Hundreds of people lined up on Columbia Street in Kamloops this afternoon to protest vaccine passports that will soon be brought in across the province.
Traffic on the street had been backed up for about two hours once the protest got underway, shortly before 1 p.m. Protestors gathered at Peterson Creek Park before marching down to Royal Inland Hospital.
Many people who NL News spoke to said they were from Kamloops, while others said they travelled from places including Vernon, Revelstoke and Lillooet. Many had signs, and the vast majority were not wearing masks. Some even brandished election signs for the local People’s Party of Canada election candidate, Corally Delwo.
A local man who has a home business did not want to give his name, but told NL News why he was there.
“Small, local businesses can’t handle the division of more people. When we have to mandate a vaccine passport, they’re going to lose revenue. When places like Walmart and Costco didn’t shut down the first time… Our local restaurants are going to lose revenue because they can’t let certain people in. We’ve been through enough in the last year, the economy’s been really hard. And we just won’t survive any longer, any more of this.”
Similar protests happened outside of hospitals in Kelowna and Vancouver but it is unclear why hospitals were chosen as the main place to protest.
There was a noticeable RCMP presence during the event. NL News observed a black Ford Mustang that was pulled over after doing a burnout in front of several people who were holding signs and cheering on the driver.
NL News also observed ambulance and fire crews respond to a medical incident at the Ahh Yay Wellness Cafe, next door to the Urgent Primary Care Centre, at RIH. BC Emergency Health Service suggest the incident was minor in nature, telling NL News the patient refused treatment.
Meanwhile, an emergency room doctor at Royal Inland Hospital is pleading for people to get the vaccine as the hospital has seen a “flood” of COVID-19 patients.
Eric Haywood-Farmer said all of the patients in hospital with the virus are unvaccinated, adding the intensive care unit is “bursting” with those patients, some of whom are healthy young adults.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in B.C. have risen by 14 per cent in just the past two days.