Christine Anderson Takes Her Show On the Road

The German demagogue comes to Canada, discovers the real treasure was the like-minded politicians she met along the way.

Christine Anderson is, for a certain kind of person, a big deal.

Not at home, really. When she ran in 2019’s European Elections in her native Germany, she was slotted sixth on her party’s list — and it just so happened that Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD, did rather well in that race.

Prior to her election, she was an activist with the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim alliance Pegida. Since heading to Strasbourg, she has gone on transphobic tirades, crusaded against face masks during the pandemic, struck a pro-Russian tone on the war in Ukraine, and objected to the COVID-19 vaccines on the grounds it is an “experimental drug.”

Anderson’s reputation inside Germany is toxic, even for an AfD politician.

She has literally said that vaccines are “the biggest crime ever committed on humanity.” That is a bold statement from a German far-right politician.

But, overall, Anderson was a marginal figure. Over her first three years in the European Parliament, she garnered just a few dozen news stories: Mostly negative.

And then the Freedom Convoy happened.

In early February, 2022, Anderson recorded a video extolling the virtues of the anti-vaccine trucker movement, cheering them on from Europe. It went mega-viral in the pro-convoy channels. I would go so far as to say that there was not a single ardent supporter of the movement that did not, at some point, see it. She followed that up with a message on the floor of the EU Parliament, calling on her kinfolk world-wide to “stand up to your governments.”

A month later, after the convoy turned around and went home, Anderson pounced on an opportunity: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was addressing the EU Parliament. Along with her rump of particularly anti-vaccine far-right MEPs, she castigated Trudeau for, well, everything.

Anderson said Trudeau should not have been invited to Strasbourg at all — but, if it was to happen, he should have been made to answer for his “violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.”

It’s impossible to count how many times those clips were watched, but we’re talking tens of millions of times.

Behind the scenes, Anderson was forging relationships with many of the Canadian and American anti-vaccine activists that had gotten a taste of organizing in the convoy. In recent months, plans came together to have Anderson fly over to Canada and re-create the convoy: Touring cities across the country to hone her paranoid populist stump speech.

So, this week, on a very special episode of Bug-eyed and Shameless, we’re going to tune in to the Christine Anderson roadshow.

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The Tour

Launching a pan-Canadian tour, at least a good one, ain’t easy for a European. Ask any hotel front desk clerk in a tourist town and they’ll regale you with stories of Germans showing up in Ottawa, and asking how many hours it will take to drive to the Rockies.

Luckily for Anderson, she had a heap of help.

Sponsors and supporters for her speaking engagements include convoy mainstays Taking Back Our Freedoms and Veterans4Freedom; and smaller groups like the anti-vaccine, pro-Russian Fondation Pour la Défense des Droits et des Libertés du Peuple. Catchy name.

You’ve also got Canadians For Truth, set up by Joseph Bourgault, Jamie Salé, and Theo Fleury — arguably three of the craziest anti-vaccine influencers on the market right now. Bourgault thinks COVID-19 is a bioweapon, Salé recently endorsed mass executions for public officials, and Fleury, well, having an entire "political opinions and conspiracy theories" section on your Wikipedia page is never a good sign.

Arguably the most interesting sponsor is Children’s Health Defense Network’s Canadian arm. I’ve been working on something longer about the organization’s reach, so you’ll have to stay tuned for the full rundown, but the short version: A lesser Kennedy’s big-money anti-vaccine crusade.

Those sponsors kicked in, on the low end, $1,000 and, at the other, $20,000. Tickets for her dinner and cocktail events generally went from $200 to $350.

She pulled out some big-name guests, like Conservative MPs Leslyn Lewis, Colin Carrie, and Dean Allison, pictured here having a cosy lunch with Anderson on Wednesday.

She also brought out People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier and members of the far-right Diagolon wannabe militia.

The speech

So what did Anderson want to come to Canada to talk about so desperately?

The events were explicitly branded as a pro-convoy event — with organizers Chris Barber and Tamara Lich even appearing in short, pre-recorded messages in Oshawa. (Barber also joined Anderson for lunch.) It featured a slew of nurses and doctors who had their licenses suspended for various, legitimate, reasons, extolling the virtues of ivermectin and the horrors of masks. In Calgary, a far-right pastor introduced Anderson as being a defender against the “domestic political terrorist” Trudeau.

But the keynote was, obviously, Anderson herself. So, below, here are some choice takeaways from her various speaking engagements in Oshawa and Calgary.

On refugees:

We're seeing a deconstruction of our society. In Europe, it's pretty bad right now. We are importing millions and millions and millions of young men. They search for a better life — I understand that. I don't blame these people. I would do the same thing, if I were them. I would. But my government has to make sure that they serve the German people’s interests first.

This got a pretty raucous applause and some laud “amen!”s. That little bit of stage empathy Anderson gave quickly evaporated as she went on.

We were told these young, bright, men were all rocket scientists, of course. They came, most of the time, unable to read, write, or do simple math. So how are they going to pay my pension? I don't see it. I really don't. And when Angela Merkel, our former chancellor back then, was called out — that she would just import millions and millions of people — she said: ‘Well, if I'm not allowed to have a friendly face at my border anymore, then this is no longer my country.’ That is what she said. And I said: You know what? You're right. This is not your country. This is the country of the German people that you are supposed to protect.

On transgender people:

‘Gender-affirming care’ is a euphemism. It's really bodily and genital mutilation. That what it is. How sick must society be, if you operate, mutilate, perfectly healthy children. How sick must a society be? [jeers from the audience] It is an attack, you’re absolutely right. Like I said, they're stealing the very core of our identity, of who we are.

Remember: This isn’t about protecting children. They hate trans people.

On red pilling the masses

First of all, I’m going to give you some advice: Do not, do not try to get people to a point where they haven't arrived yet. So all of the information that you all have, that I have, that we all have — if we just slammed people with that information, they're completely blown away, they will turn around, and they will just declare: ‘They’re nutcases.’ […] So instead of just slamming them with information, just ask questions. Just let them let them themselves come to their conclusion. So for instance, you could say: ‘Oh, they did promise that COVID vaccine were going to prevent infection. Well it didn’t. Well, why would they force it on people, if it didn't even do that?’ And just leave it at that. Change topics to something else. Chances are that this person, once they've thought about it, will actually approach you again to continue talking about that. And when that happens: ‘Okay, I got this person, he is beginning to wake up.’ But we need to let the people come to their own conclusions. Do not slam hem with information. That will actually do harm. So that would be my advice, very slowly. And do not ever think that people have the information that you already have, they probably don't.

It’s pretty telling advice: Hide your true intentions, string people along.

On climate change:

Then we’ve got this whole climate madness going on. You know, these 15 minutes cities. It's not for your convenience. Trust me. It's not. It's not about saving the planet, either. It's not about that. You know what they need these 15 minutes cities for? [“Control,” the audience yells.] Yes, to lock you down. That is exactly what they want to do. They don't want you to travel anymore. You are not supposed to travel. You are supposed to go to work. You are supposed to do all that what the globitarian elite needs. So they will have a nice comfortable life. And that is why they did this 15 minute neighborhoods. Great Britain, one council, has already passed legislation that would enable them to call climate lockdowns. [False] That’s what this is all about. And they couldn't do this if they didn't have 15 minute neighborhoods.

I’m writing about the paranoia around 15 minute neighborhoods for a special dispatch that should land in your inboxes this weekend, but you can also go back to dispatch #18 to learn about the origins of this “climate lockdown” fantasy.

Suffice it to say, this is absurd paranoia ratcheted up to 10. Listen to her crank it up to 11:

They're depriving us of our food, our energy. In short, they want to impoverish us all, they want to enslave all of us. And once they've succeeded, stealing from us of everything that makes us to be who we are — our identity, all of this — once they’ve succeeded in doing that, you will be part of a malleable mass that gets shuffled any which way the globalitarian elite needs it to be. So please, brace yourselves. It is coming. I'm not making this up.

She’s not making it up. She has proof. There is a building in Saudia Arabia, you see…

We're seeing the evidence for all of this all over the world. Just one example: Saudi Arabia, building a new city: The Line, as they call it. Perfect. It's supposed to house nine million people in the middle of the desert, with nowhere to run. Isn't that perfect? And you're supposed to subscribe to a three-meal-a-day subscription. They feed you — well, as long as you do what they tell you to do. And as long as you do not ask stupid questions, critical questions. And you know, calling out Trudeau for this: You will not get anything anymore, and you have nowhere to go. And if I don't want it to control nine million people, to totally control them. Yeah, that's exactly where and how I would house them, just like that. And that's in the plans.

But Christine, you may say: You sound like you’ve become totally unglued from reality, assuming that the Canadian prime minister is actually involved in a theocratic absolute monarchy’s kooky architecture plans. Well she has an answer ready to go:

Now there are people are saying: ‘Nah, they’re not gonna do this, and they won't do it.’ How do they get you to do what they want? How do they get all of you to just submit and comply? Well, fear. [The crowd is getting worked up with cries of “conditioning!” and “control!”] They instill fear, yes. Little kids are conditioned to wear a mask, to get vaccinated. Otherwise, you may be the one at fault for having killed your parent or your grandparents.

This is where things go even further off the rails. She, unprompted, begins to recite a poem that far-right German politicians should not be reciting.

When they came for the Social Democrats, I didn't stand up, I wasn’t a Social Democrat. When they came for the union members, I didn't stand up. I wasn't a union member. Then they came for the Jews. I understand up, I wasn’t a Jew. And when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up. That's how they do it, little by little. And that's how totalitarian regimes work, ladies and gentlemen.

No.

On vaccines:

We've seen it through COVID. It was a pandemic of fundamental rights violation, but it was not a viral pandemic. I'm terribly sorry. Well, when you see that, these mRNA injections, they didn't provide protection from infection transmission, or even severe course, and not even hospitalization. [False] The only thing these mRNA injections actually protected you from was governmental oppression. They protected you from ostracism. It protected you from social ridicule. They protected you, but they also did great harm. And we have vaccine injured people here this morning.

On democracy (more Nazi stuff):

Keep in mind a democracy is a nuisance. Citizens with fundamental rights? Oh, gosh, pain in the ass. Seriously. So they need to get rid of that. But they cannot tell you: ‘Well, we need to infringe on your rights because it's bothering us.’ They can't tell you this, because they have to keep up the illusion of democracy. If they started out by rounding people up and transporting them off to some camp, or whatever, all hell would break loose. No, they do it one step at a time. Today: ‘Well, guess what? You need an mRNA injection. And next week, guess what? You may not say this anymore. And by the way, Twitter — we’re going to go through all of your posts and we'll just delete whatever we do not want you to be able to say anymore.’ That's what they're doing. So it's little steps. And totalitarianism mechanisms are always the same. Gosh, learn to see those signs. Hit the history books, for God's sakes, it's always the same. What happened in Nazi Germany, when the people were actually transported off? That was the end game. And by that time, it was practically nothing you could do anymore. At least not without running the risk of being taken there yourself. So need to see the signs and start doing something now. That's what we need to do.

See previous note, re: No.

While she was in the country, Anderson also recorded a video in support of the “National Citizen’s Inquiry,” yet another anti-vaccine movement that explicitly promises “to consider the issue of civic and criminal liability for any damages or harms caused by governments’ response to COVID-19.” (I’ll be writing more about the attempt to prosecute the pro-vaccine war criminals in the future.)

She actually addressed some of that during her talk:

The worst part about this is: For what? Why? Why did these people have to be put through that? Why? For profit. They didn't have the data to back up that it was safe and efficient. They did not. They falsified these studies. They unblinded the studies. They were talking about relative efficacy rather than the absolute efficacy, then manipulate it. So pharmaceutical companies could make billions and billions and billions of dollars. And if governments were right in a bed with them, they all need to get voted out of office and put in front of a court and held accountable.

At this point, the crowd goes wild. On the recording I’m listening to, a man is screaming “nooses! NOOSES!”

The fallout

While it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the usual suspects of the North American anti-vaccine movement are cheerleading for Anderson, what really gets my goat is the reaction from the ostensibly mainstream politicians who came out to liaise with her.

I am a pretty big opponent of the idea that elected politicians need to exist inside certain boundaries — like there needs to be an ideological litmus test for all elected representatives, where failing the test means sitting in the corner in silence. I genuinely dislike that standard, and there’s little doubting the media and political machines’ role in creating it. I think weirdos and loons should come out in the open to tell us how weird and looney they are: Sometimes, they just might make some valid points. Other times, it makes it a lot easier to vote them out of office. But at least we’ll know where they stand.

Parliaments all around the world have kooky nutjobs and outright fascists. Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert round out Congress’ right-wing flank, far-right parties across Europe range from tiny rumps to the official opposition, coalition partners, and even government. Indeed, Anderson is a marginal figure even within her marginal (though growing) party. I think it will take years of study to really understand what fosters these movements: Are they better ignored? Covered aggressively? Does having seats in their respective legislatures moderate them, or entrench their extreme views? Does electoral success breed more, or do rising fortunes mean rising scrutiny? Do they provoke legitimate action on under-appreciated matters of public importance?

The one thing I can say we should come out four-square against is the gaslighting.

“They absolutely knew what they were going to,” is how one Conservative responded to the idea the three Canadian MPs — Lewis, Carrie, and Allison — had no idea about Anderson’s extremist views.

After the photo of their glad-handing with Anderson popped up on social media, called out by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre quickly fired out a statement:

Christine Anderson's views are vile and have no place in our politics. The MPs were not aware of this visiting Member of the European Parliament's pinions, and they regret meeting with her.

The three MPs followed up with a statement of their own:

It is of course not uncommon for Members of Parliament to meet with visiting elected officials from other countries. During a visit, we recently met with an elected representative of the European Parliament while she was in Canada. We were not aware of the views or associations of her and her political party. We do not share or endorse her views and strongly condemn any views that are racist or hateful.

The headline on all of the news coverage right now is some iteration of the Conservative Party “denouncing” Anderson, or distancing themselves from her.

Bull. Shit.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand in politics, is disingenuousness. If you believe something, say it. Do not treat the public as idiots to be tricked and prodded into supporting you. Don’t play dumb.

They are feigning ignorance because they got caught.

I’ve reached out to all three MPs, and to their party, to enquire about whether they attended Anderson’s speaking engagement, or whether they just had a cozy lunch with the conspiracy theorist. I haven’t heard back.

But let’s talk about where these MPs agree with Anderson.

Lewis, for one, has been such an ardent critic of the World Health Organization and the spectre of “digital ID” that right-wing outlet The Western Standard went to the trouble of photoshopping Lewis and Anderson together to celebrate their tilting at windmills.

I bumped into Lewis multiple times at the freedom convoy, where she seemed pretty at ease in a sea of people denouncing the “experimental jab.”

Carrie is no stranger to this nonsense. He has demanded an accounting of all cabinet ministers’ ties to the World Economic Forum and Klaus Schwab. He also rose in the House of Commons last March to celebrate Christine Anderson’s takedown of Trudeau.

Who would have thought? A Canadian Prime Minister last week was admonished and condemned in Brussels at the European Parliament for headlines around the world? The PM was called out for engaging in a dictatorship of the worst kind by EU parliamentarians, who warned us about the path of our country and how the Prime Minister handled the truckers in the Emergencies Act.

[…]

We need to make sure the government does not become the government that the European Union parliamentarians warned us of. We need to hold it to account.

It’s pretty rich to claim you had no idea who the woman was when you venerated her in the House of Commons.

Allison and Carrie are also big fans, it seems, of the “Citizen’s Inquiry” that Anderson was hawking. Both appeared at one day of their hearings last summer.

Here’s Carrie:

Anybody who speaks out — and Dean and I are very cognizant of this, and I'm sure our other speakers are as well — you get cancelled every time you make a statement that they don't like, that's not part of the agenda. You know, just an example: When I tried to make a question on the World Economic Forum, which there are some legitimate issues to be spoken about, it was basically shut down. So I don't want to take too much time here, but I think the things that we're losing is our democracy, our trust in our institutions. We're seeing separation of families, demonization of individuals for no good scientific reason. This is bullying that we're seeing[…]bullying people by colleges of physicians and surgeons, actually taking away people's licenses because they're looking at the best interests of their of their patients. This is absurd. And we do need to be able to come up with ways to hold people to account. And I'm hopeful that what you started with the citizens hearing, perhaps we could expand this and move it forward.

Carrie went on to say that governments sent out “misleading information in order to get people to take a vaccine or follow an agenda.” And he went into what he believed the consequences should be for that:

I think we should be looking at due diligence and negligence, perhaps even criminal negligence, among some officials that did not perform their due diligence and instead were using talking points instead of performing the duties that the public expects of them. In other words, the health and safety of Canadians. Health Canada, the public health agencies of Canada and throughout the provinces, the colleges of physicians and surgeons, have a duty to protect Canadians. And in my viewpoint, they didn't do that very well. They didn't do their due diligence. And I think there needs to be some accountability.

That’s a sitting Member of Parliament calling for criminal investigations into public health officials over their handling of the pandemic. That is not a difference of opinion, that is calling for retribution.

Allison chimed in with agreement, and offered some general takes about how public official should be at the table, “they shouldn’t be in charge of the table.”

Later, Carrie gets into even more madness:

I'm a skeptical guy — and gets me into trouble, all kinds of things — but I always ask questions. I don't believe the government. And, coming from my background, I'm a chiropractor. I was also parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Health for five years, which is the longest serving parliamentary secretary for health. I was there in 2009 when the WHO changed the definition of pandemic so that it was no longer going to be serious disease — I forget exactly what the the comment was, but I think it was they took out with enormous numbers of deaths and illnesses. [wildly inaccurate] They changed those definitions, which allowed pandemics to be more readily called. This past summer, when the W.H.O. changed the definition of, I think, herd immunity, [background] the CDC changed the definition of vaccines [background]: There was no media, there was no parliamentarians bringing that up except a few of us on this panel questioning, questioning, questioning. So I do believe that most elected representatives do want to help their constituents, but they believe the media, they believe the agenda, they believe what's being put out. And most of them want to hope that this is over. They don't want to believe. They don't want to turn over the stone and see what's underneath the stone. That could be the problem that they're avoiding. So those of us who see the problems, I think it's the onus is on us to point them out and try to improve it so that next time we know we never go through this again.

And Allison rounded out the panel with a rousing appeal to ivermectin — which, say it with me, has been demonstrably and absolutely proven to not work in treating COVID-19, and has been the subject of a rigorous and science-based debate.

I got 40 [MPs’] offices out to hear Pierre Kory talk about ivermectin, the science, etc., etc.. The leadership at the time was not happy with me having that meeting, but 40 MPs, or their offices, showed up. So that shows you there's an interest. And yet, I continue to talk about ivermectin as an option — it should be made available, blah, blah, blah. But I've been ridiculed nationally, locally. I mean, the Toronto Star has done hit jobs. It goes on and on. Most MPs don't want that. No politician wants to have the mob come down. And that's exactly what happened.

So here’s the thing: You can’t simultaneously claim that the woke mob is out to get you, cancel you, destroy you, and censor you when you’re not willing to stand up and defend what you believe in an open forum.

Dean Allison, Collin Carrie, and Leslyn Lewis absolutely know what Christine Anderson was all about when they met her for lunch. How do I know that? Because they believe the same things.

It is insulting to all of our intelligence to be told that they just wandered in off the street to meet some foreign dignitary. I highly doubt the trio would be tripping over themselves to have lunch with one of the MEP from the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.

If they genuinely believe that Ivermectin is the best cure for COVID-19, and that the vaccines are dangerous, and that our democracy is being strangled by this government: Say so.

But they don’t speak up publicly, do they? They say these things when they believe only their ideological kinfolk are listening. When they are called out publicly, they hide behind carefully-worded statements and refuse to have a discussion about it. They’re not worried about being torn apart by the mob: They’re afraid of being corrected. They’re afraid of debate, the very thing they keep castigating us for not having.

Dean Allison, Leslyn Lewis, Collin Carrie: Nobody is silencing you but you.

Call me anytime, I’m happy to chat.