West Coast Now
Earlier this week, a former pastor named Kevin Annett went on YouTube to announce some of the biggest news of the century.
Pope Francis, he claimed, was helping plan a secret meeting with Chinese officials in Prince Rupert. “The meeting will formalize Vatican Bank financing of a ten-year plan by China to solidify its takeover of the North American economy,” Annett explained.
But luckily, Annett said, the Pope had just been banned from entering Canada by the International Common Law Court of Justice, potentially disrupting the meeting.
We can’t believe we have to say this, but none of this is true.
The International Common Law Court of Justice doesn’t exist, and Annett has a long history of spreading false and outrageous claims.
Annett is a former United Church minister but was kicked out in the 1990s after “he was found to be wholly unsuitable to serve as a minister.”
That’s according to a statement from the United Church, which said that since his removal Annett has on many occasions “made totally false and slanderous statements.”
A fact-check by Reuters showed that many of the things Annett says in his YouTube videos “appear to be inventions.”
Yet that hasn’t stopped nearly 4,000 people from viewing Annett’s latest video.
This isn’t the first time there have been wild conspiracy theories about Prince Rupert.
A deranged video several years ago claimed that China was amassing tens of thousands of troops on the North Coast of B.C. for an invasion of the U.S.
The same person spreading that conspiracy theory also claimed that government laser beams were starting west coast wildfires.
