Demonstrators gather at Queen’s Park protesting COVID-19 vaccine mandates

For the second day in a row, demonstrators gathered at Queens Park. While police say only 150 were present today, significantly less than Saturday, their message was the same. They are calling for an end to COVID-19 protocols and vaccine mandates.

Police were on scene for those that did stop by Queens Park Sunday but it was a lot quieter than Saturday. During Saturday’s demonstration, thousands of people gathered at Bloor and Avenue Road. Sunday, not many people were there but the road was still blocked off so no vehicles can get down to Queens Park. Supt. Lauren Pogue of the Toronto police service says, “Right from the get-go we were very concerned about trucks coming into our city, we are heavily populated, and our primary focus is safety, so that’s why we had a number of road closures in place and we made it very clear that there was going to be no area to park to the stage.”

Saturday night all the demonstrators including the trucks that were parked north of Bloor left. Police say they they told them it was time to go home-and they listened. “We did speak to the trucker drivers and they were very cooperative. It took a little time just to move everyone out, but we had no issues.”

While many of the demonstrators are not only against mandatory vaccinations, they also want COVID-19 protocols to end. The ministry of health did provide a statement to CHCH today. “Key indicators show that the additional public health measures our government introduced helped blunt transmission and Omicron has peaked in Ontario.”

Dr. Martha Fullford from McMaster says it may be time to re-evaluate COVID-19 restrictions including vaccine passports. “At what point do we carry on? These are seasonal viruses, we’ve already seen the numbers going down. This is happening everywhere in the world. So I think it’s a very fair question for people to say ‘oh come on, like what are we doing now?'”

The ministry of health says Ontario will continue to follow a cautious and phased approach to lifting public health measures, with 21 days between each step.