Priscilla Campos wasn’t the sort you might have expected to find at a rally for the People’s Party of Canada.
She’s vegan, all-organic and went about barefoot, wearing a flowing dress and a blue jewel on her forehead. She formed a marked contrast to the older men in camouflage and the bearded young men in the crowd.
Campos, accompanied by her dog, Drifter, called for a “spiritual revolution” to unite people who have been kept apart by lockdowns and social distancing; she worried about whether or not the COVID-19 vaccines were vegan-friendly.
“I’m a freedom fighter,” she said. “The new way is about love and light and supporting one another.”
A few hundred supporters, representing a cross-section of suburban Albertans — and a few unexpected characters, too — gathered at a park in Edmonton last Saturday to hear a speech from Maxime Bernier, the People’s Party leader.
The crowd represented a fairly usual selection of those you’d expect to find at a conservative rally. There were “F–k Trudeau” shirts and “I’m just a dad trying not to raise Liberals,” shirts, as well as pro-oil and gas accoutrements and the odd “Make Canada Great Again” hat. There were men and women, young and old, largely, but not exclusively, white.
Bernier’s speech touched on a number of his rhetorical staples: He promised to defund the CBC and pull foreign aid funding, thereby balancing the budget; he took shots at Erin O’Toole, whom he accused of being a secret Liberal, and promised to force through pipeline construction.
But he also devoted considerable time to COVID-19 public-health measures and vaccine policies, the issue that, seemingly, united those there to hear him speak, and that Bernier and many in the crowd associate with a loss of freedom.
[Interesting Read]
See Also:
(1) With gains across the country, the PPC could be a ‘potential spoiler’ in the election: Nanos
(2) We know who the PPC voters are. Here’s what they believe
(3) Why Maxime Bernier’s rise could secure Trudeau’s re-election
(5) Conspiracies, ‘freedom’ cries, no masks: Maxime Bernier’s area blitz
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