Mayor irked by anti-mask caravan headed for his home

A caravan of anti-maskers who tried on Sunday to drive onto Mayor Drew Dilkens' residential street and demonstrate in front of his house took it “over the line,” Dilkens said Monday.

The mayor said he was home with his wife (his teenage children were away) when he was contacted Sunday by Windsor police, whose officers were monitoring a demonstration downtown. One of the organizers had just announced they were getting in their cars and going to the mayor's house.

About 15 minutes later, Dilkens looked outside to see two police cruisers blocking the entrance to his street. At least a couple of vehicles were denied access to the street.

“They think that protesting in front of my house on my street is going to make a difference and it's not,” said Dilkens, who said while he can handle protests, it's not fair to his neighbours and his family who may feel threatened.

“Coming to my house and protesting on the street just takes it over the line.”

A video of the brief stop at Dilkens' street was posted on the Questioning Covid in Windsor-essex Facebook page by organizer Currie Soulliere.

“You're blocking the road! You're blocking the road!” a man in the passenger seat shouted at the officers. “We were going to go this way.”

One of the officers told him: “You're not going this way. The road's blocked.”

As they drive off, they call the officers “thugs.”

Soulliere couldn't be reached on Monday. But in her post she writes about she and fellow protesters getting in their cars for a “caravan protest.”

“We gathered our people and headed to Mayor Drew's house to say stuff like `honk honk' and `hi' and `the time for municipal terrorism is over, beep-beep blitzes are coming soon' etc.," she said. “Unfortunately the police decided that while all roads are public, some roads are less public than others.”

Instead of trying to protest in front of his house, the mayor suggested the protesters should show up outside city hall.

“I've got an office that is 50 per cent glass from floor to ceiling. If you're there, I'm going to see you,” he said, adding he regularly goes in and out via the front door. “I'm going to interact with you at some point.”

Dilkens said that intelligent, sensible people understand that wearing a mask is just one of the things we have to do during a global pandemic to keep each other safe.

"There is a very small group of people who don't believe in science, who don't believe in best practices and they don't believe government officials."