Former Ontario MPP Rick Nicholls in Markham, Ont., on April 16, 2024. (The Epoch Times)
Rick Nicholls, now a former MPP who had represented the residents of his southern Ontario riding for more than a deade, was considered a shoo-in for re-election in 2022. But that all changed when a personal decision led to the governing Progressive Conservatives ejecting him from caucus in August 2021.
Mr. Nicholls had decided against being vaccinated for COVID-19 after reading reports out of the UK about vaccine injuries and deaths. He had become skeptical about the efficacy of COVID vaccines, which, like many countries, Canada began rolling out in December 2020.
“I called it the jab, or the shot,” he told The Epoch Times in an interview. A vaccine shouldn’t require multiple boosters to be effective, he added. “That’s not a vaccine.”
Mr. Nicholls, a former deputy speaker of the Ontario legislative assembly, says he has “no regrets” over refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19, especially now that more reports have come out about adverse events caused by the vaccines.
“I’ve talked to some people who said, Rick, I was against what you did, but you did the right thing,” he said.
He said people have valid concerns about the safety of the vaccines after seeing studies linking the vaccines to an increase in cancer mortality and myocarditis. The COVID-19 shots have also been linked to Bell’s palsy, Guillain-Barré syndrome , and hearing loss and tinnitus, among others.
Health Canada says COVID vaccines are safe.
“All vaccines approved in Canada are proven safe, effective and of high quality,” the department says on its webpage on “Reported side effects following COVID-19 vaccination in Canada.”
Proper protocols have been followed in vaccine approval, it says, and the department is actively monitoring vaccine safety. It maintains that any risks are outweighed by the benefits of the vaccines.
Mr. Nicholls says mandating the COVID-19 shots without long-term data should have never happened, adding that there is a lot of blame to go around for some of the decisions made, both in government and in the media.
“I blame the legacy media for not printing the truth,” he said.
Booted From PC Party
Mr. Nicholls says he “cautiously” accepted the government’s position early on in the pandemic when little information was known about the virus and the vaccines until he read reports form the UK in 2021 that started giving him doubts.
However, his personal hesitancy about the vaccine wasn’t an issue in his party until August 2021, when he received a phone call from Premier Doug Ford to discuss his vaccination status.
“His words were, ‘I need you to do me a favour. … I need you to get vaccinated,’” Mr. Nicholls said.
The request came after Mr. Ford told the media in August 2021 that all PC MPPs would be vaccinated. Mr. Nicholls says he believes the premier was “following suit” because the NDP and Liberal parties claimed all of their members were vaccinated after being questioned by the media.
Mr. Nicholls said media calls for vaccination were not a good enough reason for him to consider getting the shots, and he explained that hesitancy to Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford asked him to think about it, he said, but it wasn’t long before party pressure ensued. He received several phone calls from fellow party members as well as one from the PC’s campaign manager in an attempt to sway his decision.
“He said to me, Rick, you’ve got 72 hours. You either get vaccinated or I’m removing you from caucus.”
The party pressure ultimately wasn’t enough to influence Mr. Nicholls, and on Aug. 19, 2021, he told reporters he would not be rolling up his sleeve.
“I took the premier at his word that vaccination is a choice and that all Ontarians have a constitutional right to make such a choice,” he said at a press conference at the time. He said no Ontarian should “be forced or coerced to do something against their will.”
In a statement later that day, Mr. Ford said the Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP had “failed to provide a legitimate reason for exemption from vaccination” and, as a result, would no longer be “a sitting member of the PC caucus.” The statement added that Mr. Nicholls would also not be able to seek re-election as a PC candidate.
While he knew his decision likely meant an end to his political career, Mr. Nicholls said he felt his own health and the needs of his family had to come first.
“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 decided to sit as an Independent, which meant he no longer had to toe the party line and was free to speak out on any topic he wished.
“I [had the] opportunity to ask questions of the minister of health, Premier Doug Ford, and even the solicitor general, questions pertaining to COVID and the vaccine and information that I’m getting that they were denying,” he said.
“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.”
‘I Wanted to Fight for Her Future’
Mr. Nicholls joined the Ontario Party in December 2021, becoming its first and only member in the legislature until finally losing his seat in the 2022 election.
Initially, he had no plans to run, but he says that changed when his granddaughter celebrated her first birthday.
“I’d been mulling it over, and I made the announcement in 2022 that I was going to run in the next provincial election, because I wanted to fight for her future,” said the father of three and grandfather of six.
He said his wife, Dianne, supported his run for a fourth term even though “we knew that I wasn’t going to win.”
Mr. Nicholls, now 72, is currently involved in lobbying, although “not in the health field,” he joked. His interest in politics hasn’t waned and he said it could yet be part of his future.
“Maybe at some point in time, if the timing is right, I might get back involved at the municipal level where I feel I can do more good,” he said.
Jennifer Cowan is a writer and editor with the Canadian edition of The Epoch Times.