From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

‘I’ve had three shots of the vaccine. I wish I hadn’t, quite frankly,’ B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad said in a recently resurfaced video.

Footage of British Columbia Conservative leader and premier hopeful John Rustad shows him saying he regrets taking the experimental COVID-19 vaccines and thinks government mandates were aimed at controlling the population. 

In an interview, recorded in June but publicized September 23 by Rustad’s political rival, the New Democratic Party (NDP), in a seeming attempt to smear him, the B.C. Conservative leader explained that he regrets taking the COVID vaccines and that mandates instituted in the province at the time weren’t about health, but control.

“I’ve had three shots of the vaccine. I wish I hadn’t, quite frankly,” Rustad said.  

“That’s one of the things that has changed in my thinking. The so-called vaccine, the COVID mRNA shots,” he said, recalling a conversation with B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry. 

Rustad said the conversation with Henry left him feeling that something wasn’t “quite right.” 

“When I talked to Bonnie Henry about it, I started to realize that it wasn’t so much about trying to get herd immunity or trying to stop the spread, but it was more around shaping opinion and control on the population,” Rustad said.  

In July of this year, John Rustad met with an anti-vax group that is suing Dr. Bonnie Henry.

He said he regrets getting “the so-called vaccine” and accuses Dr. Henry of using it for “control on the population.” pic.twitter.com/m2h3IHAyK0

— BC NDP (@bcndp) September 23, 2024

Henry became infamous in B.C. thanks to her vaccine policy which prevented unvaccinated health care workers from working for nearly three years.  

Finally, in July of this year, Henry announced that the province is no longer in a public health emergency and is revoking all COVID regulations, including the vaccine mandate. 

The decision came as a surprise after Henry had seemed determined to keep British Columbia’s vaccine mandate regardless of the hundreds of health care workers who had been unable to work since 2021 despite the ongoing worker shortage in the sector.  

In May, Henry’s mandate was challenged in court. The judge ruled that healthcare workers can still be mandated to receive the experimental COVID injections as a condition of employment, but decided that those working remotely are no longer bound by the unscientific rule.   

Hundreds of British Columbia healthcare workers are still suing Henry over the mandate which prevented them from working.   

While Rustad’s comments condemning Henry were made during a July 23 interview with the B.C. Public Service Employees for Freedom which opposes vaccine mandates, the resurfacing of the footage by the NDP ahead of the provincial election this fall seems to suggest the far-left party assumed Rustad’s comments would paint him in a bad light.

However, the video seems to have had the opposite effect, as many online pointed to the video as a reason to vote for Rustad.  

” Y’all don’t realize this will help Rustad’s campaign lol,” pro-freedom nurse Amy Hamm commented.  

“This isn’t the win you think it is,” another wrote. “Lots of people regret getting the #Covid_19 ‘vaccines.’ They prevented neither infection nor transmission and your ‘vaccine’ did not ‘keep others safe’ no matter how much you want to believe it.”