BC Conservative Leader John Rustad Warned Convoy Event That Kids Will Be Forced to ‘Eat Bugs’

BC Conservative Party leader John Rustad delivered a conspiratorial speech at a convoy-linked conference last year where he warned the audience that children are being forced to eat bugs.

Rustad was a headline speaker at the 2023 “Reclaiming Canada Conference,” an event hosted by a convoy spin-off group called We Unify. The conference was billed as a celebration of the anniversary of the Freedom Convoy.

“In recognition of the 2022 Freedom Convoy, a second national conference was held in Victoria, British Columbia to assemble a coalition of leaders including Brian Peckford, B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad and many others,” the event’s website explained. Other speakers included Freedom Convoy organizers Chris Barber and Daniel Bulford, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms President John Carpay and anti-mask activist Vladislav Sobolev.

During his speech, Rustad referenced a far-right conspiracy about climate change and bugs:

“Just about a year or two ago now, the new plant was built in Ontario, I think in the Ottawa area. This plant produces 40,000 tonnes of bug protein for human and animal consumption,” Rustad said. “40,000 tonnes of bugs.”

“And there’s a second plant that’s now in the process of being built. This is what they think is the solution. And I can tell you, stopping cows from farting and belching is not gonna change the weather. But I’ll tell you what it will do. It will destroy our quality of life, limiting our ability to move around in the name of climate change just makes us vulnerable to more government control. It takes away our freedoms.”

Rustad then tipped his hat to the Freedom Convoy: “When I saw the trucker convoy, I thought about where we need to be and what they stood for and those values that they took across this country. And the flag that was raised around the world. My hat’s off to those people, those people who took that initiative. Those are values we need to fight for.”

“We should not be expecting our kids to eat bugs,” Rustad added.

The BC Conservative Party did not respond to a request from PressProgress seeking clarification about Rustad’s comments about children eating bugs.

The idea that the government will force people to eat insects is linked to a conspiracy sparked by a World Economic Forum report that highlights why eating insects could help reduce the impacts of climate change.

One year earlier, a cricket factory in London, Ontario that primarily produces pet food found itself at the centre of a global conspiracy theory fuelled by misinformation which often became more outrageous with each iteration.

Peter Smith, a researcher with the Canadian Anti Hate Network says “eating bugs” has become a fast-growing conspiracy among the far-right.

“‘Eating the bugs,’ is a phrase that refers to a conspiracy theory we’ve been seeing quite often in a lot of different conspiratorial spaces but predominantly on the far-right,” Smith told PressProgress. “It refers to this idea that not only are alternative protein sources being explored by companies, but it’s part of a larger plan to eventually replace meat products.”

“Development goals which are very ambitious targets, sometimes kind of loose, set by the United Nations and international development organizations, then get misconstrued to be these fiendish plots to keep everybody inside of urban spaces and outlaw all of the fundamental rights and freedoms we’ve all come to enjoy.”

At another point in the same speech, Rustad suggested “climate policy” is to blame for mass starvation in the developing world.

“I think it’s great to use organic and to do the best we can in terms of food in our food source, but we’re talking about billions of people in the world starving to death because of a policy on climate change,” Rustad said. “I for one am not up for that.”

Rustad has previously come under fire for his anti-scientific views on climate change and his party’s links to the freedom convoy movement earlier this year.

In August 2022, Rustad retweeted a tweet from prominent climate science denier Patrick Moore casting doubt on climate science.

Rustad was subsequently removed from the BC Liberal caucus and joined the BC Conservatives as its leader.

The 2024 edition of the “Reclaiming Canada” Conference was held in June and Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber,

The group held an event Tuesday headlined by People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier.

Editor’s Note: PressProgress’ Journalistic Standards include a commitment to credit original journalism and sources of information. Following publication of this story, it was brought to our attention that Rustad’s comments on eating bugs, though not quoted directly, were first referenced in a 2023 opinion column by Victoria Times Colonist columnist Les Leyne.

According to the column, Rustad later elaborated that there was, in Leyne’s words, a “UN plan to endorse substituting insect protein for meat.”