The Leader of the Official Opposition told a group of East Coast conspiracy theorists, "Everyone’s happy with what you're doing."
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Screenshot retrieved from a video on Thomas Everett's Facebook account. Source:Facebook
The leader of the Conservative Party of Canada made a stop at a protest camp, meeting with several people tied to a years-long series of protests at the border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre was on his way from Prince Edward Island to an upcoming event in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia on Tuesday.
In live footage posted from the protest camp, Poilievre is shown touring the trailers and vehicles while chatting with participants. As first reported by Press Progress, some of these individuals espouse a range of conspiracy theories and have been participants in a series of protests along the same region over COVID-19 health restrictions since 2021.
One of the individuals seen talking to Poilievre, according to Press Progress, is a man named Thomas Everett. Everett appears as an admin on a Facebook group credited with organizing the border protests with his wife, Tasha, and one other individual. Tasha Everett was also named in a court injunction sought in May 2021 by the Nova Scotia government to halt the protests.
One NS-NB border protest in June 2021 against provincial isolation requirements saw dozens of participants close a portion of the Trans Canada Highway. Reports also say that protesters tried to stop a tractor-trailer they thought was transporting COVID-19 vaccinations into the province.
Spending the previous day door-knocking and talking to potential voters, Poilievre was in the area as part of a tour of Canada’s East Coast. Though a federal election is not required before October 2025, a recent poll found that 46 per cent of respondents wanted an election as soon as possible or within 2024.
Alleged to be an unplanned stop, the participants took pictures with the leader and seemed surprised by the visit.
“We were just going down the highway and we heard about you guys on the news,” Poilievre says, adding he told his team to pull over to “say hello.”
Taken on a small tour of various vehicles which included a modified trailer that appears to serve food to a large number of the camp, the participants introduced themselves and showed their respective living spaces. Made up of cars, trucks, and recreational vehicles, previous pictures show basic infrastructure like common areas and bathrooms set up to support their stay.
During the stream, one member reports that they have been on the site for “23 days,” and intend to stay longer. The carbon tax protests do not have a fixed end date, with some participants saying they intend to continue indefinitely until the tax is repealed.
When one man mentions that the protests had been depicted negatively in the media, Poilievre responds “Everyone’s happy with what you’re doing.”
In the footage, Poilievre kept to the subject of the carbon tax, housing, and the cost of living.
After footage of the appearance spread over social media, observers quickly picked up on the Diagolon flag appearing to be hand-drawn on the interior door of a large trailer. The symbol, a black flag with a white slash running diagonally from top to bottom, appears next to other writing for Dacey Media—a series of social media channels run by Chris Dacey— and Save Canada—a small Ontario youth protest group that managed to galvanize small and large amounts of support to protests outside of schools and libraries in 2023 over anti-2SLGBTQ+ issues.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre appears to be pandering to extremists and their pals.
— Rachel Gilmore (@atRachelGilmore) April 24, 2024
This time, it’s darker — and more embarrassing — than his previous flirtations with the fringe.
As someone who has been covering this issue for years, let me break down exactly why: pic.twitter.com/p8f0CwGORH
The carbon tax protests have included a wide number of people of different beliefs and ideologies, some of whom have participated in protests from the national Save The Children protests against gender and sexual health education in schools, shared conspiracy theories around globalist plots on their social media, or participated in the 2022 convoy protest in Ottawa.
Diagolon itself is a community of far-right content creators and supporters that hold a series of extreme, racist and far-right beliefs. While Diagolon streamers have a history of espousing antisemitism and racism, they have become more explicitly white nationalist in recent months, interviewing neo-Nazi organizers like Australian Thomas Sewell.
Poilievre once condemned the Diagolon concept creator Jeremy MacKenzie for discussing sexually assaulting the CPC leader’s wife during a live stream.
The trailer’s owner, self-identified in a previous interview as repair shop owner Sam Field, has previously shared Diagolon content on social media. Another protest participant also posted images of people wearing clothing with the symbol. Field was identified as a spokesperson for the current group protesting at the border at the start of April.
On Wednesday Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about the meeting, accusing his opponent of doing “anything to torque up negativity and fear” through “divisive” approaches.”
He added Poilievre was seen “associating with members of Diagolon” but mainly lambasted him for failing to reject an endorsement of notorious right-wing media figure Alex Jones. Trudeau pointed to a 2022 defamation decision against Jones for repeatedly claiming a 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary was a hoax.
“This is the kind of man who’s saying Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to bring the country towards the right, towards conspiracy theories, towards extremism, towards polarization,” Trudeau said.
Diagolon’s creator, Jeremy MacKenzie commented online that Trudeau and Poilievre were fighting over the community for “election points.”
He added, “Don’t they know we want them in prison for life with their assets seized and returned to the people they pilfered them from—Canadians.”
The comments section of social posts from the individuals who met Poilievre seem divided between respecting his decision to talk to the protesters to reminding viewers that the entire government will need to be removed in order to save Canada from a variety of shadowy enemies.
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