A longtime conspiracy theory nut who was also once the premier of B.C., Bill Vander Zalm, thinks that the COVID-19 pandemic is all part of a global plan to either implement fascism or communism - he's just not quite sure exactly which one.
The often-zany Zalm recently sat down for a 30-minute video with Dan Dicks, a controversial independent journalist who was banned from YouTube in 2020.
The theme of Dicks' work mostly revolves around stories he doesn't feel the "mainstream media" covers fairly and refers to the pandemic as "COVID-19(84)," apparently in reference to his thoughts about it feeling Orwellian. He says that "I consider what I do to be a public service to my community and I want to continue to make the world a better place."
I watched the entire Dicks/Vander Zalm interview and once it was over I landed firmly back on earth, feeling like maybe I just got a little stupider for it.
If you'd like to endure the entire thing yourself, fill your boots. If you're not up to it, let me walk you through my experience watching it.
The video begins with the host leading Vander Zalm down a path with questions that are set up to have him say things I feel he might not otherwise want to until I realize that he clearly does... and he has a lot more to say than I thought he might.
Right off the hop he says some stuff that is absolutely not true, and my eyebrows raise just a little bit. He states that China admitted COVID-19 was released from a lab in a place he calls "Yuhan," then corrects himself and says "Wuhan.".
The former premier exclaims "I can't believe what's happening," and I think to myself "I can't believe this guy used to lead this great province of ours."
Asked about his thoughts on the vaccine passport system and what the host describes as the government over-reacting, Vander Zalm spills it. He thinks the "end game" is that "somebody is trying to establish a reset."
That reset is, apparently, meant to either foster in global fascism (which he pronounces "fass-ism") or, more likely to him, communism.
Why communism? Well, the virus originated in China, he says, and I have to hit the pause button and remind myself that this is not a fever dream, and a former premier is actually saying these things, and I should probably tell people about it.
So I continue watching. I hit play again and listen to him explain how he thinks China is "playing things a little bit smarter... from a communistic standpoint," than Joseph Stalin did.
He then says "they" are trying to form some sort of global communist government, based "Somewhere in Europe or Asia or who knows where?" He doesn't say who "they" are, but relays all of this as if it's fact.
It's around this point where I start to wonder if he's recently bought hallucinogenic drugs to microdose and mistakenly took a few grams instead of the recommended micrograms.
A friend of mine in high school once took a crapload of mushrooms when we were on our way out to a bush party, and by the end of the night he was talking very much the way the once-honourable Mr Vander Zalm is in this video. Had the rest of my friends taken the same drugs that he did, they might have been huddled around him, rapt with every word he said, much like the interviewer is in this piece.
They might still be out there in that forest, living off the land and doing the bidding of their spiritual leader, Cody.
But moving on.
Vander Zalm riffs on this global communist government plot as if it should be common knowledge that a grand plan is in place. He waxes on for about 10 minutes and at one point says "I don't know why I'm talking about it," and again I think "I don't know why I'm watching you talk about it."
But then, again, I'm reminded of you, dear reader, and my dedication to you being able to read about this without having to watch 30 minutes of Bill Vander Zalm saying these things in a video posted to the internet.
He moves on to vaccinations, saying "I don't know what all is in there," stopping short of saying there are microchips in them.
He claims that in terms of people getting sick, "It's happening to the vaxxed people as much as it's happening to the non-vaxxed people," which is absolutely false: as of yesterday in B.C., 87 percent of people in critical care because of COVID-19 weren't fully vaccinated. That number has hovered around 80-90% for weeks now.
At one point the host says "You're probably a lot more privy than most" to "the deep state" and how they operate.
Having resigned 30 years ago in disgrace, Vander Zalm is under the illusion that he is still a credible "government insider", and shares his opinion of the political parties not politicizing the pandemic and banding together to help get us out of it; "They're all singing from the same song sheet [believing there is a pandemic happening], it's the scariest thing I've seen in my entire life."
The conspiracy shifts slightly as he cites a "health person" that he knows telling him it's a "corporate pandemic," meant to enrich people, but he gets it back onto the loony track of global communism soon enough.
He's convinced that there's a plan to have the world ruled by one communist government, and that "They need to make a mess of it before they can introduce the changes."
Vander Zalm wraps things up by saying that "I just hope that some of the politicians are listening," to his interview, probably not imagining that if they happen to watch it, they might start by howling with laughter and end by feeling genuine concern for the man.
Like me, they might feel that unless this is some giant ruse, Bill Vander Zalm may have completely lost the plot.
