Ontario's Anti-Maskers Want To Citizen Arrest Mayors
Plans to attempt this are already underway in Halton Region and Toronto
See Neet Newz’ past articles on anti-government currents in the anti-lockdown movement
Move over Brian Kidder, there’s a new group of citizen arresters in town. And they’re trying to arrest the mayors in Halton Region, as well as Toronto and maybe soon beyond.
The group, called Stand4Thee, is an offshoot from one of the better-known anti-lockdown protest groups Hugs Over Masks, and was started by three of its former national leaders. It is just a further sign of the COVID-19 conspiracy movement’s anti-government orientation and its willingness to take action to combat authorities over pandemic restrictions.
Despite essentially being a splinter group, other anti-lockdown groups have been complicit in condoning Stand4Thee. Its co-founder and most outspoken advocate Dan Oke (pronounced “Oak”) spoke at an anti-lockdown rally in Toronto last Saturday (December 5th), introduced by the Line’s executive director Lamont Daigle, to announce his call to action for performing citizen’s arrests on mayors. When Dan Oke said this the crowd roared. Oke then went on to say they were ready to do this in the Halton Region and in Toronto. He recommended people reach out to Stand4Thee’s co-founder Rebecca Sheppard if they wanted to help arrest Mayor John Tory (Today Facebook posts have circulated showing others trying to partake in this).
A look at Stand4Thee’s Facebook pages show its leaders have also recently partook in anti-lockdown protests with other groups. Oke has explained that on September 25th he held a Zoom chat with other anti-lockdown leaders around the country in which he presented this solution. Later, on November 2nd, a more public Zoom chat with Hugs Over Masks that was personally guided by Vladislav Sobelev was held where Oke continued to advocate for citizen’s arrests. One of Stand4Thee’s other co-founders, Cullen McDonald, was a close associate of Hugs Over Masks founder Vladislav Sobolev and could often be seen side by side with him throughout the summer.
Oke runs a martial arts dojo in Oakville as part Classical Martial Arts Canada. He claims that it was his sensei who introduced them to the idea of performing citizen’s arrests on mayors. Martial artists attempting to perform citizen’s arrests could be quite a recipe for disaster, although Oke has repeatedly emphasized that he wants to do this “peacefully” and “legally.” Unlike Brian Kidder, who was just a lone man with a personal vengeance and a fanclub of supporters, Oke’s efforts are more open source and collective, they are intended to give others the abilities to go through with these actions. He wants to gather hundreds of people together for such a citizen arrest, comparing it to the recent tensions with police at the Adamson BBQ in Toronto, he thinks something like this would be a bigger deal.
Oke justifies his calls to action with claims that he is doing all of this for the children. In speeches outlying his plan the first claim he will make is that masks are harmful by having you breathe your own exhaled carbon dioxide, something that’s been debunked over and over again the past six months. He distributes a Google drive full of files making their case for citizen arrests, which he calls “the binder.” Some of the material included are pseudo or unscientific papers, sensationalist or decontextualised news reports from earlier in the pandemic, conspiracy theorist and highly partisan material like the Plannedemic documentary, and lawsuits that have yet to even reach trial. Not strong evidence anyone should want to risk getting in trouble over.
Oke has at least tried to get some legal assistance, although the people he has consulted are as questionable as the rest of his sources. He mentions Stand4Thee being partnered with a group called Stand Up Canada whose executive director is Paula Tucci, a retired civil servant. Their website offers “Legal Solutions” packages for people trying to challenge fines for masking mandates and other COVID-19 related measures for $100 each. These legal packages were done with the assistance of fellow Stand Up Canada member Jane Scharf, a certified paralegal from Ottawa who by some miracle has yet to be disbarred. Oke has also mentioned getting help from Scharf. At an anti-lockdown rally in Toronto on October 17th, Jane Scharf was intoduced by the Line spokesman George Roche as being part of the Line’s legal team. In her speech, Scharf accused Trudeau of pedophilia and treason, and endorsed Brian Kidder’s attempts to citizen arrest him as “criminal prosecution.” Scharf also appears to have supported Norman Traversy with his ridiculous private prosecution attempt on Justin Trudeau, and at the peak of Canada’s Yellow Vest movement, she wrote a template guide for Yellow Vesters to avoid saying things that could get them in legal trouble for inciting hatred and offered to help Yellow Vests file defamation cases against people who called them racist pro bono. Further evidence of Stand Up Canada’s support for Stand4Thee is seen on its website, where it has a page devoted to citizen’s arrests which promotes Stand4Thee’s approach.
Oke also tries to have it both ways with citizen arrests. He references existing law on citizen arrests, albeit using a very loose and inaccurate understanding of them (disclaimer: I am not a lawyer), but simultaneously recommends the Sovereign Citizen livestreamer Christopher James’ understanding of common law, and also includes some of his documents in his “binder.” On Stand4Thee’s website there are links recommending Christopher James’ A Warrior Calls show. He sees this “common law” solution as a fall-back option due to what he sees as government corruption.
Stand4Thee isn’t just online boasting and chatter. Oke has explained having meetings in the Halton region with groups of parents to discuss his plans to arrest the mayors. In Halton Region, he described getting people to send multiple e-mails to the police warning them of an ongoing assault on their children, calling to arrest the mayor. His “binder” offers e-mail templates for others to send to police boards, e-mails were specifically sent to a staff sergeant in charge of investigation child abuse and sexual assault cases in the region who they thought would be sympathetic. While most of these e-mails went ignored, police did visit one of the fathers after he sent a third e-mail asking if they will have to arrest the mayor since the police won’t do anything. The police warned him against trying to arrest the mayor and said if they tried to do this they could get arrested. Oke would decry Halton Regional Police for not looking at his binder of evidence, and accused the police of attempting to intimidate his followers.
Stand4Thee may also be reaching out in Mississauga. In a recent show of his, the notorious Islamophobe and libelist Kevin J. Johnston said that at one of his recent social gatherings that he has been organizing in defiance of public health orders a man who wants to arrest the Oakville mayor was supposed to speak alongside him. Kevin Johnston did not name the man (although I can probably guess who it is), but said there was a clash of egos between them. Although Johnston encouraged his plans for a citizen’s arrest, Johnston thought they should file lawsuits first. According to Johnston the man refused to do that, but Johnston would go on to denounce the legal process as well. A commenter on Johnston’s show argued that not filing such a lawsuit in advance was the main mistake a US militia group made in the plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, which some anti-lockdown activists have tried to whitewash as a tame citizen arrest attempt. Johsnton concurred with the commenter.
Oke’s effort is clearly driven by frustration with the COVID-19 conspiracy movement’s inability to make much headway outside of fringe pseudoscientific and hard-right partisan circles. While he does not disrespect other activists, he does say that efforts to fight COVID-19 measures by constitutional challenge like Rocco Galati’s and continuous anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests are “not working.” Indeed, lawsuits take a lot of time even in normal times when they have merits, and while protests have grown from a couple hundred to a couple thousand they are not winning over the general population or doing anything to influence politicians or impact their decisions on fighting COVID-19.
As lockdowns tighten, COVID-19 cases spike and Canada moves towards rolling out its vaccine program, members of the COVID-19 conspiracy movement will have to decide if they want to partake in a movement that encourages such actions to stop the nightmarish future that they imagine is coming or if they’d rather step back from their social media simulacrum of a reality and join the rest of us.
UPDATE 12/15: Cullen Mcdonald’s name has been corrected.