Walk for Freedom rally in Strathmore
By Janet Kanters, Editor
A Walk for Freedom rally is taking place this Saturday in Strathmore, to give people more information about their rights under current COVID-19 rules and measures.
According to lawyer Katherine Kowalchuk, the rally is in support of ensuring that people’s freedoms and rights stay intact.
“It’s bigger than the anti-mask movement, it’s bigger than the COVID movement, but it certainly has been borne out of that,” she said. “It is all-encompassing because it involves the complete eradication of what we believe is occurring here in our province and in our country right now with respect to our rights as sovereign citizens to peacefully assemble, for instance, and also have an alternative opinion with respect to the mask mandate and the current lockdown situation.”
Kowalchuck, one of many lawyers that comprise Lawyers 4 Truth, said the goal of the rally is to simply make everyone aware of their rights as citizens of the province and of Canada.
“First of all, it is to raise awareness. For instance, what we hear from the government and the media is that there’s a mask mandate. That’s mandatory. However, both the city of Calgary bylaw and the CMOH order 42-2020 both provide for exemptions,” she said. “But that narrative is being taken out of the public discourse, and so people are not sure what rules apply and what rules don’t apply. Therefore, many people who are asserting their mask exemption are being denied services and otherwise discriminated against.”
Kowalchuk, who will be speaking at the rally on Saturday, said the event will also help people to understand that they “are sovereign beings and that they have the right to determine what you put on your face, what you don’t put on your face, whether you can leave your house, etc. This is going to become much more important depending on the vaccine rollout and how that goes, and whether or not they make it mandatory or if it’s subliminal through the mandatory requirements that private businesses implement with respect to the vaccine.”
Kowalchuk said they also hope to empower people. “We want to empower people to critically examine what is happening right now in terms of the obliteration of our rights and freedoms. And to critically look at the information or the non-information being provided at this time by governments and health authorities.”
Jesse Wilson, one of the organizers of the Walk for Freedom Strathmore rally, maintains the event will be peaceful, and will simply offer information that citizens are not getting from mainstream media or other sources. Wilson has been to 12 of the past 16 freedom walks in Calgary over the past year, and said the time was right to take the movement outside of big cities and into smaller towns.
“We are fighting for literally every Canadian citizen in this land, because we are pro human rights,” he said. “We are against the lockdowns, we are against masks, we are against everything that they will not provide documentation as to how they come about the lockdowns.”
Wilson, born and raised in Strathmore, said he is bothered that everybody is fear mongered about the mask. “In Calgary, you can go anywhere you want and say you are exempt because lawyers have told everybody that this is an infringement of our Canadian charter of human rights (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms). Nobody can tell you that you’re not allowed in this building without putting a face mask on. It’s an infringement of your Canadian charter of human rights. But for some reason, that’s null and void. Everyone seems to have forgotten that special document that keeps Canada a special place.
“A lot of people want to call us anti-maskers, pro-Trump or anti-lockdown,” added Wilson. “That’s not true. The gist is, we’re pro human rights. If there is one person since March 20, 2020 who thinks one thing has felt off or wrong or confusing or just said, ‘that doesn’t make sense,’ then they should come to this rally because you’ll get very good information.”
Kowalchuk said the rally is meant to provide hope to people, to show the commitment of those who question the rules and to provide “a sense of community to those who are going through this, who want to oppose these measures but don’t know how.
“We know this has been devastating for a lot of people, and we certainly feel like the discussion needs to be had,” said Kowalchuk. “Unfortunately, there’s no opportunity for that; not even in the provincial legislature are they debating these issues, which is a huge concern to our democracy.
“My message this weekend is for people is to stop complying. We need to stop complying because there’s more of us than there is of them. We need to be empowered to stand up for ourselves.”
The Walk for Freedom Strathmore rally takes place Jan. 23 at 1 p.m., at the new town hall location in downtown Strathmore.