Complaints about protests in Burns Lake

An issue was brought up at an April 19 Village of Burns Lake council meeting about the ongoing anti-vaccination protests that occur daily in Burns Lake.

The village has received three public complaints in a two week span about the protests, which take place at the RV parking lot off of Highway 16, warranting a verbal report by Director of Public Services Rob Krause to council.

According to Krause, village staff has reached out to legal sources to find out if anything can be done to prevent the protest since their happening on village property. “The short answer is there’s nothing we can do. It is a legal protest, they have a right to be there, there’s very little that can be done unless they do something illegal,” Krause told council during the meeting.

“There is some garbage that has been left there over the winter that has been left perpetually hanging in the trees, so that’s going to get cut down, but everything else they bring with them and clean up when they leave,” he continued.

One thing discussed by council was the church events that are being held adjacent to that spot every Sunday. Council brought up the idea to request the group to hold their events at Spirit Square, since the village does not allow any non-municipal events in that location.

This would require the group to go through the process of getting an event license through the village to hold their church events. Ultimately, no final decision was made on the matter.

The protests have been ongoing since last September.