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A prominent member of the People’s Party of Canada says Mark Friesen, a party organizer in Saskatoon who has organized rallies against pandemic measures, has been hospitalized with COVID-19.
Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson was a party candidate in Alberta during the 2019 federal election and former host of The 700 Club Canada, an evangelical television program.
Tyler Thompson now hosts an online video program called “The Last Days” and in an episode posted on Friday, revealed Friesen’s apparent diagnosis.
“Many of you know, Mark got COVID. He is actually intubated at this time,” Tyler Thompson says within the first minute of the video.
Over the course of the pandemic, Friesen has organized rallies protesting public health orders aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19. He has also organized opposition to the use of vaccine mandates.
On the night of the federal election, the PPC held its campaign gathering at a hotel in Saskatoon, where those in attendance flouted the province’s public health order requiring masking indoors.
Unconfirmed reports that Friesen had been diagnosed with COVID-19 have been circulating on social media for weeks. In that time, 980 CJME and 650 CKOM have been contacting Friesen and his family for comment but never received a response.
The province’s health care system has buckled under the weight of the pandemic’s fourth wave, driven by the Delta variant’s sweep through Saskatchewan’s unvaccinated population. As case counts have soared, intensive care units have been overwhelmed to the point that patients are now being sent to Ontario.
Tyler Thompson claims that Friesen was among those patients.
“We pray that this is the place where Mark Friesen is going to get the hand of God powerfully moving in his situation,” she says.
The episode saw Tyler Thompson interview Sean Taylor, another PPC candidate, who ran in British Columbia.
Taylor claimed to be with Friesen, and appeared wearing a mask, plastic face shield and a gown. Friesen did not appear during the video.
Despite Friesen’s apparent condition, neither Taylor nor Tyler Thompson seemed to express much alarm about COVID’s deadly consequences.
Tyler Thompson asked Taylor to weigh in on the level of concern regarding COVID he was seeing in Toronto, a “science-fi horror show” as she described it.
Taylor seemed to respond in derision.
“The mind virus out here. Like, everyone’s masked and face shields and eye shields and it’s just. They’re pretty intense about this stuff out here,” he says.
Meanwhile, in a Facebook group called Saskatchewan Freedom Revolution, which has been a hotbed for pandemic-related conspiracy theories, administrators posted a video asking members for their thoughts, and their donations.
The 13-minute video was hosted by Tamara Lavoie, a known organizer against COVID measures in Regina, and Jody Craven, another PPC candidate in British Columbia. Neither used the word “COVID” to describe Friesen’s condition, instead saying he was hospitalized and transferred because of “pneumonia.”
“Send your prayers. Send some donations. Send your thoughts. Send your wishes. Everything. Anything you guys can think of right, to help out Mark and his family right now,” Craven said.
Just like in Tyler Thompson’s video, Friesen was spoken about in lionized terms, with Lavoie commending him for his relentless organizing.
“Almost two years, three years if you want to count his trips to Ottawa with Yellow Vests before this even started, right? So he’s driven all over this country and would do it again.”