Group protests school pandemic measures

By Trevor Busch - Lethbridge Herald on January 26, 2022.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtbusch@lethbridgeherald.com

A small collection of protestors from a group calling itself Freedom Hub Lethbridge gathered across the street from Ecole St. Mary School on Tuesday afternoon to express their opposition to masking and other pandemic mandates in schools.
“We are standing up, specifically in front of the schools today, because we’re standing up for the kids,” said Chelle Landry, who organized the protest on behalf of Freedom Hub Lethbridge.
“We’ve heard from a lot of parents about their kids being bullied, for either taking their masks off – even just for a minute if they’re having a hard time breathing, or feeling stress from it – getting in trouble. It’s really not right to treat children like that. We have to understand that they’re kids and we can’t be bullying or pressuring them, or making them feel like bad humans just because they want to breath. Also, there’s other kids bullying kids that have exemptions and are not wearing their masks. There’s a lot of peer pressure, and it’s really damaging for the kids.”
According to Landry, Freedom Hub Lethbridge will be launching a campaign to protest government pandemic mandates in local schools.
“Today is the first day of our school blitz. We’re going to actually be hitting every school in the city.”
She said the group attempted to serve “notices of liability” to both Holy Spirit Catholic and Lethbridge school division administrations on Tuesday.
“However, they refused to receive the packages,” said Landry. “They will receive them anyway, just not in person from us, but they will be served.”
The group’s protest was largely about masking in schools, but Landry said this isn’t all they take issue with.
“Primarily, but we have an issue with all the mandates.”