Full Comment - Why vaccine passports make things worse

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Anthony Fury. Thanks so much for joining us for the latest episode of Full

00:00:10.180 Con. You know, you'd think the summer in Canada would have been a relaxed and unifying

00:00:14.260 time when it came to COVID-19. I mean, the case numbers, they were very low. And in some

00:00:18.740 hospitals, they even had zero COVID patients. Mission accomplished? No. And we had the vast

00:00:23.720 majority of Canadians, they received a vaccine. People returned to the activities they love.

00:00:28.200 And multiple provincial chief medical officers, they even said it's time to learn to live

00:00:32.960 with COVID. And yet despite all of that, we are having our most divisive and hostile debate

00:00:39.020 yet. That of vaccine passports. Quebec, BC, Manitoba, Ontario, they are all now implementing

00:00:44.580 some version of the system. What are these going to accomplish though? How long are they

00:00:49.480 going to be around for? What are the details? What does the charter say about this? What

00:00:53.620 sort of exemptions, if any, will apply? Oh, and will Canadians tolerate exemptions as

00:00:58.860 well, given the hostile nature of the conversation? To discuss all of these hotly debated issues,

00:01:03.260 I'm joined now by Christine Van Gein, Litigation Director for the Canadian Constitution Foundation,

00:01:08.500 an organization that has put a lot of work into reflecting and studying on all aspects of

00:01:13.320 vaccine passports. Christine joins us now. Hey, Christine, thanks for joining us. 0.98

00:01:17.600 Hey, thanks for having me.

00:01:18.520 Great to have you here. And I got to say, this is a conversation where if, you know, a year and a half

00:01:23.440 ago, I'd asked myself, someone had said to me, hey, do you anticipate you're going to have a

00:01:26.700 conversation about pretty much mandatory vaccines to be able to enter, you know, a store or to go to

00:01:33.200 the movie theater, the gym, or what have you to deal with this virus? I'd be like, no, that's not a

00:01:38.280 thing we do here. And yet, here we are. I just can't believe how far we've come, Christine.

00:01:43.100 Yeah, I think some of the politicians are surprised too. I mean, Doug Ford

00:01:46.980 said back on July 15th, that vaccine passports weren't going to be happening. And here we are,

00:01:53.220 September 2nd, and they're happening.

00:01:56.180 You know, it's funny, you come from a law background, a constitutional law background,

00:02:00.900 no less, where there's a lot of sort of thought and reflection. And, you know, places like the

00:02:05.520 Supreme Court, they are very slow moving when they deliberate on issues and so forth. And I feel like,

00:02:10.620 you know, when Parliament, when legislatures, when City Hall brings in things of much lesser

00:02:15.820 consequence, are we going to put speed bumps in the alleyway behind your house? Like how many months

00:02:21.580 does that take to decide? How many staff reports get written up, and then it goes to committee and

00:02:25.880 this and that? I mean, things of much lesser consequence in our lives, we put way more earnest

00:02:32.500 effort into debating and discussing than we have this thing, which like suddenly, there's just a

00:02:37.000 manic energy behind it. And then suddenly, it's a fait accompli. And here we have it.

00:02:41.420 Yeah, I mean, I think the speed at which this has happened has resulted in some of the policies

00:02:46.820 having on their face really big problems. For example, Ontario has said they will have

00:02:52.940 medical exemptions for vaccine passports. Manitoba and British Columbia has said they will not. And I

00:02:59.380 think that on its face is just plainly discriminatory, and I think unjustified discrimination. But we can

00:03:06.740 get into all of that. I just think if they'd taken the time to deliberate over this, we would not be

00:03:12.040 in the place that we are right now. Okay, let's get into right away what you're saying there, the

00:03:16.600 medical exemption. So what is a medical exemption for a vaccine? What would it be? And why would someone

00:03:22.480 qualify for it? Because I think there's a lot of confusion around that aspect.

00:03:25.980 We all have a lot of questions about what medical exemptions mean. Because in Ontario,

00:03:31.160 when the premier announced this policy, the vaccine passport policy, he said there would be

00:03:36.620 medical exemptions for people who can't be vaccinated for what he said is a legitimate

00:03:42.080 reason. We don't have a lot of guidance on what that means or what in practicality it will look like

00:03:49.080 when it's being implemented. So starting on September 22nd, I guess we're supposed to carry paper

00:03:55.080 documents or a PDF on our phone showing our vaccination receipt to go into restaurants or

00:03:59.940 movie theaters or what have you. If you, for whatever medical reason, can't be vaccinated,

00:04:05.840 do you carry a doctor's note at that time? We don't know what that's going to look like

00:04:10.360 practically. But beyond that, what counts as a legitimate reason why you can't be vaccinated?

00:04:17.760 And this is a really important question. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has

00:04:24.080 sent out a guidance document, I guess an email to their members. I don't know if there's going to be

00:04:28.960 more guidance on this or not. But they said, if you're a physician who's going to be writing a

00:04:33.940 medical note to someone about their inability to be vaccinated, they outlined some of the reasons

00:04:40.440 that they view as a legitimate exemption. That includes an anaphylactic allergy to an ingredient

00:04:49.560 or component in the vaccine. And they also included adverse reactions to the first dose of the vaccine,

00:04:58.520 which includes heart inflammation or neurological. There have been some people who have had neurological

00:05:05.280 reactions. Those are rare. I don't want to tell these stories.

00:05:07.780 But they're actually saying if you were hospitalized for the first dose, you don't have to get the

00:05:13.360 second dose. The fact they'd have to spell that out is something.

00:05:19.780 But you'd be shocked. So I have talked to a number of people in British Columbia, because in British

00:05:25.820 Columbia, they don't have that exemption. And I've talked to people who have been hospitalized in

00:05:32.060 British Columbia. There's a woman who developed a condition called brachial neuritis as an adverse

00:05:37.240 reaction to her first dose. That's a it's a neurological condition. It's it's linked to to

00:05:44.340 vaccine injury. And she she can't move her arm, essentially, because her nerves and her arm have 0.82

00:05:51.680 been damaged. It's not a permanent injury, but she doesn't know how long it's going to take to

00:05:55.900 recover. She's also pregnant now. Since having the vaccine, she got pregnant. So she's she's concerned

00:06:02.780 about that to public health did an investigation in her case said this is likely an adverse reaction,

00:06:08.120 but you should still take the second dose. That's, that's insane to me. She's not listening to public 1.00

00:06:15.460 health advice. She's going to be listening to the advice of her, her neurologist who told her don't

00:06:20.760 do that because we don't know what other nerve damage it could do, including what nerve damage it

00:06:27.500 could do to your unborn baby. But this is a really important point. Because, you know, if we leave

00:06:34.420 this discretion about who is a legitimate and who is not a legitimate medical reason for not getting

00:06:41.560 who has a legitimate or not legitimate reason for not getting vaccinated, if we leave that to public

00:06:45.740 health, they would tell this woman to go and get her second dose, it needs to be at the discretion of 1.00

00:06:52.360 individual primary caregivers, and who actually, you know, have a real relationship with their

00:06:58.400 patient and care about the outcome for their patient, not just about about broad vaccination

00:07:03.860 rates. Yeah, I mean, you know, I take your point when we talk about how rare these side effects are.

00:07:08.760 I mean, most people I know are vaccinated, they've gotten the two shots, and I don't really know a

00:07:12.520 single person who has had a serious, you know, adverse reaction in terms of being hospitalized or

00:07:16.920 whatnot. I mean, the numbers, as we know, are very rare. But at the same time, you know, if a person

00:07:21.360 is in this situation, to your point about pregnant women who were saying, well, I'm, you know, I'm just

00:07:25.420 not sure, okay, maybe this doctor, this society said, it's totally fine to do it. But I'm still

00:07:29.640 just, you know, a little nervous about this. This is a new thing. I just want to hold off for a bit

00:07:33.820 until after I give birth or what have you. I mean, I don't see why we need to attack, belittle,

00:07:39.920 or restrict their participation from society, because of having what are obviously very earnest

00:07:45.040 concerns about about their own personal health. Yeah, so I've talked to a lot of people who have

00:07:50.600 a variety of complex medical histories. So people who have anaphylactic allergies to unknown triggers,

00:07:57.680 they don't know what exactly triggers their reaction, but they do have a diagnosed anaphylaxis,

00:08:03.840 people who have blood clotting disorders, people who have autoimmune disorders, people who have

00:08:08.140 pre existing heart conditions, like pre existing heart inflammation. For a lot of these patients,

00:08:14.080 the vaccine is a higher risk choice. And for a lot of them, their physicians do say,

00:08:19.000 you should still get vaccinated, because you know, COVID also poses a higher risk for these patients

00:08:25.420 than it does for a healthy person. But that's a really difficult trade off for some people to make,

00:08:30.040 right? It's a very personal trade off. And it is not appropriate for the government to try and force

00:08:37.660 an outcome in one direction or another about that very deeply personal trade off through policy like

00:08:44.500 vaccine passports, which the government and public health doctors are saying is about not just making

00:08:52.740 safer spaces, because they say they can't really do that. It's about increasing vaccination rates.

00:08:58.840 So I have a lot of concerns with the failure to accommodate people with complex medical histories or

00:09:05.720 who've had adverse reactions in British Columbia or Manitoba. I have concerns about what the medical

00:09:12.060 exemptions will look like in Ontario. And I just, I think we, we on its face have a discrimination

00:09:20.000 problem with this policy. Interesting, you should bring that up. I want to read a couple tweets that

00:09:25.700 were posted a couple days ago by Jamil Giovanni, who he's a radio host, but he's also the government

00:09:31.920 of Ontario's advocate for community opportunities. It's a it's an organization, I guess, well, part of the

00:09:37.500 government of Ontario, that that he represents, he says, as this advocate, I am 100% against provincial

00:09:43.360 mandatory vaccine passports, which will exclude and harm members of minority communities and others 0.68

00:09:48.560 who are vaccine hesitant because of historical abuses and matters of conscience. Now he posted this

00:09:53.920 as word on the street was getting out that Ontario is probably going to introduce this, he did this a

00:09:58.580 couple days ago. And then on Wednesday, after the government announced it, Jamil Giovanni then said

00:10:02.860 today's announcement does not change my views. I continue to oppose vaccine passports and other 1.00

00:10:07.380 measures that create a two tiered society. I will work with community members to document the impact

00:10:12.400 of these policies on minority groups and Canadians of all backgrounds more to come. He says, what should

00:10:18.500 we make of those concerns, Christine, that people like Jamil Giovanni and others have articulated that

00:10:23.180 this is a policy that will be discriminatory, particularly to people who have been discriminated a lot in the

00:10:29.500 past already. Yeah, I agree with him completely. I think if you look at the demographics of vaccination

00:10:39.280 uptake, there, there is less uptake among poor and racialized groups. So I have been really disappointed

00:10:47.460 with the language that I've seen used around vaccine passports, you know, people who support them talk

00:10:53.060 about unvaccinated people as if they're and not just as if I mean, I've seen tweets saying this saying

00:10:59.480 unvaccinated people are dirty, they're unclean, they're unwelcome in society. And this is really 1.00

00:11:05.720 bad for social cohesion, especially if vaccination rates are aligned with, you know, being a racialized 1.00

00:11:14.620 person. I don't think this type of language encourages anyone to get vaccinated. And as you know, I'm pro

00:11:21.820 vaccine, I'm double vaccinated. But I understand why some people might be apprehensive. And those are not

00:11:27.680 bad people. So we should stop talking about them like they are. I'm very concerned about really the

00:11:35.460 focus on other people's vaccine statuses, as opposed to a focus on your own in terms of the

00:11:42.000 emerging literature about what the vaccine does many infectious diseases, physicians who I'm privileged

00:11:47.060 to be able to check in with regularly to ask them what they think about the emerging data and so forth.

00:11:51.220 I mean, the data becomes increasingly clear that the vaccines are doing a pretty darn good job

00:11:54.820 of minimizing deaths, hospitalization, serious outcomes, and so forth. When it comes to the

00:12:00.280 transmission, things are getting murkier in terms of exactly, you know, what's going on in terms of

00:12:05.240 yes, vaccinated people still still testing positive for the virus, getting the virus, getting the viral

00:12:09.880 loads, being able to pass it on and so forth. And that second part, I mean, that's really the crux of

00:12:15.660 the vaccine passport argument, and the crux of why people are out there vilifying others and calling

00:12:21.640 them all these names, oh, you're going to be passing on the virus to me and so forth. And it's

00:12:25.420 kind of frustrating based on where the literature is at right now. I go, what is actually the what is

00:12:31.440 the efficacy actually of the vaccine passports based on the facts right now? I mean, I don't know that

00:12:38.400 there is a huge amount of evidence that this is going to actually create safer spaces. So I'm not,

00:12:47.260 you know, I'm not an epidemiologist, I'm not a scientist, I just sort of generally follow this

00:12:52.580 at a high level. And at a high level, we know that vaccinated people can still get infected,

00:12:57.640 and that they can still transmit. Of course, they don't get very sick, which is a good thing. It's a

00:13:03.340 good reason to get vaccinated. So you don't get sick. Sure. We also it looks like they don't get as

00:13:08.980 infected as easily as unvaccinated people. Right. But that's still, you know, we're getting into

00:13:15.840 smaller and smaller benefits of of this policy. I mean, we're chasing breadcrumbs here. And yet,

00:13:21.840 yeah, implementing a policy. Go ahead. And it's at the expense of our rights. It's at the expense

00:13:27.300 of some of our fundamental rights is at the expense of creating a society that's very divided. And I

00:13:36.200 think that there's also a rationality problem with this policy. Right. It it applies to guests of

00:13:42.940 restaurants. But as many people have pointed out, it doesn't apply to staff. So you could be a fully

00:13:49.740 vaccinated person in a in a room with all other fully vaccinated people. But the the staff at the

00:13:56.120 at the restaurant, all the waitresses and waiters are are unvaccinated. And we know that outbreaks

00:14:02.720 anecdotally seem to occur more frequently actually among staff than between guests. Because they're in

00:14:09.540 smaller spaces, you know, at the back of the restaurant, or what have you. That's sort of

00:14:13.260 what the anecdotal experience has been from this pandemic. And I think when you when you have I

00:14:19.760 think that that's a choice that the government made for practical reasons, right? I think that the

00:14:23.380 reason they did that, because if they tell these restaurants, you need to only have vaccinated staff,

00:14:27.980 I mean, they're gonna lose a lot of staff and restaurants are having a really hard time right

00:14:32.240 now retaining staff at all. So I think the government made that trade off. But at some point,

00:14:36.960 it's like, there's not a rational connection between the policy and actually reducing risk

00:14:42.320 here. But isn't that so interesting? And rational connection is a part of the test

00:14:45.520 for whether or not this is constitutional. I think you're so right about the restaurant

00:14:48.880 staffing issue. But it's so interesting that they'll put in these little these little sidebar

00:14:55.400 items there in the rules, because of lobbying for a particular industry or to deal with a particular

00:14:59.940 concern, a very valid concern, like the staffing. It reminds me of back when you weren't allowed to

00:15:04.020 see anybody else. And you couldn't have anybody in your home, except if there was a person who lived

00:15:08.640 alone, that person was always allowed to go to your house for dinner or what have you. And it's

00:15:13.480 like, well, I what does does the COVID not spread to that person? And they never sometimes they would

00:15:18.020 I remember Dr. Eileen Davila, Toronto's chief medical officer, she talked about basically, okay,

00:15:22.340 we don't want social isolation. Basically, you know, it's cruel and unusual punishment to say a person

00:15:27.480 just has to be solitary in their home and not see another human being for six months and so forth.

00:15:30.960 It's like, I appreciate that. But then you are not open to other sort of discretionary

00:15:37.640 bending of the rules in other situations where people are clearly suffering because of the lockdown

00:15:41.720 measures. So there's one type of suffering that you've said, we're not gonna allow to have happen,

00:15:46.180 but other types of suffering that you're kind of okay with. So it's funny how they leave these

00:15:50.220 little exemptions here and there. Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite exemptions in Ontario is that

00:15:55.820 you have to be vaccinated to go to a movie theater, but not to an aquarium. So I don't

00:16:01.900 really know where this is coming from. Other than it, I guess the aquariums had good lobbyists.

00:16:07.480 But yeah, I think a lot of the policies throughout COVID have have had a rationality problem. And

00:16:13.400 that's not to say everything is black and white, and everything needs to be consistent all the time.

00:16:18.020 But having a rational connection between the policy and the goal is a part of the analysis

00:16:23.380 that we look at under Section 1 when you consider whether or not a limit to our rights, and our

00:16:29.640 rights are engaged by this policy, if that limit is justified. If it's not rationally connected,

00:16:34.300 it's not a justified limit.

00:16:35.940 All right, let's get into that a lot more. Because as a litigation director at Canadian

00:16:39.680 Constitution Foundation, you and your colleagues have really been discussing these charter-involved

00:16:44.020 components of vaccine passports for quite some time. What does the charter say about this experiment

00:16:50.020 that Canadian society in multiple provinces has currently waded into?

00:16:54.720 Well, okay, so first, I'd say anyone who tells you whether this is 100% constitutional or 100%

00:17:00.600 unconstitutional, they just don't know, right? This is novel. As you said, it's a grand experiment

00:17:07.480 policy-wise that we're all going through. And we don't know where the courts would land on any of this.

00:17:13.560 But there are sort of three main rights that I think are engaged here. The first one we already

00:17:18.340 talked about, it's the discrimination aspect. It's the equality rights embedded in Section 15 of

00:17:24.440 the charter. So I won't go over that again. That's sort of, I think, most engaged in provinces where

00:17:30.340 there are no medical exemptions. And in those provinces, I think it's pretty ironclad that that

00:17:36.480 is a charter violation, and it's an unjustified one, especially because Ontario has created the

00:17:42.260 medical exemption, begs the question why BC and Manitoba think it's impossible. So clearly,

00:17:48.200 it's possible. Ontario is doing it. So I think the fact that, anyway, that we're really looking

00:17:54.020 really closely at challenging this in Manitoba and BC in particular, because I think the case

00:17:59.960 is so strong there.

00:18:01.040 Well, how did this happen, though, in the first place, staying on that for a moment? Because I

00:18:04.860 know you're familiar a bit with how government works, and these decisions are made, and how they

00:18:08.540 talk about things in the back channels. I mean, surely someone would have raised their hand and

00:18:12.400 told the Ministry of Health bureaucrats in BC and Manitoba, well, hold on a second, we may have a legal

00:18:17.220 problem. We may have a charter issue with this aspect or that aspect. I mean, how was that not

00:18:22.760 brought up more? Or do you think it was brought up and people say, we'll deal with it later? You know,

00:18:26.960 we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Yeah. So I actually spoke to someone in the

00:18:31.260 Ontario government about this before they announced it. I said, are you guys going to

00:18:34.400 include medical exemptions? And she said, well, if we don't want to be sued, we better. So I think

00:18:40.360 clearly it had to be on the radar for Manitoba and BC. I think the reason they said, go sue me.

00:18:47.020 That was the attitude. So I think that there's a bunch of points, right? Like first, I think

00:18:51.780 they did this in a rush. Second, they said, this is temporary. There's no way a lawsuit can

00:18:56.900 be started and concluded before in BC this policy is supposed to end in January. This is a thing

00:19:03.680 we've seen throughout the pandemic. We'll violate people's rights and we'll do it on a time limited

00:19:10.160 basis because we can get away with it because they won't actually get a hearing before it's all done.

00:19:16.960 And in large part, the courts were closed at the beginning of the pandemic, right? So this was a

00:19:22.460 really big problem. So I think that's part of why they did it. I think another reason

00:19:26.820 is because BC and Manitoba are probably concerned that people are going to have like a bunch of BS

00:19:32.780 medical reasons why they can't be vaccinated. Now, I do think that there are real reasons people

00:19:39.380 can't be vaccinated. We went over them at the beginning, but there's also a bunch of people

00:19:43.000 who are going to say, hey, here there's medical exemptions. I'll just get my doctor to write me

00:19:47.340 a note kind of on some ambiguous ground. And they don't actually have a real reason. You know,

00:19:52.880 there's crummy people in the world. There's people who park in disabled parking spots. 1.00

00:19:58.740 They're not disabled. They shouldn't do that. This is bad. But that doesn't mean we don't give 1.00

00:20:02.740 disabled people parking spaces because some people take advantage of it.

00:20:06.740 But at the same time, I feel like if someone so badly doesn't want to get vaccinated,

00:20:10.480 that they're willing to like go to the doctor and try and fake something and get an application

00:20:14.640 and so forth, I'm like, okay, this person really deeply cares about this for whatever reason.

00:20:18.460 We're already and Christine, this is always the part that I haven't really been able to get beyond.

00:20:22.420 We have the vast majority of people already vaccinated. So you got just a small percentage

00:20:27.420 of people who really don't want some of them probably just haven't gotten around to it. And

00:20:30.780 even smaller part just really don't want to. I'm like, okay, let the person just not do it.

00:20:36.080 I totally am there with you. I just don't think that falls under section 15.

00:20:40.160 That doesn't fall under equality rights. I think that that falls into our section 7 rights.

00:20:45.960 So let me explain that. So section 7 is our protection for life, liberty, and security person.

00:20:52.860 And I think that this vaccine passport policy engages both our liberty rights and our security 0.83

00:20:58.720 person rights. It engages liberty rights because we have a right to move around freely.

00:21:03.580 But I will say that that right does get limited a lot already.

00:21:06.700 For example, there are age restrictions that the government has on bars. There's restrictions

00:21:12.560 on going into municipal parks after dark and all kinds of restrictions on your ability to move

00:21:17.540 around. So I think there's a stronger argument that vaccine passports engage security of person

00:21:23.480 because you have the right to make choices about your own body.

00:21:26.600 And as the government restricts more and more public space and makes access to that public space subject

00:21:32.460 to an agreement to undergo a medical procedure, then the less it becomes a choice, right?

00:21:38.940 And undergoing any medical treatment needs to be on the basis of informed consent.

00:21:43.680 And as we take options away from people, that choice becomes less and less of a choice and more

00:21:49.460 and more of a coercive force. So we actually see our politicians and public health officials

00:21:56.360 talk about this as coercion, right? They say, this is the stick or this is the carrot and the stick.

00:22:02.180 And the reason to do this policy is to get more people vaccinated. And, you know, there are things

00:22:08.660 the government should do to get people to get vaccinated. They should educate people.

00:22:12.960 They should make access to vaccines convenient and easy and fast, but they should not be,

00:22:18.900 you know, limiting our fundamental rights as a rationale for increasing vaccination uptake.

00:22:28.260 That needs to be on the basis of voluntary choice and consent.

00:22:32.640 There's another issue I want to get your thoughts on, Christine. Sunset clauses, exit clauses,

00:22:38.100 adversarial review. When we talk about legislation or government measures that can

00:22:42.540 infringe upon our rights, typically there is, or at least should be the idea that, okay,

00:22:48.400 this thing gets expired automatically after this many years, this many months, what have you.

00:22:53.080 This was a big part of the war on terror conversation. And I remember Michael Ignatieff,

00:22:57.220 before he became liberal leader, when he was an academic at Harvard and so on in the United States,

00:23:01.800 he was actually one of the leading voices talking about the need for the adversarial review. And here's

00:23:06.380 how you do the war on terror, right? And these are sort of the ways, you know, you properly bring in

00:23:11.280 these different measures. And it was always like this thing, because it infringes upon our rights

00:23:16.620 must expire at a set time. And we must, if you're going to renew it, because they often do,

00:23:21.520 you must have a robust debate about that. Now in Ontario, Doug Ford said, this is a temporary

00:23:27.120 measure. We're going to get rid of it as soon as we possibly can. So I wrote to the government.

00:23:31.780 I said, I'm reading your documents that you've sent to the public, your documents that you've sent

00:23:36.000 to the public, and that you've sent to media and so forth. I'm not seeing an expiry date. I'm not

00:23:40.560 seeing an end date. Oh, well, you know, yeah, we're planning to get rid of it as soon as possible.

00:23:44.200 There is nothing like that. And that concerns me, Christine.

00:23:48.040 Yeah, I noticed that as well. And I think that that goes to the section one analysis, which is,

00:23:52.680 you know, this limits our rights is the limit justified. I think having it be time limited

00:23:57.740 makes it more easy to justify. But I still, even if they did put a time limit on this, Anthony,

00:24:05.240 which BC has done, they've said it's going to expire, I think, mid or near the end of January,

00:24:11.900 even when they do time limit it, I think they need to make it time limited subject to, you know,

00:24:18.200 parliamentary debate, not subject to the public health officials renewing it, which is, I think,

00:24:25.700 how it's going to happen, right? I think in a lot of these places, they're being brought in by way

00:24:30.480 of regulation, or public health order. And a lot of the things that were temporary public health

00:24:39.660 rules, we are still living with today. And like the war on terror stuff that you mentioned,

00:24:46.420 I still take my shoes off when I go through metal detector at the airport. So a lot of the things that

00:24:51.240 are brought in as temporary are still here today. I even if they said it's time limited, we need to

00:24:58.360 we they really need to make it clear how it gets renewed, how often it can be renewed, is it subject

00:25:04.320 to debate and scrutiny? Or is it just like a regulatory renewal? All of that goes to section one about

00:25:11.420 whether or not this is justified with without the sunset clauses in place, and some type of oversight

00:25:18.880 and debate, I think they're harder to justify. Christine, one thing I want to get your thoughts

00:25:23.160 on is how this applies to youth, to children, to the rights of children. It is a part of the whole

00:25:29.480 pandemic response that has really frustrated me as a parent, as someone who's watched small children

00:25:35.700 sometimes have their playgrounds taken away from them being denied so much despite the fact that

00:25:41.000 many pediatricians pretty much say coronavirus in kids, we've thankfully learned, is less severe

00:25:47.500 than influenza. And yet we continue to bring in policies that really restrict kids lives. And

00:25:52.880 in Ontario, in BC, you know, when we talk about vaccine passports, people are saying, Oh, I can't

00:25:57.520 go to the gym for this. I can't go to the movie theater for this. The vaccine passports also apply

00:26:02.400 to 12 to 17 year olds, there will be 12 year olds who will be denied entry to these facilities,

00:26:08.500 unless they show their vaccination documents.

00:26:10.800 Yeah, I think that that's a really great point. Right now, the policy does not apply to those who

00:26:17.560 are under 12, right? My kids are under 12. So they, they're not vaccinated. They'd be able to go into

00:26:25.080 the into restaurants without me. I think the case for most adults to get vaccinated is a really strong

00:26:32.220 one. I think people should get vaccinated, if they're able to unless they have some, you know,

00:26:36.800 medical reason that prevents them from getting vaccinated. It's a good idea to get vaccinated.

00:26:42.980 I think adults, especially older adults, if you're in your 70s, get vaccinated. I think that the case

00:26:50.260 is less compelling for for young people. I if I had a child who was 12, I would still vaccinate my 12 0.92

00:26:57.860 year old, my children are not 12. But if if they if they were, they would be vaccinated. But I understand

00:27:03.780 a lot of parents who who aren't making that choice. And what about countries where they can't make that

00:27:10.800 choice? Because in the United Kingdom, for instance, they have decided that 16 and 17 year olds can get

00:27:15.760 it. But the younger ones cannot. And I know that's a debate they're having. And so forth. I just find

00:27:21.100 the polar difference so interesting that in the UK, a 12 year old cannot right now get get vaccinated.

00:27:27.520 In British Columbia and Ontario, a 12 year old cannot go see a Pokemon movie or what have you.

00:27:33.520 Unless they have received two doses of this vaccine that they can't even get in the UK. I mean, it's just

00:27:39.200 it's such a gulf between the two. Yeah, I mean, but and it's because we're listening to the science, right?

00:27:45.000 And the science is completely unanimous. Cross Atlantic science. Yeah.

00:27:50.620 Yeah. So I just think that it becomes it becomes harder and harder when you have a part of the population,

00:27:59.500 like like young people who are not vaccinated and who the case for vaccination is is more of a community case.

00:28:07.760 Right. It's about like protecting other people. It's less about protecting, you know, 15 year old boys who actually,

00:28:14.660 you know, the trade off might weigh for them on their individual health might weigh against vaccination because of the increased risks of heart inflammation,

00:28:23.540 which I still say is rare. And I would still make that choice if I had a son who was was over 12.

00:28:30.000 But for some, I don't get to make the choices for everybody. That's the whole thing that we're forgetting.

00:28:34.860 We live in a liberal democracy. We don't get to run the lives of other people.

00:28:38.860 And I think that there's a whole lot of people working in this government who think that they would make better choices about your children than you would.

00:28:46.900 They know better. They they they would they would run your life for you.

00:28:52.600 And that's not how liberal democracies work. We need to be accepting that people are different from us and have different priorities,

00:29:00.940 different trade offs, make different choices, and we can't punish them for being different.

00:29:05.640 And that has really been lost in all of the conversation around vaccine passports.

00:29:10.800 And you've hit upon, I think, the million dollar point that has been missed, not just in vaccine passports,

00:29:16.380 but throughout all of the pandemic, this idea that public health officials, well, they come out and they advise, they recommend, they strongly urge.

00:29:24.140 They say, look, guys, you know, we want to minimize this virus. We want best health for everyone.

00:29:28.460 We really don't want anyone getting ill. Here's what we really think you should be doing.

00:29:32.040 And you're going to get a really high compliance rate on it.

00:29:35.200 You're going to get there's been studies already into this that, you know, places that don't actually threaten you with fines or, you know, police coming to get you and so forth.

00:29:44.280 You know, U.S. states who legislate this versus that and so forth.

00:29:47.200 I mean, you still get very high compliance on the voluntary measures.

00:29:50.600 And I think we've really lost as a society this general idea that, yeah, you know, not everyone's 100 percent like you.

00:29:57.060 Why isn't this guy doing this? Well, I don't know, just because they're not like I don't know why I don't know what's going on in that guy's head.

00:30:02.460 He's not doing it. And you just have to learn to accept that.

00:30:06.260 And we've lost that. And that's what really worries me about the mentality right now.

00:30:09.960 The sort of the indignation that so many people are encouraged by encouraged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to feel about someone who is just not living exactly the way you are living right now.

00:30:21.760 Especially when that person might be from a different social class or they might look different from you.

00:30:28.040 And when vaccine rates are divided along those, they're divided along socioeconomic and racial lines.

00:30:37.940 I mean, that's really bad for social cohesion, which we should be working to to build a more cohesive society, not divide society this way.

00:30:47.340 And I just want to add to what you were saying that on voluntary vaccination rates, we have such high voluntary rates in Canada.

00:30:56.440 They were high before these mandates came in.

00:30:59.100 And I just don't see the rationale for severely limiting people's freedom of movement, access to public spaces when most people in society are already vaccinated.

00:31:13.260 And certainly the people who are most at risk of getting actually sick from this virus are vaccinated.

00:31:21.720 People who are older, who are medically compromised.

00:31:23.640 Those people are vaccinated.

00:31:25.520 So I just don't see the rationale when the risk is it has has been reduced already.

00:31:31.600 Christine, what are the next steps?

00:31:33.400 Where do we go from here?

00:31:35.860 Yeah, so that's a great question.

00:31:38.060 I am working with some individuals in Manitoba and in British Columbia who I've written to both of those governments.

00:31:45.900 We're looking to challenge those vaccine passport mandates in those provinces.

00:31:52.900 If you are interested in learning more about those challenges as they progress, you can sign up for our mailing list at the ccf.ca.

00:32:00.940 And we'll be sure to update you as those cases progress.

00:32:04.900 Right now, we're just at the stage where we've written to the governments in those provinces and we are retaining lawyers.

00:32:12.600 So we haven't filed anything yet, but that is definitely something we are looking really, really seriously at.

00:32:20.360 And I don't know if your listeners know, but we have been involved in a number of challenges related to COVID restrictions already.

00:32:28.860 So I am not all talk.

00:32:30.820 I am action here.

00:32:32.160 And I am really compelled by some of the stories of these people I've talked to.

00:32:36.440 So I'm thrilled that I'm going to be able to help them in some way.

00:32:40.060 Christine Van Gein, Litigation Director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

00:32:44.480 Thanks so much for joining us.

00:32:46.180 Thank you.

00:32:47.920 Full Comment is a post-media podcast.

00:32:50.160 I'm Anthony Fury.

00:32:51.220 This episode was produced by Andre Proulx, with theme music by Bryce Hall.

00:32:55.000 Kevin Libin is the executive producer.

00:32:57.200 You can subscribe to Full Comment on Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:33:02.500 You can help us by giving us a rating or a review and by telling your friends about us.

00:33:06.280 Thanks for listening.

00:33:10.060 Thank you.

Full Comment - September 06, 2021

Why vaccine passports make things worse

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