Speaking at a press conference on Friday, People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier made three demands to the federal government – chiefly to repeal the vaccine mandate on civil servants and to rehire all public employees fired because of them.
“The government should reinstate all civil servants, military personnel and other government employees who unjustly lost their jobs,” said Bernier.
The PPC leader also called on federally regulated companies in the transportation and telecom industries to rehire affected employees. Bernier added that if those workers didn’t want to return to their jobs, “they should get severance packages and unemployment benefits that terminated employees normally receive.”
Bernier’s second demand to the federal government was to repeal all travel restrictions on planes, trains and boats for unvaccinated Canadians. He slammed these restrictions as “useless,” calling them a “violation of our basic constitutional rights.”
This demand echoes a lawsuit against the federal government launched Wednesday by Brian Peckford, the last surviving signatory of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Third came Bernier’s demand that the feds stop bailing out provincial governments who “ruin their economies with lockdowns, curfews, vaccine passports and vaccine mandates.” He mused that if provinces didn’t receive the billions of federal dollars, most provinces would have been more “prudent” and “moderate” in their approach to controlling COVID.
Bernier went on to address questions about Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leader Erin O’Toole, who on Thursday endorsed the Truckers for Freedom Convoy in a video posted to Twitter.
O’Toole called the vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers “an attack on common sense.” The endorsement ended weeks of waffling by the CPC leader, and came after several of his MPs had already publicly backed the convoy and called on the feds to drop the mandate.
O’Toole also confirmed yesterday at a press conference that we would meet with the truckers when they arrive in Ottawa.
For Bernier, O’Toole’s endorsement was too little, too late.
The PPC leader said Friday that O’Toole is “unable to answer simple questions and has essentially supported every one of Trudeau’s decisions regarding COVID.”
Bernier did congratulate CPC deputy leader Candice Bergen and finance critic Pierre Poilievre for “mustering the courage to oppose the government’s authoritarian measures after two years of silence,” concluding that it is a welcome contrast to their leader O’Toole.
He then went on to slam the vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers once again, saying the policy has ‘nothing to do with science’ and that the “authoritarian measures have almost no effect on the spread of the virus while they have massive economic and health impacts on the population.”
When asked about coverage of the convoy, Bernier said that the mainstream media is trying to “discredit” the movement.
“I have done a lot of rallies in the last couple of months, and I didn’t see Radio-Canada, I didn’t see CBC, I didn’t see CTV there,” said Bernier. “I believe it’ll be the same thing this weekend…I hope that the mainstream media will be there to see the support of this rally.”
The Truckers for Freedom Convoy made its way through parts of Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario yesterday, with parts of it expected to arrive in Ottawa today. A large group of East Coast truckers is currently making its way through Quebec, and is expected to unite with the Western fleet on Saturday
The GoFundMe in support of the truckers at the time this article was published had reached $7,176,580.
