How an Ontario town became one of North America’s anti-vax capitals

Jordan As much as Canada is rightly proud of its high rate of vaccination against covid 19, vaccine uptake in this country is a different picture regionally. There are many communities and public health units across the country where, for one reason or another, vaccination rates lag way behind other population centers. In many places, this happens quietly, in some places, like Aylmer, Ontario, It happens quite loudly.

Aylmer News Clips …We don’t want any virus here, get out of here!

…we have rights, always and forever. They don’t go away ever…

…we want our god given freedoms…

Jordan Aylmer isn’t a big town. And it wouldn’t be particularly notable except for one man and one Church and the national and even international attention he has brought to Aylmer. The man is Pastor Henry Hildebrandt, and the Church is the Church of God Restoration. This man and his Church first opposed lockdowns and now oppose vaccinations, and this has torn the town apart. Why are Hildebrandt and his Church so against public health measures? What has the town done about their refusal to comply with them? How did Hildebrandt turn this small Ontario town into a magnet for prominent antivaxxers from across North America? And if and when this is all over, what happens to Aylmer, a community that has been fractured? Can it ever be the same again?

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings, this is The Big Story. Luc Rinaldi is a Toronto-based journalist who investigated the Church of God Restoration for Toronto life . Hey, Luc.

Luc Hi, Jordan. How are you?

Jordan I’m doing very well, and I’d like you to first tell us about Aylmer, Ontario for people across Canada. Where is it? What’s it like?

Luc Sure. Aylmer Ontario is a small town just south of London, Ontario. That’s about a two hour drive from Toronto. And it’s a lot like other small towns. It’s about 7500 people, one major intersection. But what stands out about it is that it’s got this dense concentration of Christians, particularly Amish, Mennonites, other Anabaptist denominations. And you can kind of tell that as you’re walking through the town, there’s Mennonite stores, Mennonite posters, billboards, that kind of thing. So that really stands out. And in the last, I would say, since the pandemic began, their reputation in Aylmer is really all about the pandemic and not getting vaccinated.

Jordan What are their vaccination rates compared to, just say, the rest of Ontario.

Luc So in Aylmer, it’s about 50% of the population that’s been double vaxxed or fully vaxxed. Compared to the rest of Ontario, where I think it’s north of 70, possibly approaching 80 by now. So they’re quite well behind. And I believe the least vaccinated postal code in the province.

Jordan Why is that? Why is the town so poorly vaxxed?

Luc So it has to do with that dense concentration of Christians, the Mennonites, the Amish and related congregations. A lot of them have historically not been very supportive of mainstream medical science. They prefer to kind of abstain from going to the hospital for necessary surgeries, abstain from using medicine to treat chronic diseases. The reason for this is that a lot of them kind of place their wellbeing, their health in the hands of God. They believe that illness, even death, is part of God’s plan. And to get in the way of that would not be being a good Christian.

Jordan So we’ve been talking about the town as a whole, but as I understand it, and you’re here to correct me when I’m wrong, there is one Church in particular at the center of this. Can you explain what the Church of God restoration is?

Luc Yeah. The Church of God Restoration is one of these congregations, and I’ve been mentioning a lot of different Christian congregations, and most of them have been pretty quiet, but this one not so much. It’s been very loud since the beginning of the pandemic. They first made a bit of a stink in, I would say April 2020, just about a month into the pandemic, they decided to have a drive-in service, even when religious gatherings weren’t allowed. But the pastor said, you know what? This isn’t really risking anyone’s health. Let’s have a drive-in service, get together. And that really set off a chain of events that made this one congregation synonymous with resistance to masks, resistance to lockdowns, resistance to vaccines. And they have just kind of kept on going down that path for the last 18 months or so.

Jordan In a minute or so, I’m going to get you to walk us down that path because the way this is escalated is pretty remarkable. Maybe not in a good way. But before we do, introduce us a little bit more to this Church and in particular, who is the pastor? Tell me about it.

Luc The pastor’s name is Henry Hildebrandt, and he’s been in charge of this particular congregation since the early 1980s. The Church of God Restoration is not per se his Church. Although he’s the leader of this Aylmer congregation, it’s part of a wider Church that has about two dozen congregations around the world, most of them in the United States, but as far as the Philippines and Eastern Europe. They’re a relatively inward looking Church. They kind of keep to themselves. Or at least they did before the pandemic. And to an outsider, they may look like Amish or Mennonite because they wear quite traditional clothing in black, white and gray. And there’s also some rules that come along with being a part of the Church, like having a car that’s white, Gray or black and giving the pastor a lot of control over your personal life. So that means in the Church they don’t date, they consult their pastor about who they might marry, and then with his blessing, things work out and you start a family.

I think to the average Ontarian it might seem a pretty extreme lifestyle, and they also don’t typically use the Internet very much. I did find that there were exceptions to these rules, but generally across the board, they tend to keep themselves, not engage with mainstream media. They don’t have too many friends outside the congregation. So that’s just kind of a little bit about what it’s like to be in that congregation.

Jordan What about Hildebrandt himself? Did you meet him? What’s he like?

Luc Yeah. I met him a few times. I first met him when I went to Aylmer for the first time, and we sat down outside the Church. The Church doors were locked at that time because the attorney general had basically penalized them for continuing to meet despite restrictions. So we met at a picnic table outside the Church. And he’s, one on one, a very pleasant guy. He welcomed me to his Church, introduced me to some of the other members of the Church leadership. His son was there. And we just spoke pretty civilly about his views on the vaccine, why he’s been resisting the lockdowns. I think meeting him in that setting, I got a sense of what it’s like to deal with him on a personal level.

But I think what most people associate with Henry Hildebrandt is this picture of a fire and brimstone preacher. He’s kind of the picture of what you would expect from a furious Minister who’s yelling about the saving power of Jesus and what happens if you sin and you go to hell. His face gets red, his neck gets veiny. And to give him some credit, he’s pretty charismatic, like I’ve seen him preach a number of times now, and he commands an audience very well. So I think that factors into why he has such a devoted following.

Jordan Maybe now you could sort of take us through the chronology of this Church during the pandemic, because again, from your description, if it was just a congregation that had their own rules that we might find strange that kept to themselves. We wouldn’t be having this conversation. But it began, as you mentioned, with a drive-in service before that was allowed. What happened next?

Luc Right. The locals actually complained about the drive-in service. The folks of Aylmer took issue with the fact that this Church was getting together. If you remember April 2020, we didn’t know that much about Covid 19 at that point. So there weren’t a lot of people who were confidently saying, okay, drive-in services seem 100% safe. Everybody was playing it very safe at that point in time. So I understand why people are saying, what the heck are you doing?

So police got involved. They drove by and they told everybody to go home, and it was relatively polite. However, the Church didn’t stop. They kept meeting first in their cars, and then when the weather got a little nicer in May, they started getting out of their cars. And then in the summer, they started gathering together in the Church building. They didn’t cause too many issues throughout the summer last year, I think because restrictions lifted a little bit if you remember, the restrictions didn’t feel as intense as they were during the winter.

Of course, winter came back around. Restrictions got tightened again. And that’s when we started seeing some issues. The Church did not comply. When restrictions were again placed on religious gatherings, they kept meeting in their Church building. And this is over 200 people. So this is not your ten people who are allowed in religious gatherings. So they continue to do that. Then the attorney general locked their Church doors. They started meeting outside. They did some more drive-in services. They started meeting on the lawn when the weather was nice enough. So essentially, they just never stopped. And this obviously posed a problem for the local police, for the province.

One thing that really, I think, started getting people’s attention was the freedom rallies. So the Church was involved in two freedom rallies that took place in Aylmer. The first was relatively small, maybe 200 people, and that pissed off some people in Aylmer for sure. But the next one, which was in late 2020, was about 2000 people, many of them from out of town. And you can imagine if you’re someone living in Aylmer who is not supportive of this idea of breaking restrictions, this would be pretty annoying to you that all these people are coming to your town, potentially posing a health risk to you.

Jordan So what did the police do in response and what’s this been like for them? Did you speak to the police chief in town?

Luc Yep. I spoke with the police chief. He took the view early on that he was going to try to educate first and foremost. Tell the members of the Church of God Restoration, look, here are the restrictions, here’s why they’re in place. It’s not oppressive to you. It’s a matter of protecting public health. That approach didn’t really work. And he told me that. He said, we tried to work with them and they just didn’t get the message, they kept meeting.

And so for police, that meant having to monitor services, park by the Church on Sundays, make sure everything was okay. They monitor services by drone. They had to issue court summons and hand down fines on behalf of the attorney general. Most of this happened pretty politely. It’s a small Ontario town. It wasn’t that nuts. However, there were some exceptions. With a lot of the folks who are coming in from out of town to visit this Church because Hildebrandt got such a big profile, there were a lot of troublemakers. And so there were a number of assault charges that were laid, people charging at other people, obstructing police from exiting the Church grounds.

So it got harder and harder. And by the time that that freedom rally came around with 2000 people, this is a small town of 7500, and the police Department has 13 full time officers. So you can imagine being in their shoes and saying, okay, we’re going to need some backup here. So they called the OPP. They got extra officers on the ground to make sure everything went smoothly. That day they ended up handing out about 100 fines under the Reopening Act to folks who had gathered, given this was clearly an illegal gathering, given the restrictions at the time.

But it’s been, I’d say, quite demanding of local police. It’s died down a little bit in recent months, given restrictions have lifted again. But definitely there were some hard months throughout the winter last year.

Jordan Is the story gathering steam elsewhere in the world? I think if there’s one thing that we’ve found through this pandemic, it is that the people opposed to public health restrictions or vaccinations will find each other and support each other and amplify these stories.

Luc Right, yeah. And I think that’s what attracted me and Toronto Life magazine to this particular congregation, is because it seemed to be a Mecca for those folks. It’s a Christian Church, a very fundamentalist Christian Church, yet it’s attracted all kinds of people, people who are just in general, not on board with masks and lockdowns and vaccines, people who are conspiracy theorists and libertarians and anarchists. I spoke with a number of people, both who are part of the Church and visitors to the Church, and found that there’s a wide spectrum of beliefs, a quite eclectic big tent that had really amassed.

And you could point to this and say, well, it’s just kind of an anomaly, but I think it’s a microcosm of many communities that exist around Canada and the globe. You look at the folks who are throwing gravel at Justin Trudeau, you look at the folks who are picketing hospitals. I don’t want to say they’re all exactly the same, but there is, I think, a common dogma of don’t tread on me. Don’t tell me what to do, Government, I don’t want to get vaccinated. You guys are over exaggerating the harms of this virus, and I don’t have anything to do with it. And they’re, like you said, finding each other. And this congregation is one place that they’re congregating.

Jordan In terms of this Church and its members, and I’m speaking, I guess, of the core members, not the people who have come in for these rallies. What have their beliefs done previously in terms of refusing medicine? I can’t imagine this is the first time that issue has come up. Is this something that has impacted them before? Do they know it’s dangerous?

Luc You’re absolutely right. This has come up many times before. You can go back, probably until the 80s, to the very early days of the Church, to find examples of people refusing medical treatment for illnesses and dying of preventable causes. There are several very real cases of people having cancer, diabetes, heart conditions and just choosing not to get any help with it and then passing away. And it’s happened. It’s continued to happen until just the last couple of years in Aylmer.

This extends to children as well. The Church also for a long time and arguably still practices Corporal punishment. And there was quite a big controversy in the early 2000s when children’s services took children from the home of a Restoration family. The reason for that was they were being hit as punishment, and they were not receiving any medical care, any necessary medical care for those injuries that they had sustained. So that particular instance ended up influencing the Church to change their beliefs, at least when it comes to children, they said children can receive necessary medical care now. That’s been the case since 2002.

However, adults are still expected to refrain from medical care. And if they do even call 9-1-1, go to the hospital, There’s some social stigma associated with that. If your fellow congregants find out that you got a surgery, they’re going to look at you a little different. And they’re going to say, Are you still the same Christian that I knew before? Are you saved? When the second coming of Jesus comes, are you going to be one of the people who goes up with him to heaven, or are you going to be going to hell because you chose to get a surgery? So it’s led to tragedy before, sure, because the belief is so strong and the stigma is so strong that people within the congregation simply don’t seek out necessary medical care.

Jordan So I know how magazine deadlines and production work. So I know you probably reported this story a little while ago, but I wanted to ask you about the vaccine mandates that we’ve seen in several places across Ontario over the past several weeks. Are any of those mandates impacting this Church? Are they following them? I mean, I would assume probably not. But with a large enough congregation, these folks work where there are mandates. I’m sure some of them.

Luc You’re right. There must be folks who work in the Church who are working for somewhere that says you need to be vaccinated to continue working here, or we’re going to terminate you or put you on unpaid leave. That said, a large number of the folks who are in the restoration congregation work for businesses that are also run by members of the congregation. And so there is a little bit of a bubble that they can exist inside that I’m sure will never introduce a vaccine mandate. And so they’re kind of safe from that.

Where it starts to get tricky is eventually they’re going to have to get vaccinated if they want to travel. And travel is actually quite a large part of their lifestyle. They travel at least once a year to the States, typically for, like a Church wide meeting with other congregations. Quite a number of, especially the younger members of the congregation, travel for missions to other Church of God Restoration congregations across the world, like in the Philippines, in Ireland, and so on. So they’re going to have to come to a head with this decision not to get vaccinated because it’s going to prevent them from doing some of the things that are really integral to their belief and to their growth. They’re an evangelical congregation. They want to grow. And without getting vaccinated, it’s tricky to see how they’re going to continue to evangelize in other places across the world.

Jordan Speaking of things coming to a head, this is a town of 7500. As you mentioned, towns like that, everybody knows everyone. What has the saga of this Church over the past year and a half done to Aylmer can they go back to being a quiet, peaceful, small town, where people get along after this?

Luc I asked that question to a number of the folks I spoke with in Aylmer, and I think they themselves are divided on the answer. I spoke to someone who was involved in organizing a number of counter protests. So that means they would drive their cars to the road next to the Church on Sunday mornings and honk their horns and wave signs saying don’t gather, don’t get together as a Church because you’re potentially causing harm to the rest of us. And that person told me, I don’t think we can go back because Aylmer now has a reputation as a hotspot for intolerance and stupidity. And that I would say the most extreme view that I heard.

I also spoke to local politicians and councillors and members of the business improvement area, and they said, sure, this has been a bit of a rough year for Aylmer, but they think, give it a year, give it two years. When the pandemic calms down, the Church of God Restoration, they think will kind of go back to their old state, which is keeping to themselves. If they’re allowed to do what they want, they might not continue to act up, and then things can relatively go back to normal. I think there will always be a little bit of lingering resentment between the folks who are really angry at the restoration congregation and the Church itself. But that question of whether things can be repaired and go back to normal, it’s still the jury is out on that one.

Jordan I was going to say it honestly sounds like a microcosm of our entire society throughout this. That can we go back to normal now, knowing how people have behaved during this pandemic and knowing maybe things we didn’t want to know about our neighbours.

Luc Right? Yeah. I think that’s a great point. I spoke to a young man who’s part of the Restoration, and he lamented the fact that the conversation has broken down between people of different opinions. And as much as I have a very different opinion than he does, I do agree on that point, and I think one of the best parts of reporting this piece was just engaging with people who, in other circumstances I would have read about in the news and just dismissed as maybe Kooks and got to know them on a more human level.

Jordan Well, thank you, Luc, for bringing the story to us as well. Really appreciate it.

Luc Thanks for having me, Jordan. I really appreciate it.

Jordan Luc Rinaldi, writing for Toronto Life .

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