Northern Ont. teacher faces discipline over anti-COVID, anti-immigration posts

Empty classroom. (File)

A northern Ontario teacher with some strong views on current events is facing a disciplinary hearing this fall.

Annalisa Kay Schmoll has worked as a substitute teacher in different locations with the District School Board Ontario North East. The board includes schools in communities such as Timmins and Kirkland Lake.

Schmoll used Facebook to post her doubts about the COVID-19 pandemic and measures taken to slow its spread. The posts were made on her Facebook page between April and June 2021.

The posts match up well with the conclusions of a December 2021 study by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which studied the most common forms of disinformation related to COVID-19 being spread on social media.

The study looked at comments on Facebook and Twitter in reaction to stories published by mainstream news organizations, including CTV News.

The comments were filtered to exclude spam and unrelated comments. Of the remaining comments that contained disinformation, three major themes emerged: the COVID-19 vaccine was not properly tested and people are being used as guinea pigs; the pandemic is a conspiracy aimed at giving the government control over our lives; and, COVID-19 isn’t really dangerous, so the vaccine is an unnecessary measure aimed at controlling us.

Schmoll’s posts mainly follow those themes. She now faces a disciplinary hearing because similar of posts, including some linking COVID-19 lockdown measures to the behaviour of the Nazis.

“When I studied the Holocaust in school I remember thinking to myself; ‘How did Hitler get over six million people to follow along and not fight back?” one post read.

“Then I realized I’m watching my fellow people take the same path.”

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She also characterized the use of masks by young people as “child abuse,” along with numerous other false claims, including the idea that masking harmed children because they need “twice as much oxygen to function normally as adults ...”

In addition to COVID-19, Schmoll is not a fan of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, accusing him of bringing “unknown numbers” of terrorists to Canada.

She also characterized transgender wrestling athletes as “boys beating up on girls.”

The hearing will be held Nov. 2. Click here for the full list of allegations.