Krista Ford Haynes ( Ford; born September 13, 1991) is a Canadian former professional
women's American football player. She is a daughter of
Ontario Premier Doug Ford
Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party since 2018. He represents the Toronto rid ...
and niece of former
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
Robert Bruce Ford (May 28, 1969 – March 22, 2016) was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobi ...
. She was the captain of the
Toronto Triumph, a team in the
Legends Football League
The Extreme Football League (X League) is a women's Semi-professional sports, semi-professional indoor American football league operating in the United States. The league was originally founded in 2009 as the Lingerie Football League (LFL), and ...
.
Over the course of the
COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario, Haynes has shared
COVID-19 misinformation and
anti-vaccine
Anti-vaccine activism, which collectively constitutes the "anti-vax" movement, is a set of organized activities expressing opposition to vaccination, and these Social networking, collaborating networks have often sought to increase vaccine h ...
and
anti-mask
During the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks or coverings, including N95 respirator, N95, FFP standards#FFP2 mask, FFP2, surgical mask, surgical, and Cloth face mask, cloth masks, have been employed as public and personal health control measures ag ...
sentiment,
and has been critical of
COVID-19 vaccine passports.
Lingerie soccer League
Haynes, who was a student at
Humber College
The Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, rebranded as Humber Polytechnic since 2024, is a public Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, college in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Founded in 1967, Humber has three mai ...
, was one of more than 100 women who tried out for the first team when the league's
Toronto
Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...
franchise first opened for business in 2011.
Press coverage of Haynes' tryout routinely mentioned that she was the niece of then Toronto mayor
Rob Ford
Robert Bruce Ford (May 28, 1969 – March 22, 2016) was a Canadian politician and businessman who served as the 64th mayor of Toronto from 2010 to 2014. Before and after his term as mayor, Ford was a city councillor representing Ward 2 Etobi ...
and the daughter of then city councillor
Doug Ford
Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party since 2018. He represents the Toronto rid ...
.
According to technology journalist Patrick Seitz, the league had lacked stars in its early seasons, so the limited press coverage the league received treated it solely as a "peep show". He asserted that Haynes and
Angela Rypien, the daughter of former
Super Bowl
The Super Bowl is the annual History of the NFL championship, league championship game of the National Football League (NFL) of the United States. It has served as the final game of every NFL season since 1966 NFL season, 1966 (with the excep ...
MVP
Mark Rypien, were two potential stars the league could offer in its 2011 season.
Team management chose Haynes as the team's first captain. She also served as the team's marketing manager, responsible for seeking sponsorships. The team did not perform well when it started to compete with more experienced teams in the league. Players voiced concern that they had been issued unsafe equipment, and that the most senior members of the team's coaching staff lacked the experience to train them to compete safely. Following its loss in its first non-exhibition game the team's management fired the one member of the coaching staff who was experienced, who team members felt had the experience to serve as head coach, and four of her fellow team members. In response Haynes and 15 remaining team members resigned.
The ''
Torontoist'' quoted Haynes' announcement of her resignation from her
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
page, where she quoted
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an African American revolutionary, Islam in the United States, Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figur ...
, "A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything" to explain her stand on principle.
The ''
Toronto Star
The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part of Torstar's Daily News Brands (Torstar), Daily News Brands division.
...
'' interviewed the founder of the Lingerie Football League about Haynes' resignation, who claimed he had spoken with her uncle Rob Ford, who agreed with him that his niece's resignation was a mistake. Although seasons tickets had already gone on sale in March 2012 the league cancelled the 2012 season in April 2012. ''
CTV News
CTV News is the news division of the CTV Television Network in Canada. The name ''CTV News'' is also applied as the title of local and regional newscasts on the network's owned-and-operated stations (O&Os), which are closely tied to the nationa ...
'' cited Haynes resignation as a factor when explaining the cancellation of the season; however, the Triumph were not included in the cancellation, which included only the U.S.-based teams.
Comments on sexual assault
On August 29, 2012, Haynes stirred controversy through a tweet she sent, an hour after Toronto Police had advised women of a recent outbreak of sexual assaults. Haynes' tweet said: "Stay alert, walk tall, carry mace, take self-defence classes & don't dress like a whore." Section 88 of the ''
Criminal Code
A criminal code or penal code is a document that compiles all, or a significant amount of, a particular jurisdiction's criminal law. Typically a criminal code will contain offences that are recognised in the jurisdiction, penalties that might ...
'' lists mace as a "prohibited and restricted weapon".
Haynes' comment was compared to those of Michael Sanguinetti, a Toronto area police officer whose widely criticized safety suggestion to college students that "women should avoid dressing like sluts not to be victimized" triggered the worldwide
SlutWalk phenomenon.
Views on COVID-19
Haynes has been critical of
COVID-19 vaccines and
vaccine passports and has expressed
anti-mask
During the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks or coverings, including N95 respirator, N95, FFP standards#FFP2 mask, FFP2, surgical mask, surgical, and Cloth face mask, cloth masks, have been employed as public and personal health control measures ag ...
sentiments.
She has also expressed disdain for
vaccine mandates.
Her husband was placed on unpaid leave by the
Toronto Police Service due to his lack of vaccination.
She has compared public health protocols and vaccine mandates to the
holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
and the
civil rights movement.
In a series of posts on
Instagram
Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...
, Haynes has made unsubstantiated criticisms of the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and their effectiveness, including the benefits of vaccine boosters, in which she claimed that "every booster you take is going to weaken your natural immunity."
She has also expressed the incorrect belief that vaccination causes
viral shedding and encouraged her Instagram followers to "rise up" and continue "holding the line for medical freedom". On and around
Remembrance Day
Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day owing to the tradition of wearing a remembrance poppy) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth member states since the end of the First World War to honour armed forces me ...
, Haynes suggested that people should wear
remembrance poppies instead of
masks
A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment, and often employed for rituals and rites. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes, ...
in Canada, saying that "If you're headed into a store today and you find it more important to put on a mask than a poppy, rethink your priorities because there have been men and women who have fought bravely and died for our freedoms that we seem to be just handing over today, so please think about that." She later suggested that the Canadian government should have sent every Canadian household a
Bible
The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...
instead of information cards on COVID-19 vaccines.
Haynes believes the Canadian government is conspiring to remove freedoms from citizens while lying to the public about potential vaccine side effects.
Haynes added that vaccine information could be disseminated to the Chinese governments and the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
.
She has also shared information against childhood vaccination.
Haynes campaigns against the COVID-19 lockdowns and shares anti-vaccine content on social media.
Robyn Urback, writing in ''
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'', has criticized the
mainstream media
In journalism, mainstream media (MSM) is a term and abbreviation used to refer collectively to the various large Mass media, mass news media that influence many people and both reflect and shape prevailing currents of thought.Noam Chomsky, Choms ...
for under reporting her campaign, in the context of Haynes' father being the
Premier of Ontario. In January 2022, Haynes attended a rally welcoming trucks in
Freedom Convoy 2022, making their way through the
Greater Toronto Area
The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the Toronto, City of Toronto and the regional municipality, regional municipalities of Regional Municipality of Durham, Durham, Regional Municipality of Halton, Halton, Regional ...
. She was seen carrying a flag that said "Fuck
Trudeau".
By December 2021, ''
NOW Toronto''
[ and '']The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'' had published articles covering her position.
Personal life
Ford is married to David Haynes, a Toronto Police Service officer and bodybuilder
Bodybuilding is the practice of progressive resistance exercise to build, control, and develop one's muscles via hypertrophy. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. It is primarily undertaken for aesthetic ...
. In November 2021, he was put on unpaid leave from the service for refusing to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
On February 15, 2022, Haynes' father Doug Ford
Douglas Robert Ford Jr. (born November 20, 1964) is a Canadian politician and businessman who has served as the 26th and current premier of Ontario and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party since 2018. He represents the Toronto rid ...
acknowledged "family rifts" relating to COVID-19 during a public press conference.
In December 2022, Haynes was conspicuously missing from the family photograph used by Doug Ford on the family Christmas card.
See also
* Ford family (Canada)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haynes, Krista
Living people
1991 births
Players of American football from Toronto
Ford family (Canada)
Canadian players of American football
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian anti-vaccination activists
Canadian conspiracy theorists
COVID-19 conspiracy theorists
Vaccine hesitancy
Legends Football League players
Humber College alumni
York University alumni