‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ star Evangeline Lilly has urged Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to sit down with vaccine mandate protesters amid the ongoing trucker convoy demonstrations.
The actress posted a video in which she stated: “Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, I want to speak to you today about your current approach to, and current treatment of, our fellow Canadians who are protesting your federal vaccine mandates. They have asked to meet with you, prime minister: medical experts, top scientists, doctors, nurses, parents, grandparents; intelligent, loving, concerned citizens.”
“Why won’t you sit with them?” Lilly asked. “If you’re so convinced of your own reasons for the mandates, sit down and walk the leaders of a group of 2.3 million protesters across the country, who represent many millions more across the nation, and explain it to them and ask them to listen with open hearts and minds, and then reciprocate. Listen to what they have to say with a mind open to hearing things that might go against the ideas you are entrenched in.”
She continued by saying that the way to unify people is by finding solutions, not by vilifying those who “say there is a better way,” and that what the country needs right now is unification, which requires leadership to “see, recognize and hear from the people sitting out in the cold at your door.”
Lilly went on to accuse Trudeau of painting a false picture of the protests, saying that many Canadians who decided to see the “fury and destruction” that is supposedly going on in Ottawa, as described by the prime minister and corporate media, have been surprised to see “thousands of people singing, dancing, hugging, waiting patiently, speaking kindly, cleaning the streets, and generally sharing the true Canadian spirit.”
After noting that the Canadian leadership is treating these peaceful protesters as terrorists, Lilly asked that people from both sides of the mandate issue listen to each other and don’t let the press brainwash them into division and hatred.
She concluded by saying, “Listening is the only way out of the ideological mess the media has broiled us all into.”
Lilly, who had previously expressed her opposition to Canada’s vaccine mandates and drew the ire of the internet for her attendance of an anti-mandate protest, has found herself at the center of yet another wave of backlash following her recent video.
A lot of people seemingly wholeheartedly disagreed with Lilly’s calls for unity and communication, and took to Twitter to call on Marvel to drop the actress from upcoming film ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’, which finished filming last fall and is now in post-production.
Honestly I'm just impressed at how fast Evangeline Lilly went from "vaccines are unconstitutional" to "the dudes waving around swastikas and threatening to assault doctors and nurses are just being made out to be bad people by the media"Alt-right speedrun right there
— Alex | He/Him (@TheNinjaWhippet) February 21, 2022
Oh NOPE. I’m not one to quickly suggest a good old-fashioned cancelling, but I’m good on Evangeline Lilly. That’s more than enough from her for me. I’m totally cool if I never see her in a major studio film ever again. This is bullshit. https://t.co/smPrX0jgn0
— Austin Archer (@yourpal_austin) February 20, 2022
Disney has not yet responded to the calls, and many suspect it would be way too costly for the company to recast the actress at this point. But some have also noted the fact that Lilly’s fellow MCU actress Letitia Wright has also been publicly voicing her opposition to vaccines, but has not yet been booted from her role in the Black Panther films.