B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad
said the vaccine mandates seemed to be more about shaping public opinion and controlling the population.
Rustad made the comments in a video interview posted on July 23 by the B.C. Public Service Employees for Freedom which opposes vaccine mandates. The video was
publicized on Sept. 23 by the Conservatives’ political rival NDP on social media amid the provincial election campaign.
In
the video, Rustad is seen speaking about a conversation he had with Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry on vaccine mandates.
“I’ve had three shots of the vaccine. I wish I hadn’t, quite frankly,” Rustad said. “That’s one of the things that has changed in my thinking. The so-called vaccine, the COVID mRNA shots.”
Rustad said the conversation with Henry left him feeling something wasn’t “quite right.”
“When I talked to Bonnie Henry about it, I started to realize that it wasn’t so much about trying to get herd immunity or trying to stop the spread, but it was more around shaping opinion and control on the population,” Rustad said.
The Epoch Times asked Henry for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
Henry has said that it’s important for people to continue getting booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines.
“We have one of the highest vaccination rates and lowest fatality rates in North America. Vaccines have also allowed us to get back to our daily lives, gather with friends and family and return to in-person work and school, all of which is essential to our health and well-being,” she
said in March 2023.
Commenting on the video against his opponent, NDP Leader David Eby charged that Rustad was promoting the idea that vaccines do not work, and questioned what the Conservative leader would do in the event of an outbreak.
“How will he react to a measles outbreak in British Columbia? What will he say? Will he encourage people to get vaccinated? Measles kills kids,” Eby said. “He says one thing in a meeting when he thinks it won’t get out. Then he says another in public.”
Responding to Eby’s comment, Rustad
said on X on Sept. 23, “all kids in B.C. should get vaccinated for measles.” Making an apparent reference to the governing NDP’s drug policies which the Conservatives criticize, he added, “No kids in B.C. should be given free crackpipes.”
Last year, high school students in Cowichan Valley, B.C., were given tools to use hard drugs, such as cocaine, by an activist group providing a school-sanctioned presentation on drugs. The school district said while it supports harm-reduction approaches to drugs, giving out those kits was inappropriate.
The video interview with Rustad was taken at an event where members of the B.C. Public Service Employees for Freedom and United Health Care Workers of BC asked Rustad a range of questions.
The B.C. Public Service Employees for Freedom
describes itself as a group of B.C. public servants that is “concerned by the implementation of mandatory proof of vaccination policies in our workplaces, the violation of employees’ medical privacy and human rights, and the associated coercion, discrimination and censorship of employees by public sector employers.”
The United Health Care Workers of BC
says on its website it is a “large group of compassionate frontline Health Care Professionals who stand together for medical privacy and bodily autonomy.”
B.C. lifted vaccine mandates in July, the last province to revoke its vaccine-related orders. The move
allowed 2,000 health-care workers who lost their jobs for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine to return to work.
The election campaign officially started in B.C. on Sept. 21, with election day scheduled for Oct. 19.
Chandra Philip contributed to this report.
