Canadian Anti-Hate Network
November 23, 2020
Darryl Burrell. Source: Facebook.
Last week, Stephen Hargreaves started receiving threatening messages directed at him and his family after he complained on social media about an “anti-lockdown” march in downtown Windsor, Ontario. This included an alleged rape threat -- should he “further slander” the COVID conspiracy movement. CBC picked up the story.
"It's absolutely unacceptable, you cannot threaten to rape people," Hargreaves told CBC. "It's that simple."
The CBC also interviewed the organizers of the march, including Darryl Burrell, who ran as the People’s Party of Canada candidate for Windsor West. Burrell gave them an implausible explanation: "We have many haters and they are all mentally ill. So anyone of them could have made an account to try and make us look bad."
"Nobody from our march would say or send that type of message."
Burrell’s insistence on the good behaviour of his demonstrators is undercut by his own public history of bigotry and domestic assault -- which the CBC failed to mention.
Despite his soft handling in the piece, Burrell complained and threatened to sue the CBC for libel.
He also accused Barker and the CBC writ-large as staging the threats.
“It concerns me that you’re trying to make something of this,” Burrell writes to Barker, “which leads me to believe you and your bosses are behind it.”
According to his posts, Burrell believes COVID is an elaborate hoax, engineered by governments, the United Nations, and Bill Gates -- among others -- to seize power and convert the world into massive socialist technocracies.
He told a very different story to try to avoid selling the house he was living in.
According to public court records, Burrell was ordered to sell a jointly-owned house as part of his divorce. These documents are also where we learned about his conviction for domestic assault and that there is a related “non-association order.”
Burrell told the court that it would be unsafe to sell the house because of COVID, and that he should be allowed to remain in it until after the pandemic is over.
His online posts suggesting COVID is a hoax did not go unnoticed by the court. Justice Christopher M. Bondy ruled against Burrell, writing: “the COVID-19 crisis was simply a convenient means for the respondent to frustrate a clear court order . . . the respondent had misrepresented his fear of the COVID-19 virus in order to achieve other, nefarious ends.”
Like a number of anti-mask protestors, Burrell also appears to be entrenched in the mythology of QAnon. Multiple reposts of his include reference to the “The Storm,” “The Cabal,” and several images of “Q drops” -- the messages used by the pseudonymous online profit to communicate with followers.
Q’s central story, one of global networks of elite pedophiles, leans heavily on antisemitic tropes, especially blood libel.
Source: Facebook
Burrell regularly shares a variety of anti-muslim and anti-trans content on his page.
These include his categorization of MP Ahmed Hussen as “Ahmed the Terrorist,” and that he has opened “the border to Somalia... land of the pirates.”
“If you don't see how political and extreme Islam has crept up, you need to take your head out of the sand,” Burrell writes in the comments.
Source: Facebook
Of course, the COVID conspiracy movement is full of disreputable characters -- both because it attracts the type, and because they welcome anyone who will march with them. At times, even after being confronted with evidence that they are harbouring neo-Nazis.
Brian Ruhe in BC has been a regular participant and organizer. He recently reenacted a Nazi book burning while he and others gave Nazi salutes. Ontario’s Micheal Bolton has used dozens of social media accounts to spread hatred against Jewish, Black, and Turkish people, “race traitors,” and pro-terrorist neo-Nazi propaganda. Bolton has been attending the demonstrations too -- he was interviewed by Rebel Media.
The Canadian Anti-Hate Network made multiple attempts to contact Darryl Burrell and has not received a response by time of publication.
