The donation and pledge table for BC Town Halls and the Kelowna Citizens Safety Association.

(MARSHALL JONES / iNFOnews.ca)

If you are interested in civic events, you might have wanted to go to the Town Hall in Kelowna last night.

It was presented by BC Town Halls. “Non partisan” “educational events”, it says on its website. Topics being discussed: Healthcare, property rights for owners and renters, the safety of your children, your right to accurate information. How you can make a difference in your community.

It was hosted by the Kelowna Citizens Safety Association. Their website describes its purpose to: “revitalize the culture of civic reform where balanced debates can take place regardless of the issue. We strive to ensure civic politicians and staff are accountable and transparent to the electorate they represent.”

Marshall Jones, managing editor

The venue was the Harvest Church, where Pastor Art Lucier plies his trade. He suggested last year’s forest fires in Quebec were a result of authorities cancelling one of his “freedom rallies” there.

Inside, three or four tables and booths were set up. One for sign in, but no one seemed to mind that I didn’t. Another for donations. One had a large poster board about healthcare. Another tries to explain away climate change. Another booth invites people to get EMF testing because of 5G, etc.

Milling about was David Lindsay, one of the organizers of the unlawful Freedom rallies in Stuart Park on Saturdays, a man the City of Kelowna is still chasing for a small fortune in fines for not getting permits for the rallies. He was an early missionary for the Freeman on the Land movement and currently faces two assault charges. His buddy Bruce Orydzuk was there working some AV for the event. Ordzyuk was caught on video by an iNFOnews.ca reporter shouting racist comments at a South Asian security guard at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic. He is still on trial on charges of causing a disturbance.

Former MP and current Kelowna city councillor Ron Cannan walked the room, shaking hands. Current West Kelowna councillor and BC United candidate Stephen Johnston was there. Several candidates for the Conservative Party of BC were there. An organizer told me roughly 350 people were there, up from 225 at another Town Hall in November 2023. They claimed 2,000 more were watching online.

Part way through the event, four men dressed in tactical uniforms, wearing stab-proof vests and carrying handcuffs appeared.

The event gets under way and the speaker says: "I would like to welcome the media if they are here tonight. I don’t see any cameras or flashing lights so I don’t think they are here (crowd laughs) but just in case you are in the audience somewhere we want to welcome you and ask you to report fairly, to report honestly and make it accurate.”

The crowd applauds.

“So when you see any bad publicity about us, know it’s false,” she says with a little giggle.

The moderator, Lindsay Gablehouse, begins with an anti-vaccination anecdote, making fun of Neil Young. She would continue to talk about anti-vaccination throughout the presentation which was ostensibly to discuss recent provincial legislation regarding health-care workers, two housing Acts and the Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

The main presenter of information about these Acts is Lloyd Manchester. His qualifications weren’t disclosed, but he assured everyone that he saved Kelowna from getting fluoride in their water 30 years ago. He was joined by Dr. York Hsiang, who drove from Vancouver to speak for ten minutes. His claim to fame is that he refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

A number of glossy pamphlets on the subjects offers a number of questions about these Acts. “Is it government overreach? How are we keeping our community safe? What is the real cost to residents?”

But presenters purported to have all the answers. Both speakers read bare legislation and offered a myriad of highly-unlikely bone-chilling scenarios of what could happen in their hypothetical examples.

The backbone of the night appeared to be gearing people up for political action. Sign up, get involved, tell a friend, donate money. They counselled them on changing their ways and not being confrontational so they could rally more people to the cause.

When the speakers were done, they took questions from the audience. One of them was an older woman who thought it was an actual Town Hall. She sat through the two hour event to finally ask her question with the assistance of a friend who pointed her in the direction of the speakers on stage. She said she was concerned about the placement of bike lanes around bus stops. Her trouble is she can’t hear bikes going past and she’s worried about getting hit.

She is completely blind.

She was unable to see where she was and who these people are and what this event was really about — a spit and polish attempt to legitimize the anti-vaccination crowd, a bait-and-switch by political charlatans to rally more people to their anti-government, anti-authority causes by presenting biased information on current events while demonizing the news media.

They had no answer to her question.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

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