Bizarre legal theory making anti-vaccine movement more extreme, experts warn
CBC
The anti-vaccine movement in Canada is becoming increasingly radicalized thanks to a bizarre legal theory spreading through its ranks, according to multiple experts.
Last week, protesters entered a school in Salmon Arm, B.C., to "serve" school officials with what lawyers say are bogus legal documents.
The documents are based on the ideology of the Freemen-on-the-land, an anti-government movement with links to white nationalism.
"This is very worrying," said Edwin Hodge, an expert on right-wing extremism at the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria.
The pseudo-legal ideas of the Freemen have ebbed and flowed over the years, but the philosophy has typically been relegated to the fringes of society, according to experts.
Not anymore. The pandemic and its associated opposition to public health measures have vaulted these ideas into the public eye.
"It's been a bonanza," said Richard Warman, an Ottawa human rights lawyer who has written extensively on pseudo-law.
If it weren't for a stem cell transplant — less than half a cup of blood from a stranger's umbilical cord — four-year-old Tristan Ford would almost certainly have died as an infant, his parents say.
A Métis saddle from the early 1800s is at the centre of an exhibit that opened last month at a Swiss museum, along with contemporary beadwork created by other Red River Métis artists.
A dome-shaped device floating in Halifax's Northwest Arm could easily be confused with a buoy, but it is actually a contraption meant to turn ocean water into fresh water.
As of Tuesday, there are limits on the number of bottles of spirits a person can buy at the B.C. Liquor store in Tofino, a move that leaders of the Ahousaht First Nation were pushing for.
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Mohawk code talkers and their missions were so vital during the Second World War, that some believe without them, there was no way of winning of the war.
Two feisty ferret babies in Virginia are being hailed as a symbol of hope for the future of their species.
On day one of Donald Trump's presidency, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says he'll be advising Trump to take fluoride out of public water. The former independent presidential hopeful — and prominent proponent of debunked public health claims — has been told he'll be put in charge of health initiatives in the new Trump administration. He's described fluoride as "industrial waste."
An RCMP national security unit monitored First Nations-led anti-pipeline activism for "potential threats" to the energy, transportation and banking sectors between 2021 and 2022, internal police documents show.
WARNING: this story contains details of cultural items being forcibly removed
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