(LifeSiteNews) – Former Ontario MPP Rick Nicholls, who was once an elite member of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative (PC) Party before Premier Doug Ford kicked him out for refusing to take the COVID shot, says he has no “regrets” for refusing to bow to pressure to get COVID jabbed, noting he feels justified for his actions for going against the party leader’s demands.
Nicholls, who once served as the deputy speaker of the Ontario legislative assembly, noted, as per an Epoch Times report, that as increased information comes out about the COVID shots, he has talked to party people who have told him, “Rick, I was against what you did, but you did the right thing.”
Nicholls had been an MPP since 2011 but was booted from Ford’s ruling PCs in August 2021. In the same month and year, Ford mandated that all of his MPPs have the COVID jabs. At the time, Nicholls said he voiced his “concerns about our policy privately to the premier and to the Ontario PC caucus.”
He observed that from the get-go he did not call the COVID injection a “vaccine” but instead a “jab, or the shot,” noting how a vaccine should not need multiple boosters.
“That’s not a vaccine,” he said.
Nicholls also blamed the legacy media for promoting the shots at the behest of federal and provincial governments despite not having any long-term data on the effectiveness or safety of the jabs.
“I blame the legacy media for not printing the truth,” he said.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Nicholls in 2021 said people should not be “penalized for their choice” to refuse the COVID jabs, the safety of which he questioned, while having to announce he was forced to step down as deputy speaker of the Ontario Legislature. He then sat as an independent MPP for a time before joining the Ontario Party to serve as their only sitting member until the 2022 election.
Draconian COVID mandates, including those surrounding the experimental mRNA vaccines, were imposed by the provincial Ford government as well as the federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In April 2021, the Ontario provincial government once again increased its COVID measures and declared a state of emergency over rising cases of the virus. It then put in place a complete ban on all outdoor gatherings that, in effect, made peaceful protests illegal in the province.
LifeSiteNews has published an extensive amount of research on the dangers of receiving the experimental COVID mRNA jabs, which include heart damage and blood clots.
Last week, LifeSiteNews reported that the shots were heavily promoted on social media by the federal government. Indeed, a recent Inquiry of Ministry request revealed that Canada’s Public Health Agency (PHAC) along with Health Canada have combined to spend approximately $9.9 million on social media advertising to promote the experimental COVID injections since 2020.
Ford asked former MPP to do him a ‘favor’ by getting the shot
Nicholls observed as per The Epoch Times that while he had early in the COVID crisis, albeit with caution, gone along with Ford’s government position regarding COVID mandates and lockdowns, it was not until August 2021 that Ford demanded he either get the jab or he would get the boot.
Ford called Nicholls and said, “I need you to do me a favor,” adding “I need you to get vaccinated.’”
The request from Ford came after he told media that he would make it so that all his caucus members had the shot. Nicholls told Ford that media pressure to get the shots was not a good reason for him to bow to pressure and get injected.
After being told to think about getting the shots by Ford, Nicholls noted that he got many calls from party insiders and other MPPs urging him to get the jabs.
In one direct call to Nicholls from the PC’s campaign manager, he was told, “Rick, you’ve got 72 hours. You either get vaccinated or I’m removing you from caucus.”
Despite the pressure, Nicholls did not waver, and on August 19, 2021, he told the media he would not be getting the shot. He noted how he had taken Ford’s “word” that “vaccination is a choice and that all Ontarians have a constitutional right to make such a choice” to the media at the time.
“I stand strong in my personal choice not to be vaccinated, which ultimately led to (my) decision to step down. I oppose mandatory vaccines. I believe in personal choice when it comes to having a foreign substance injected and that an individual should not be punished for CHOICE,” he told reporters.
Nicholls said he received notification that he was being removed as deputy speaker not from Ford but through media reports.
“I want to thank the media for letting me know that the government has actually already selected a replacement for me. Yes, that’s correct. The government didn’t let me know,” Nicholls said.
Nicholls noted, according to The Epoch Times, that had he gotten the COVID shot there was an exceptionally good chance he would have been re-elected in 2022.
“I knew that had I stayed and got the shot — and survived the shot I might add — I knew that I had an excellent chance of being re-elected again (to a) fourth term,” he said.
While sitting as an independent, he was able to ask challenging questions to the minister of health and Ford himself regarding the COVID shots “and the vaccine and information that I’m getting that they were denying.”
“And if I had a dollar for every time that former Minister of Health Christine Elliot said these vaccines are safe and effective, I’d be a rich guy,” he said.
COVID vaccine mandates, which came from provincial governments with the support of Trudeau’s federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots themselves have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children.
The jabs also have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result of this, many Catholics and other Christians refused to take them.
As reported by LifeSiteNews recently, the Trudeau government is still under contract to purchase multiple shipments of COVID shots while at the same time throwing away $1.5 billion worth of expired shots.
The continued purchase of COVID jabs comes despite the fact the government’s own data shows that most Canadians are flat-out refusing a COVID booster injection. It also comes as the government has had to increase spending on Canada’s Vaccine Injury Program (VISP), as reported by LifeSiteNews last week.
Canadians’ decision to refuse the shots also comes as a Statistic Canada report revealed that deaths from COVID-19 and “unspecified causes” rose after the release of the so-called “safe and effective” jabs.