Hillier hashtags attracting attention as anti-vax movement attracts scrutiny in Canada

Jeff Green | Jul 28, 2021

Lanark Frontenac Kingston's independent MPP Randy Hillier has once again attracted media attention in Toronto, this time for his use of hashtags.

In an article in the Toronto Star with the headline “COVID-19 conspiracy theories are spreading online like a virus. An inside look at a dangerous misinformation movement that’s spilling into the real world”, the article in the Star looked at the use of hashtags. The writers, Grant Lafleche and Edward Tian noted that the hashtag #nomorelockdowns had been circulating in 2020, and one of the events that hastened its spread in Canada was Hillier's use of it, which started in November of 2020 and has continued to this day.

Hillier has 38,000 Twitter followers. He also uses the hashtags #wearelivingalie and #wemustresist on most of his tweets. He tweets several times a day and retweets up to 2 dozen items on most days.

Some of Mr. Hillier's compatriots on the COVID front have taken to sending links to the Frontenac News email account.

We have looked at each of the links that have been sent our way, and have evaluated some of the claims that Mr. Hillier has made.

Last week he said, in a tweet, that “more people have died from COVID vaccines than from COVID itself”.

Over 4 million deaths have been attributed to COVID worldwide, and while there are disputes over how many people have died from the vaccine, there is no credible evidence of the number being in the thousands and no evidence at all that it is in the millions.

Interestingly, in interviews, MPP Hillier often casts suspicion over the death toll from COVID. First he says phrases such as 'if you believe the numbers being attributed to COVID' by either the federal or provincial public health agencies, and points to the fact that most of the deaths have been among elderly people with compromised immune systems. At the same time, he regularly tweets or retweets items about individuals who die within a day of receiving a vaccine, that do not provide any details about the cause of death.

He also provides selective facts without context.

In a radio interview that he posted on Monday, he talked extensively about how more Ontarians have died of COVID in the first three weeks of July 2021, in Ontario, than died in the first three weeks of July in 2020. The numbers he quoted were 74 in 2020 and 125 in 2021.

He said that shows that COVID vaccines do not work.

While the numbers of deaths in Ontario, and across Canada over the last few weeks is cause for concern, there are a number of factors to look at, other than simply comparing dates year over year. For one thing, COVID cases and deaths have come in waves, which is something it shares with pandemics of the past, and the waves are not bound by the calendar year, so comparing dates from one year to another is dubious. As well, picking 25 day time periods to compare instead of longer time frames brings more randomness to any evaluation of trends.

For example, while we have been lucky to have a very low death rate from COVID in KFL&A with a total of 6 deaths over 18 months, 3 of those deaths have occurred over the last month. While this is concerning, jumping to conclusions based on such a small number of cases would be unwise.

As well, the COVID that was active in Ontario in July of 2020 is very different from the variant that is active in Ontario in 2021.

While Randy Hillier laments the fact that the media is made up of sheep who are repeating whatever is fed from governments and public health organisations, we can only say from the point of view of this newspaper, that we are able to ask questions of public health. The information that has been provided by everyone, from vaccine producers to government officials, is evaluated based on clarity and completeness.

Looking at all the information that has been provided, it is not difficult to conclude that COVID is a dangerous virus that would have done more damage to lives, and the capacity of health care systems to treat other conditions, had it been ignored instead of being addressed, and that the vaccine program is the way to end the pandemic once and for all.

The fact that 50 million people died from Spanish flu 100 years ago in a world with 1/4 of the population of today, and 4 million have died so far from COVID can at least partially be attributed to advances in medical science and public health measures over the last 100 years.

Yet, partly as a consequence of the anti-vaxxer movement that MPP Hillier is a part of, the vaccine program is incomplete.

The goal of vaccinating 90% of Ontarians, at least with one dose, is going to be difficult or impossible to achieve, even 85% is a stretch given the rate of vaccination in recent weeks. This might result in more restrictions to our economic and social freedoms in the coming months