The Skeena
The consensus among disease specialists and public health experts is that the best way to fight against the coronavirus and revive our economy is for people to wear a mask, maintain social distance and keep gatherings of people small–particularly indoors.
But with a provincial election happening on October 24, candidates with the Christian Heritage Party are making wild, factually-incorrect claims about COVID-19 in the Skeena Region that echo what Donald Trump is saying in the U.S.
Here is one example:
“We hear a lot about the increased cases and the testing and we know there are some false positives and false negatives in the testing, but until the government starts to promote actual remedies like hydroxychloroquine, which it should be doing… their lockdown doesn’t seem appropriate to the situation,” says Rod Taylor, the Christian Heritage Party of BC candidate for Skeena riding.
“Many doctors think it is extremely successful, the hydroxychloroquine…many doctors think it’s extremely good, some people don’t, I think it’s become very political, I happen to believe in it, I would take it, as you know I took it for a 14-day period,” Trump said in July.
Independent studies show that hydroxychloroquine has no benefit for preventing COVID-19.
And another:
“Suicides are up; deaths due to failure to be treated for other conditions; failures to have surgeries that otherwise would have been done, there’s deaths due to that; closures of businesses; I think a lot of people are dying of other causes besides COVID,” Taylor has claimed.
This echoes Trump’s frequent insistence that “lockdowns are killing countries all over the world. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself.”
An even crazier example:
Last week, the Houston Today reported that the Christian Heritage candidate for Nechako Lakes, Dan Stuart, believes COVID-19 is a scam:
“I believe vaccinations are going to come down to a marketing thing,” he added, bringing in wealth to individuals, one who he lists as Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates.
Gates, he said, is financing microchips, which can be taken to be the Mark of the Beast, which can be injected as part of a vaccine.
“Without that, you won’t be able to buy or sell anything,” said Stuart.
Many supporters of QAnon, a US-based conspiracy movement claiming that “a Satan-worshipping, paedophile cabal is secretly running the world,” also make these types of statements about Bill Gates. Trump has celebrated QAnon supporters as “people that love our country.”
Skeena Strong has been running live virtual events called “Fighting COVID In The Skeena” that provide useful, scientifically-supported information about coronavirus–a stark contrast to what Chrisitan Heritage candidates and Trump are saying.
Here is an example, and be sure to stay tuned for future events!
