Kelowna nurse set for disciplinary hearing over comments about COVID-19, Chinese culture and Black Lives Matter

A disciplinary hearing is set to be held into comments a Kelowna nurse allegedly made about COVID-19, masks, Chinese culture and the Black Lives Matter movement.

The British Columbia College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) announced this week it will hold a hearing between Nov. 15 and Nov. 17 into Sean Taylor’s behaviour.

According to the college, between March 21, 2020 and Nov. 2, 2020, Taylor made a series of remarks while “identifying [him]self as a registered nurse.”

They include:

• "...[Y]ou will get people to wear your masks and put them in your internment camps ... but there is a group of people, myself included, and you, and a bunch of friends, who will not comply. We will meet you in the streets and do this the old fashioned way."

• (On movements including Black Lives Matter) “The restraint that’s being shown on the Right… I watch that s**t, I wanna take a road trip and go down and play paint ball.”

• "[W]here does influenza come from? It is an avian virus and a porcine virus that usually comes from China because of the interface with Chinese culture”.

• “There are so many times that I am comforting people in triage, who are terrified to be in the hospital, and I tell them there is no virus here. Don’t worry about it. […] We had no cases admitted to the hospital. […] They still buy into this narrative.”

• “I don’t wear a mask […] it’s a load of horse s**t.”

BCCNM said these comments are contrary to the college’s professional standards and constitute professional misconduct, unprofessional conduct and/or a breach of the Health Professions Act.

Taylor, who ran as a parliamentary candidate for the People’s Party of Canada in South Okanagan—West Kootenay in 2019 and 2021, is also set to be grilled by the college about an interview he gave to Global News in June 2020.

In that interview – in which he wore a stethoscope and scrubs while standing outside Kelowna General Hospital – BCCNM said Taylor “discussed allegations of racial discrimination against Indigenous patients and expressed the view that such news resulted in patients making allegations of racism against a nurse when they do not get their way.”

The college said this behaviour was contrary to the nursing profession’s standards.

Taylor, who got 1,638 votes in 2019 and 4,866 in 2021, later said he was fired by Interior Health for discussing vaccines in his capacity as a parliamentary candidate.

In September 2021, he gave a speech in Kelowna in which he said he was one of a group of "everyday Canadians" who are "standing up and taking our country back."

On the website created to promote his candidacy, he added: "I have been an ER nurse for the last 16 years, and I can tell you, what you are seeing on the news and what I am seeing at work are two completely different things. You are being misled."

According to the BCCNM, Taylor's licence to practice was cancelled on April 1, 2022.