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Introduction – Sept 14, 2020

CBC puts the number of protesters at “several thousand”. While others have estimated there were as many as “40,000”.
We reserve judgement on the actual number of protesters. However, the Montreal protest follows similar demonstrations in London and Berlin and the corporate media sought to play down the scale of those protests. So it may be doing the same with this event too. Ed.

Anti-mask protest in Montreal draws large crowd, propelled by U.S. conspiracy theories

Jonathan Montpetit and John MacFarlane — CBC News Sept 12, 2020

Some demonstrators in Montreal on Saturday carried signs and wore T-shirts and hats denouncing what they called fear campaigns by the Quebec government, suggesting that the danger of COVID-19 has been overstated. Click to enlarge

Several thousand people gathered Saturday in downtown Montreal to hear speeches from conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccine activists, in one of the largest demonstrations to date against the Quebec government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The march began outside Premier François Legault’s Montreal office, and at one point stretched more than six city blocks. It attracted people of all ages, and from a wide-variety of mindsets.

Hare Krishnas marched alongside Christian fundamentalists and supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump. Others held signs about the 5G internet network, or perceived corruption at the United Nations.   

“I decided to come today to say ‘enough,'” said Montrealer Andrée David, 75. “We’ve been manipulated enough.”

The most popular symbols at the protest — be it on t-shirts, placards or flags — belonged to QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory started in the United States that claims a satanic, pedophile cabal secretly controls the U.S. government, if not the entire world.

QAnon was labelled as a national security risk by the FBI in 2019 after individuals began committing acts of violence based on the mistaken belief the theory is true. 

 

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