Woman at Ottawa farmer’s rally says police tried to intimidate her with photo ahead of event

Farmers and their supporters came out by the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, to 26 locations across Canada, at cities like Vancouver and Toronto as well as the capital in Ottawa and at smaller communities like Courtenay, BC and Enfield Big Stop, NS. The Farmer’s Protest Canada was provoked by the lingering outrage over the killing of hundreds of ostriches by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) on Nov. 5-6 at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, BC. Some of the birds had contracted H5N1 avian influenza almost a year ago. The survivors were obviously healthy and had developed herd mentality. The CFIA refused to test the birds and massacred the herd with a shooting spree that expended over 1,000 rounds of bullets.

Many protesters carried signs that read, "Cull the CFIA" as momentum continues to build to hold the federal government agency to account for its increasingly ravenous behavior.

The rally was also inspired by the continuing resistance and eloquence of farm spokeswoman Katie Pasitney, who has vowed that the ostriches have not died in vain but will be a symbol of how supporters say the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney continues a war on agriculture in Canada and continues to use the CFIA in an invasive and potentially illegal manner, killing livestock they merely believe might pose a health threat to other animals and maybe humans.

Debbie Cameron felt threatened by the OPP. “I live in Cornwall, Ontario. I posted on Facebook that I was coming to Parliament Hill on Nov. 22 for the farmers protest, and I got a phone call on Wednesday, I guess that would be the 20th and from an OPP liaison, saying, they wanted to know what my plans were, wanting to make sure I was safe,” Cameron told TPM.

“And I didn't answer the phone, just let him leave a message. And then he texted me, saying the same thing over wanting to make sure I was safe and that I was organizing something. I'm not organizing anything. I was strictly coming to Ottawa with fellow Canadians. And then he texted me with this picture,” Cameron continued.

“I don't know what it is, men dressed with makeup on, carrying machetes in the forest, and I felt very intimidated by it, and I blocked him, not knowing what else to do, I just decided to block him,” she said.

People of all ages came to the rally. Callie Crawford said she came to protest after seeing media reports about the killing of the ostriches earlier this month. “I actually came in here after watching what happened. I found it absolutely devastating watching the overreach of our government. And no, I decided to come out here and show my support, and hopefully others younger my age, will get their butts out here and do the same, because we need this.”

One of the more prominent participants was Dr. Jeff Wilson, a veterinarian and associate professor at the University of Guelph. Wilson has been an outspoken critic of the “stamping out” policy that has killed tens of millions of chickens in Canada. When asked if Saturday’s rally was important, Wilson said “I think it's very important. I think it's I think it can be discouraging to come to a protest and not many people are able to come. But It's still really important. It really helps. I can't give much of the details right now, but there are a whole bunch of things happening behind the scenes at a senior level, working with key politicians, industry people, all to fix this debacle that is the avian influenza and the and the ostriches. So hang in there. Don't despair,” he said.

Howard Kwan, who has fashioned signs for a myriad of protests from the Freedom Convoy phenomenon of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber to the annual Million Person March for Children, was also there to support farmers. He said the protest was very important for him because his grandparents fled communist China at the height of Mao Zedong’s manufactured famines that murdered millions of people.

“My grandparents are from China. I grew up kind of with that knowledge and stories in my head and what I've seen,” he told TPM, noting that “many people … do see and recognize tyranny in our country.” Kwan said that people who emigrate to Canada from authoritarian countries recognize the creeping tyranny in Canada: “they do recognize what many Canadians don't even see because we've been indoctrinated for decades. We've been programmed, we've been brainwashed, we've been abused, we've been psychologically damaged and gaslit to believe that the government is the answer. The government is not the answer.”

He compared what happened at Universal Ostrich Farm, where the federal government ignored property rights and simply occupied a farm without even trying to prove there was a reason to do so, and government control during the Covid pandemic.

“Well, guess who planned Covid? It's the elites, the governments. So we have to keep exposing the truth, exposing what's going on, and we just need to make more people aware, so that we will have the majority of people speaking up and pushing back against the tyranny all around us,” Kwan said, noting that the turnout for the rally could have been larger but the Ottawa police actively blocked access to Parliament Hill and discouraged people from coming.

“Actually, we're not protesting. We're doing a public service, in my opinion, because people need to be informed and that’s exactly what's going on … We need to pray for changes for the future of our children. I have children, I have nieces and nephews, and I'm fighting for them, and I'm sure everyone else is fighting for them too, and that's what we all need to do.”