This weekend a cadre of different organizations will descend on Vancouver for what organizers are calling the BC Freedom Mega Rally 2020. The frequent anti-lockdown/anti-mask protests have become a flashpoint for a variety of racist conspiracy theories.
On October 17 and 18, Vancouver, British Columbia will host another one of a series of events that have become a staple during the pandemic. Organizers have arranged for people as far as Saskatchewan to be brought in aboard a “convoy” for the event.
Among those appearing is David Icke, a one-time British football player known for his promulgation of the theory that most major world leaders are a race of reptilian and pedophilic aliens. Icke is also a decades-long superspreader of antisemitic conspiracy and misinformation — he claims that “Rothschild Zionists” control the world, that Jews financially supported Hitler during the Second World War, and that Jews were behind both the 9/11 terror attack and the 2008 recession. Icke has also argued that schools should permit the study of Holocaust denial.
It has been argued that Icke’s conspiracy theories surrounding lizard people and the Illuminati are, in themselves, coded antisemitic dog whistles.
“’Far Right’ group, Combat 18, is a front for the sinister Anti-Defamation League, the United States arm of the ‘Israeli’/Rothschild secret service, Mossad,” Icke wrote in his book The Truth Will Set You Free.
Combat 18 is the security division of the violent neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour. Both were declared terrorist organizations by the Canadian government in 2019.
Recently, Icke was banned from YouTube after promoting the idea that COVID-19 was actually caused by 5G technology.
He has been making the rounds on Canada’s patriot and conspiracy circuit, calling in from the UK to a variety of streaming programs, offering his unique take on the current situation. Chiefly that masks are hurting us, wearing them is making your will weaker, and everyone needs to stop immediately.
Icke and other foreign speakers will not be appearing in person.
