Brandon-Souris’s People’s Party of Canada candidate is warning the riding’s other candidates not to take him lightly because of his age.
The same weekend the election was called, 22-year-old Tylor Baer was acclaimed as his party’s candidate.
Twenty-two-year-old Tylor Baer will carry the People’s Party of Canada’s flag for Brandon-Souris in next month’s federal election. (Submitted)
"After looking at the platform and comparing it to what the (Conservatives) were offering, I felt like it was the right direction for me to go," he said of choosing to run for the PPC.
"The number one message I’m getting from people about the (Conservative) party right now is they’re wishy-washy. They flip-flop. I don’t think it’s done on purpose or out of any sort of ill intent. I think that the party is trying too broadly to appeal to everybody and in trying to appease everybody, they’re appeasing nobody."
Originally from Edmonton, Baer lived in Portage la Prairie for the last few years before moving to Brandon at the beginning of 2021.
With his addition to the race, there are now three competitors in Brandon-Souris. Larry Maguire is running to return to Ottawa with the Conservative Party of Canada and Whitney Hodgins for the NDP.
Speaking to the Sun on Sunday afternoon, Baer said he chose a foray into politics over returning to his DJ business because he felt he could make a difference and fight for Canadians’ personal freedoms.
Those freedoms, he believes, are being severely tested during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Like his party’s leader, Maxime Bernier, Baer came out strongly against vaccine mandates and vaccine passports of any kind in the interview.
He said people on the left like to advocate for women making choices about their bodies when it comes to the "a-word" — avoiding saying the word abortion — but those people are strangely silent when it comes to the issue of making vaccinations mandatory. However, his views on the vaccination issue go farther than that.
"This is probably a controversial statement, but I am prepared to say it: when it comes to the point of mandating vaccinations or mandating any other medical procedure by the government, I would consider that ... not just a war crime, but if you’re a government body committing a war crime against its own people, to me that is grounds for treason."
The reason for this, according to him, is because vaccine mandates violate the Nuremberg Code — a set of rules for human medical experiments proposed during the trials of Nazi war criminals involved with unethical experimentation after the Second World War. The rules in the code address research subjects being able to give informed consent when participating in experiments.
Although the vaccines have been approved for emergency use in several countries including Canada because of the seriousness of the pandemic, the makers of these vaccines had to submit them for clinical trials and prove to various governments that they are safe for human use.
"In conclusion, the data provided supports favourably the efficacy of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as well as its safety," Health Canada’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine reads. "The efficacy of the vaccine was established to be approximately 95 per cent, the vaccine was well tolerated by participants and has no important safety concerns. The benefit to risk assessment for Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine is considered favourable."
Back in April, Baer responded to a pro-mask mandate meme in the People of Brandon Facebook group. At first, he referred to the meme as "reverse psychology propaganda from communist China" and then likened it to Jewish people being rounded up and murdered en masse during the Holocaust.
When asked if he still felt that way, Baer said it’s a good comparison to the current situation. He did concede at one point that vaccine mandates aren’t directly comparable to genocide.
"Rather than being separated by a race, you’re being separated by if you’re a good person or not a good person, by if you’re taking the vaccines or not taking the vaccines," he said. "I believe there is the potential that when we give up these rights and this autonomy over our own body, there is a high potential for government to abuse that."
On the subject of climate change, Baer said that thorium-powered nuclear reactors could present a clean source of energy going forward as the world attempts to wean itself off of coal and fossil fuels. Thorium is both more plentiful and less easy to weaponize than uranium and plutonium.
According to the World Nuclear Association’s website, thorium cannot be used as a nuclear fuel by itself and the technology needed to use it as a power source is still in development in China and the United States.
» cslark@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @ColinSlark
BREAKOUT BOX: Westman candidates
Here are the nominated candidates in Brandon-Souris for the upcoming federal election on Sept. 20:
• Conservative Party of Canada — Larry Maguire
• New Democratic Party — Whitney Hodgins
• People’s Party of Canada — Tylor Baer
Candidates in Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa:
• Conservative Party of Canada — Dan Mazier
• Liberal Party of Canada — Kevin Carlson
• Maverick Party — Lori Falloon-Austin
• People’s Party of Canada — Donnan McKenna
» The Brandon Sun