Rob Anderson is not okay with direction Canada is taking, and he’s thrown his name into the ring for the Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke with the People’s Party of Canada to do something about it.
“Canadians in general have slowly been having their rights and freedoms eroded away, and I don’t like the authoritarian government stance over the people. The government has gone to great lengths to push a divide and conquer agenda,” he said.
“It’s time that we stop dividing. We’re all Canadian and we need to all stand together as Canadians to move forward as a nation.”
There are a number of areas he sees these policies playing out. He mentioned drug and alcohol addiction, mental health, First Nations rights and the tip of the iceberg: the COVID-19 response.
“Lockdowns are, in my view completely illegal. It’s against our charter especially when they’re all based on faulty science,” he said, without specifying that point. The COVID-19 vaccines are “not what they were selling us on,” he said, adding that getting vaccinated should be a personal choice.
“And they sure as heck don’t have the right to be saying that children 12 and up don’t need their parents’ permission to get vaccinated. This mandate of taking away the parental rights is unacceptable. They’re going to be, from my understanding, going around to schools and vaccinating without parental consent,” he said, which isn’t exactly true.
B.C.’s Infant Act does provide any minor deemed capable by a healthcare professional the right to consent to their own medical treatment without parental involvement. There is no age limit for when a minor can be a “mature minor” as they are referred to. This applies to vaccines, but was in place long before the pandemic.
It was more than COVID-19 that prompted Anderson, a former helicopter pilot, to enter politics. He doesn’t agree with foreign aid when people in Canada are struggling. He would build 500 beds for mental health treatment in every province and territory, and another 500 for drug and alcohol addiction treatment. It can cost thousands to treat someone who has a drug overdose, he said, and “when they get out of the hospital, there’s no available treatment facilities, unless they’ve got money.”
“As a society we need to step up and say, ‘Hey, we recognize there’s a problem, now let’s start to deal with it.’ Ultimately it’s cheaper to put them into treatment so they can get on and become productive member of society. In the long run, we’re saving money,” he said.
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His candidate biography mentions wanting justice served against “those who have committed atrocities in the past, against any Canadian, or Canada,” he said, such as individuals involved with residential schools.
“Any perpetrators who are still alive, why aren’t they in front of a court?”
He’s frustrated at the lack of political will to address the wrongs done, but also said Canadians need to put more effort into learning our history. He said residential schools should be turned into museums, as has been done with concentration camps in eastern Europe.
“Places like in the Ukraine, they take the school kids down there and explain the history and what happened. Canadians are really lazy when it comes to paying attention to history, our own history, I find.”
Anderson was a Conservative Party of Canada member for most of his life, but switched parties after Erin O’Toole became leader.
“He promised to repeal the carbon tax: he didn’t. Promised to work with all members in the party: he isn’t. Any members who have any opposing views, he immediately ousts from the party.”
For more more on the Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke riding, click here.
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