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Arresting pastors — this time Derek Reimer — has become a sport in Trudeau’s Canada.

Christian pastor Derek Reimer of Calgary, Alberta, was arrested Wednesday afternoon after he protested a new law aimed at preventing demonstrations against drag shows for children. It is Pastor Derek’s second arrest in as many weeks.

Footage shot by Rebel News shows police handcuffing Pastor Derek in a carpark near a Calgary public library and dragging him to a police cruiser. Officers can be heard informing the pastor that he was breaching his “200 metre no-go conditions”, an assertion that witnesses at the scene disputed.

Derek Reimer is a pastor at Mission 7 Ministries, whose non-profit work serves the vulnerable, homeless and addicted in Calgary’s downtown core.

Calgary Mayor’s Targeting of Pastor Derek

Pastor Derek was granted bail and released after spending four days in jail last week, following his protest of a drag queen event at Calgary’s Seton library in February. His earlier arrest took place in the wake of Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek effectively demanding a crackdown against the pastor via her Twitter account.

In addition to engaging in political interference, in her tweet thread the Mayor accused those protesting the sexualisation of Canadian children of spreading “vile lies and hatred in public”. She called for stronger city bylaws against demonstrators like Pastor Derek so that Calgary could be “a place of inclusion”.

Gondek’s new bylaw was passed late at night Tuesday, the day before Pastor Derek’s most recent arrest. It bans “specified protests” within 100 metres of an entrance of a city-affiliated facility and carries a maximum penalty of up to $10,000 or six months in jail.

The Drag Queen Story Hour Controversy

Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) has become a common practice in taxpayer-funded venues in the Western world following the legalisation of same-sex marriage and the widespread celebration of “queer” sexuality.

The practice involves adult men dressing up as clownish, sexualised versions of women in costumes that women would not normally wear in such situations. The men then read books to young children in order to normalise “gender fluidity” and expose the next generation to “queer role models”.

While marketed as fun, kid-friendly and harmless entertainment, DQSH events mock femininity and desensitise children by exposing them to explicit depictions of adult sexuality.

Pastor Derek’s Treatment in the Media

Pastor Derek’s bail conditions restrict contact with any members of the LGBT community, including pastoral counselling or offering free food as part of Mission 7’s outreach.

His next bail conditions review is scheduled for 29 March.

Rebel News is providing ongoing updates about Pastor Derek’s situation at www.SavePastorDerek.com.

Predictably, the Canadian legacy media has lined up to defend Mayor Jyoti Gondek’s politicisation of Calgary’s bylaws and her advocacy for the perversion of children.

Pastor Derek’s story has, however, received favourable treatment on Fox News in the United States.

‘That’s Not Real Persecution’

The persecution of pastors has become an unsightly feature of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Canada.

As reported by The Daily Declaration, Pastor Artur Pawlowski, also from Calgary, faced multiple arrests for hosting church services when authorities were depicting COVID-19 as a plague-like scourge that required all citizens to live under effective house arrest.

A common objection to the claim that clergymen like Pastor Derek and Pastor Artur are victims of persecution is that “they were not arrested for their faith but for breaking Canadian law”.

By the same logic, however, early Christians were thrown to the lions, not for being Christians but for refusing to rightly honour Caesar.

Pastors Derek and Artur ran afoul of Canadian law in their attempts, however imperfect, to apply teachings of Scripture such as “not giving up meeting together” (Hebrews 10:25) and guarding children from adult predation, as per Jesus’ words in Mark 9:42.

In other words, Christians who only allow secular persecutors to define what constitutes persecution will never be able to identify it.

By contrast, Jesus defines persecution thus: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18-19).

Image via Rebel News.