PPC leader Maxime Bernier backs Vancouver restaurant that flouted COVID restrictions

Photo: Twitter/Maxime Bernier

The founder and leader of the People's Party of Canada has endorsed a controversial Vancouver restaurant condemned by B.C. health officials for flouting pandemic restrictions.

Maxime Bernier posted photos and video from inside Corduroy restaurant in Kitsilano on Tuesday, where he celebrated “courageous” restaurant owner Rebecca Matthews. In April, Matthews opened the restaurant despite a B.C. public health order shutting down all indoor dining and consequently had her business and liquor licences temporarily suspended.

The restaurant also drew the ire of Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart when a largely maskless crowd was seen gathering outside the establishment in late April. Along with calling the decision to flout public health orders unacceptable, Stewart threatened court injunction against the restaurant.

“If you are in the Vancouver area, you have to visit Corduroy Restaurant, whose courageous owners Rebecca Matthews and her husband defied authoritarian lockdown orders and decided to stay open and serve customers indoors,” Bernier tweeted.

In a video where Bernier grandstands for the restaurant’s patrons, the PPC leader says this is his first time being inside a restaurant with people and without a mask since the pandemic began.

Other posts to his Twitter account show Bernier attending many anti-mask and anti-lockdown rallies across the country.