The leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) made a campaign stop in downtown Barrie, Thursday morning.
Party founder Maxime Bernier briefly addressed the crowd of more than 100 people who had gathered at Meridian Place at the beginning of the event, telling them the party would be running on the same platform it had in 2019 ahead of next month’s federal election.
“Every day I am taking one idea from that platform and putting that forward hoping the mainstream media will look at it and will be doing that until the end of the campaign," he told the crowd.
Slated to spend the day in Barrie, Bernier was joined downtown by local candidates Chris Webb (Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte) and Corrado Brancato (Barrie-Innisfil).
Bernier told BarrieToday he was happy with the turnout at this morning’s event.
“We are in the middle of the weekday and we have people here that are ready to hear what we have to say. We have more people when we have (a) rally at 12 p.m. and 7 at night and that’s going well. Every day I am issuing a press release and I can feel there is a momentum right now. People are fed up,” he said.
One of the key issues Bernier says his party will address is the proposed vaccination passport, an idea they are against it.
“I believe in freedom and I believe in freedom of choice. Everybody must be free to decide if they want the vaccine or not and then form consent. That’s the position of the PPC," he said.
"We are not anti-vaccine, we are not anti-mask — we are for freedom of choice and everybody must be able to decide if they want to get the vaccine or if they want to wear a mask. But that is not the case in Canada,” Bernier added. “(Liberal leader) Justin Trudeau is saying if you want to travel in Canada on a plane, you are obliged to have a vaccine passport. When we said that, I can tell you our support is growing because we are the only national political party against vaccine passports.”
Bernier says he believes Canadians are living under “medical tyranny” and vowed to put an end to that if elected.
“That will be the main subject for this campaign and I believe that will be a question ballot. This election will be a referendum on vaccine passports and that’s why the People’s Party will do very well," he said.
Bernier says he believes Trudeau — who was in Barrie on Tuesday for a brief stop — called the election in order for the Liberals to obtain a majority government in Ottawa.
“For me, it was not necessary because he had, in fact, the majority with the support of the socialist-leftist NDP. He was able to do what he wanted to do, so now he’s looking for a strong majority,’ he told BarrieToday. “I believe and hope he won’t have that, but we at the People’s Party will be the only freedom voice in parliament and I can tell you some of our candidates will be elected and we will start the common-sense revolution.”
In the 2019 federal election, PPC candidates tallied 1.6 per cent of the national vote.
The federal election is set for Sept. 20.
