CARSTAIRS - About 300 people attended a COVID-19 anti-lockdown rally in Carstairs Saturday afternoon, with speakers calling for provincial restrictions on businesses and community activities to be immediately lifted.
It was the third such rally hosted by the Mountain View Freedom citizens group – previous rallies were held in Didsbury on Jan. 30 and in Olds on Feb. 21.
David Mantai, MC at the Carstairs rally, said one of the rally’s goals was to back the business community across the region and province.
“We are here in support of small business,” said Mantai, who was also the MC at the Olds rally. “We are here because we believe that all small businesses are essential. The government and no one has the right to determine what is essential and what is not essential.
“All businesses are essential. They are essential to a person, a couple, a family. They are essential to a community. The government has no right to determine that your business is not important.”
The lockdowns and restrictions in places are “not justifiable by the most current data” and have created a mental health and financial crisis, he said.
Speaker Shondell Sabad, a chartered financial analyst, called for government sector workers to take a 50 per cent pay cut until private sector employment levels are back to pre-COVID levels.
“I wonder if this would spur creative thinking and a sense of shared hardship,” said Sabad. “All of the decisions that have been made about the lockdowns are being made by government officials.
“If all of the decisions are being made by those that are not suffering anything economically, any adverse consequences, would different decisions be made if the composition of the decision makers was different?”
Lockdowns and restrictions have caused unacceptable levels of mental health illness, he said.
“Locking down the economy will prove to have done more harm than good as deaths of despair continue to increase due to unemployment and loneliness which are a direct result of lockdowns,” he said.
Speaker Matt Mantai, an owner of Didsbury’s TFW fitness facility, said the lockdown has hurt small businesses in the county and across the province.
“They have come up with a plan, an extremely flawed plan,” he said. “They say, wear a mask. They say, socially distance. They say, lockdown small businesses or give them regulations that make it impossible for them to actually operate; let’s decide who is essential and who is not essential; let’s take away school sports and different activities to the detriment of our youth and their mental health. This is a massively flawed plan. It is wrong and it is evil and it can’t go on any longer.”
He called for community-wide opposition to the restrictions.
“What we need is action. I will not backed down. I live what I believe to the fullest of my ability each and every day and I will never quit,” he said.
Speaker and former Airdrie MLA Rob Anderson also spoke during the rally.
“Leftists and globalists around the world are hoping to use this so-called pandemic to fundamentally alter our way of life long-term,” said Anderson.
He said he does not believe that COVID-19 is a hoax, but that, “COVID-19 is not nearly, not even close to as serious or as deadly as is being claimed by the media or by your politicians. You are being lied to about the seriousness of this virus.”
The response to the virus has “caused significantly more harm and death than the virus itself,” he said.
The lockdown has caused increases mental health problems, particularly among young people, he said.
Most of those in attendance did not wear face-covering masks or social distance. Dr. Deana Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, says social distancing and mask wearing can be effective is curbing the spread of COVID-19.
Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Nathan Cooper and Red Deer-Mountain View MP Earl Dreeshen did not attend the Carstairs rally.
The March 20 Carstairs rally saw some participants bring donations for the Mountain View Food Bank, as was done at the Olds rally.
Mountain View Freedom will be hosting a rally in Sundre on Saturday, officials said.
