While most British Columbians are now vaccinated against COVID-19 and a majority of us are also on board with a vaccine passport system to help get us out of this pandemic, more than a thousand anti-vaxx ding dongs gathered this week to protest outside a hospital in Vancouver.
Described by some of those participating as an "anti vaccine passport rally," the gathering was a whole lot more than that, which is why we made the decision to characterize it as an "anti vaccine" protest in our news coverage of it.
Attended by conspiracy-theory-sharing simpletons of all varieties ("Bonnie is a Nazi!", "Media is paid off to prolong PLANDEMIC!"), the mayor of Vancouver and the premier of B.C. have both denounced it, and health-care workers who were affected by it have spoken out.
In its wake, the city and province lit up both Vancouver's city hall and the B.C. legislature buildings in pink as a showing of support for health-care workers keeping us alive, and essentially as a middle finger to those who were moronic enough to participate.
As expected, supporters of this anti-vaxx protest that blocked the streets around Vancouver General Hospital have not been happy with most of the media coverage of this misguided gathering which not only demoralized healthcare workers but physically blocked arteries to and from the hospital on 12th Ave. It endangered lives, making it difficult for people to receive care, and did more damage than the organizers could imagine; however, so far none have publicly expressed regret for the way in which they went about their protest against the government.
Some participants claimed they were there simply to voice their opinion that people should have a right to not be subjected to a vaccine passport, and that reasoning might have elicited some sympathy from the general public if it weren't just so damn stupid.
Protesting the government's widely welcomed vaccine passport outside of a hospital, far from any government decision-makers, is beyond ignorant. It seems an awful lot like the work of a selfish mob advocating for their right to not get vaccinated in the first place.
That's also really, really dumb, considering where we're at right now.
WERE YOU AT THE LOSER CONVENTION?
There's no way for us to know if somebody on Parler shared this story with you or if you came across it because you're a regular reader of our news media publication, but let's just assume you're a normal human being reading this.
Let's go through some hypothetical questions with you here and see where you end up.
1. If you were to show up to a protest, how many conspiracy theories on signs would it take before you thought "Hm, maybe this isn't an entirely sane bunch?" and decided to leave?
2. How many actual Q-Anon t-shirts would you need to see before you raised an eyebrow and reconsidered if you'd like to be associated with a crowd, and if they are actually your people?
3. Would you chant "Lock her up!" with a crowd like the one on Wednesday, or would you simply go home after everyone started screaming that phrase in unison?
YOU MAY BE IN LUCK
If these were your people and you participated in that chant and hope to lock up B.C.'s Public Health Officer, there's a place for you in B.C.
It's not the old leper colony on D'arcy Island, but it's close.
It's anywhere on Crown land, hundreds of kilometres from any community, and it's free! If you move there you're entirely within your rights to build what's referred to in legislation as an Emergency Cabin.
Of course you're likely going to be inclined to "dO YOuR oWn REsEaRCh!" on this, and you'll want to watch as many YouTube videos from "experts" as you possibly can before you make your decision, but I assure you I've looked at the legislation and I know this is the right decision for you.
You could bring together the materials to construct an emergency cabin for less than your monthly rent or mortgage payment. You could leave the city and never again be bothered by anyone who thinks it's the right thing to do to work together to make sure our society doesn't completely collapse.
Your new life of freedom awaits. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help get you there.
