Things heat up at silent rally against mandatory vaccines near Saskatoon hospital

What started as a small silent rally against mandatory vaccinations and masking got a little louder than expected Monday.

The gathering, organized by Canadian Frontline Nurses, was held in Saskatoon’s Kinsmen Park behind Saskatoon City Hospital on Monday afternoon.

A silent rally against mandatory vaccines got a little loud Monday afternoon in #yxe @CJMENews @CKOMNews pic.twitter.com/O69unc9KVY

— Libby Giesbrecht (@GiesbrechtLibby) September 13, 2021

While the assembly began quietly with people standing about on the grass, shouting soon began when a masked man confronted some of those attending the rally.

Later, a man brought a microphone attached to a speaker onto the grass and began yelling to excite the crowd.

Throughout the hour-long protest, a handful of people opposing the gathering stood on the outskirts of the crowd, several of them holding posters expressing support for health-care workers.

Nicole Rimmer was one of those holding a poster, a neon-green one that read “For the love of God, don’t harass the sick and … the people working to heal them.”

Rimmer said she was there to support health-care workers and to protest.

“It’s nonsense,” she said. “Everyone has the right to state their beliefs but (having a protest near a hospital) is harassment and I really have a problem with that.”

Though the Saskatoon assembly was not impeding the access of patients and health-care workers to the hospital as many other protests across the country have, Rimmer said she felt her message still bore importance.

“I’ve counter-protested a few of these things and that’s just a line that people shouldn’t have to go through,” she said.

People’s Party of Canada candidates Mark Friesen (Saskatoon-Grasswood) and Kevin Boychuk (Saskatoon West) were also in attendance.

No patients were blocked from receiving care during the gathering, which was largely peaceful aside from occasional yelling.