Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi has claimed that anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests in Canada during the pandemic are “thinly veiled white nationalist supremacist” activities and condemned demonstrators.
Nenshi, who became the first Muslim mayor of a major Canadian city in 2010, spoke out about the anti-lockdown rallies during a television interview over the weekend.
“Those people at those anti-mask protests, let’s not kid ourselves. They’re not people who [are protesting because they] need to eat. They are people who are marching in thinly veiled white nationalist supremacist anti-government protests,” he told Canadian broadcaster Global News.
Nenshi’s comments came as Calgary police arrested Polish-Canadian pastor Artur Pawlowski and his brother after he had held in-person church services, contrary to the Wuhan virus lockdown regulations in place in the province of Alberta.
In April, a video of Pawlowski went viral across social media, showing him expelling police from his church after officers disrupted an Easter service and denouncing the officers as “Gestapo Nazi communist fascists”.
Pawlowski is not the first Christian pastor in Alberta to be arrested for violating the lockdown restrictions in recent months, with Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church of Edmonton being arrested in February.
The trial for Pastor Coates began last week, with Coates arguing that the provincial lockdown restrictions are a violation of freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.
Far-left New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh joined Nenshi in condemning anti-lockdown protests, telling reporters on Monday that he believed the demonstrations were linked to far-right extremism and saying: “To brazenly not follow public health guidelines puts people at risk and that is something that we’ve seen with extreme right-wing ideology.”
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN), a group funded by the government of Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau to the amount of $268,400 CA ($221,600 U.S./£156,600), has also linked the anti-lockdown protests to far-right extremism.
On Twitter, the group reacted to the detention of Pastor Pawlowski by claiming the arrest would be used to “grift” and raise money, alleging: “These people love being martyrs.”
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