r/OttawaNewsPulse

A friend of mine who is more politically involved told me that they some evidence of some really disturbing remarks from Alex Lawson.

My curiosity got the better of me and I looked into it a bit. What I found is attached to the post.

Basically, just a few days before the Convoy arrived in Ottawa, Lawson was sharing anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories and asking his Facebook friends “what are we going to do about it?”. By “it” I think he meant vaccine mandates. A friend of his said that they needed to start prepping and “have a revolution”. They shared a poster advertising the convoy. Lawson liked that comment and picture and said “it’s a start.”

To be clear: a revolution is “a start” for Lawson. He was saying this while convoy extremists were planning to descend on our city to overthrow the government. If a revolution is “a start” one wonders what he would want to do next, or what he’d do if he somehow became Mayor.

I can’t be the only one who sees how insane this is. This isn’t garden variety Poilievre slop… it’s the kind of batshit that Pat King and the some of the other most extreme convoy types were peddling. It’s straight up dangerous.

Also, this is just what I could see on Lawson’s Facebook through a quick public search. Imagine what’s there that he deleted or that we can’t see unless we’re friends with him. I bet this is the tip of the iceberg.

I was so shocked reading it that I had to post about it. I had to. The public deserves to know who this guy is. The only thing he should be a “candidate” for is a no-fly list. I couldn’t keep this info to myself.

I see this as an opportunity for Jeff Leiper. He could call for Lawson to withdraw from the race. That would make him look like the leader we know he is and shut down this convoy clown while looking like he’s confident that he can win regardless of Lawson. Jeff is the one candidate who can credibly talk about how he fights against hateful people like Lawson. If Jeff leads the charge to get Lawson to end his campaign for mayor and it works, he’ll look like a hero to all the centrist and progressive people in Ottawa who want to see real leadership at City Hall. 

Ultimately though, I’m sharing this because it’s more important than mayoral politics. It’s about saving our city, closing a back door that could let the convoy types back in. 

I’m thinking about writing my (kinda right-wing) Councillor to get them on the record on this. We need to make sure council stands firm against any kind of convoy sympathizers. If there’s enough interest, I’d be open to protesting his campaign launch next weekend so that people know who this guy is and what he’s about. I don’t know anyone in media but hopefully a journalist sees this. If anyone has any other ideas about how to get the message out or put the pressure on, I think it’s really important that we do what we can to shut this guy down.

EDIT: I got some feedback about how I described my involvement with the Leiper campaign. I should have said that I’m a supporter, not a “Team Member”. Ive edited a bit of the narrative to try to make that clearer.

EDIT 2: I’ve made further changes to the post to focus it on what matters: Lawson’s disgusting comments. I’ve removed reference to where I first heard about these details - lots of people pointed out, in good faith I think, that the background info wasn’t helpful. Thanks for that feedback.