and practicing social distancing and other measures recommended in an effort to keep us all save.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney begins this past summer by sweeping away protective measures in his province, liberating the virus to a point where COVID-19 counts were spiking again by end of summer.
There obviously is a segment of the population though that views this as some form of fascism or tyranny, as if our political leaders and health authorities are up in the middle of the night, plotting how best to restrict peoples’ movements in ways that wreak havoc on the economy. I have my issues with some of our political leaders too, but it would be political suicide to do anything as insane as that.
Indeed, look no further than Alberta and Saskatchewan for examples of political leaders, right up to and including the premiers, who relaxed protection measures to a point where the number of COVID cases, including those filling up hospitals, went through the roof, forcing them to bring protective measures back.
Maybe I am missing something here, but I fail to understand why those who have been rally for their freedom and for getting whatever passes for a normal life back, don’t consider that if we all followed the rules and if as many people who can get vaccinated would get vaccinated, we might not be discussing the possibility of a fifth wave now.
It may very well be that the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers are playing a significant role in providing hosts for this virus and keeping it alive.
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Doug Draper, Niagara At Large
For related news commentary Niagara At Large posted on this issue, click on – https://niagaraatlarge.com/2021/11/19/in-the-wake-of-calls-for-his-resignation-making-a-case-for-niagaras-acting-medical-officer-of-health/
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.
Niagara At Large 
I think about the doctors, nurses and medical staff who’ve been putting their lives on the line and working to exhaustion over the past 22 months. I think about those who have lost loved ones. I think about the parents who have been trying to juggle work while trying to manage their children’s online learning while coping with the loss of their social support system. I think of all the fully vaxxed folks now back at work, with their immunity warning who need to worry about whether the colleague beside them bothered to get vaccinated. I think of my sister and her compromised immune system who, though fully vaxed, must worry about everyone around her when getting groceries or going to the drugstore. Please, if you haven’t been vaccinated think about the others in your community and do it for them.
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I believe you have a typo–a segment of the “pollution”, I think you meant “population”. ….But maybe not.
Please keep up the good work, despite how demoralizing it must often be in the face of so much idiocy.
Thanks
Pat Winstanley
A Brief Note from Doug Draper – Thank you for catching that Pat ……. but maybe that wasone of thos Freudian slips.
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Twenty years ago an equal number of people protested second-hand tobacco smoke bans, and lost. While I do understand the covid anti-vaxxers’ protest, covid is a very different situation. Back then thousands, indeed millions, were not dropping dead because of second-hand tobacco smoke, because it is not a statistically significant health risk to others. Today millions are dropping dead from covid. Another difference is, you could see second-hand smoke and avoid it. We can’t see covid, so we can’t know who has it and who doesn’t in our presence. Back then smokers were wrongly declared to have no rights to expose others to no-risk second-hand smoke. Today it’s right to declare that covid anti-vaxxers have no rights to expose others to high-risk covid. All who refuse to get covid vaccinated must be “locked down”, forced to stay home, and refused all out-of-home medical services.
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They belong on Clifton Hill with King Kong, Ripley and all the other grifters and freak shows in their own bizarre fantasy world. How appropriate! As Phineas Taylor Barnum supposedly said, “There’s a sucker born every minute”. I bet they all bought Mike Lindell’s pillows too!
Why did the police allow them to walk down the middle of the street? Did they have a permit? What does a “F*** Trudeau” tee shirt have to do with the protest? Who printed their signs? One must assume somebody did. If they are scientifically ignorant one could deduce that they might also be illiterate. What are their medical qualifications? In what field are their PhD’s? Virology? Epidemiology? Were they attained at Google University?
Why aren’t these people retroactively suing the government over polio vaccines? Ask them if they know someone with polio or smallpox and, if not, why? ….. Sound of crickets.
They yell “Stay united, never divided”. Maybe they can get adjacent cemetery plots. The stupidity is mind boggling.
Take their health card if they need COVID treatment. Why should we pay for it? 90%+ of current ICU COVID inhabitants are unvaccinated. Put them in a tent hospital outside to free up ICU beds for those who deserve them, heart, stroke or accident victims. Delay life saving treatments and surgeries for cancer and other sufferers because COVID patients have exhausted all the staff and taken up all the beds. Hospital staff have been working 24/7, some staying in hotels to protect their families and wearing masks to the degree that their faces bleed. For what? They get threatened and their vehicles vandalized for working their asses off for people like THEM!
These people are selfish b******s. The combination of ignorance and arrogance can be deadly not only to themselves but also to others who cannot be vaccinated for legitimate reasons and to those for whom the vaccine is not as effective. Not everyone gets the same % of immunity from vaccines.
What about children? THEIR children. They claim to be protecting them but are shoving them to the frontlines of the battles. Teachers and health care workers in particular need to be vaccinated or fired. They are supposed to be helping others and yet can inflict deadly harm.
When you try to discuss the situation they put their fingers in their ears and say “Lalalala!” Why won’t they even discuss it? They just take to the street with ridiculous signs. As a retired nurse, I’m not an epidemiologist but can sort through their bullshit but they refuse to listen. They prefer to listen to some clown on the internet who recommends a horse de-wormer or a Borax bath as cures. (BTW, Ivermectin works on parasites. COVID is a virus. HELLO?)
I’m sick of these creeps. They don’t want lockdowns but they are the ones causing them. They want the economy to rebound. They are the ones preventing it. It seems connecting the dots is beyond their comprehension. Their insistence on their freedoms abrogates everyone else’s. They should be kept in their homes with quarantine signs like they did in the last century.
To quote the immortal Forrest Gump, even he knew “Stupid is as stupid does”.
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I am so tired of the anti-vaccination movement and anti-mask movement. If somebody does not want to get vaccinated, stay home! I am done with their conspiracy talks, their pushing the idea our governments are somehow globally and simultaneously plotting a fascist grip on their diverse societies. Governments across the globe cannot even agree on climate change steps at the COP26 summit, so I fail to see how governments can be in cahoots to push us into any kind of dystopia.
Maybe there should be a lockdown aimed only at the unvaccinated. They should stay in their homes, unless only for limited essential purposes while wearing a mask, etc. They speak of liberties and protest about this stuff, while I feel the number of homeless, deeply impoverished and unemployed has somehow gone up during this pandemic. I would feel that something like that is more important to protest about, so this leaves me to believe the folks that are all over this movement have no trouble knowing where their next meals are coming from.
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Someone has to play devils advocate.
The anti-war protests in the 60’s were vilified by government and media until media read the room and changed their approach at which time the war became officially unpopular, illegal, immoral, and so on. The rest is history, yet all those now respected veterans that we thank for their service were hated baby killers right up into the 1980’s regardless of anything they did or didn’t do and they were vilified and rejected by society for decades.
– Mick Martland
Isn’t history a funny thing as the years roll by?
I wonder how things will be viewed a couple of years from now when more is known. Perhaps the comments from Angela Browne and so many others may be the hatred of the manipulated or the clarion call of the reasonable. No-one knows yet the outcomes from this moment in time, yet intolerance has become acceptable and that is reprehensible regardless of which side of the fence you stand.
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