Juno News - September 04, 2021


Are vaccine passports suppressing participation in civic life？


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

168.4529

Word Count

854

Sentence Count

3


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 because a handful of provinces have introduced vaccine passports in the midst of an election
00:00:08.880 many people are wondering how this might affect our right to vote elections canada made it clear
00:00:15.160 right away that proof of vaccination would not be required in order to cast a ballot but that
00:00:20.920 doesn't mean that the vaccine passports aren't interfering with election activities because i
00:00:26.900 would argue that they are firstly people's party of canada ppc leader maxime bernier because he is
00:00:34.180 not vaccinated he chose not to get the covid vaccine he was not able to campaign in pei
00:00:40.140 nova scotia or newfoundland and labrador as he would be subject to an 8 to 14 day isolation period
00:00:47.120 which is just not feasible with such a short campaigning window so that means people in
00:00:52.580 those provinces who wanted to meet maxime bernier attend one of his rallies or events hear him speak
00:00:58.980 hear his ideas they were not able to do so and likewise bernier was unable to connect with potential
00:01:05.760 voters in that region simply because he does not have a certain vaccination and the option of rapid
00:01:12.280 testing is for some reason not being offered i was reading my local newspaper the other day
00:01:17.220 and it announced what day the all candidates meeting in my local riding would be which is good
00:01:23.620 news to me as i like to attend these events get informed and hear what these candidates have to say
00:01:29.380 and this event is occurring in mid-september but i thought wait september 13th is the day that the
00:01:35.620 vaccine passports come into effect in british columbia and the vaccine passport applies to indoor
00:01:41.460 organized meetings so i asked the the chamber of commerce because they are the event organizers
00:01:47.320 if they would be requiring proof of first dose vaccination to attend this all candidates meeting
00:01:53.300 and they said yes you will have to sign a declaration uh saying that you have your first dose
00:01:59.360 so because i uh made the decision not to get the covid 19 vaccine i will not be able to attend that
00:02:07.180 election event i won't be able to hear these candidates speak and you know these are the
00:02:11.920 people who are vying to represent me in public office i won't be able to ask a question won't be
00:02:17.540 able to try to talk to them or their their party representatives face to face after the event
00:02:22.360 none of that and many will try to argue that i'm perfectly welcome to tune into a live stream
00:02:28.040 however you know a virtual event just does not provide the same opportunities to directly ask
00:02:35.020 questions or speak to the candidates and you know i have always maintained that virtual events cannot
00:02:40.800 replace in-person events in any scenario really um because you don't get the same kind of feeling of
00:02:47.400 community um you don't get the same opportunity to assess the feel of a room um and express yourself
00:02:54.440 that kind of thing so you know i ask the people who are pro-mandatory vaccination
00:03:01.680 is it really okay with you that because someone made a health decision not to get the covid
00:03:08.080 vaccination or they made a personal risk assessment uh not to get the covid vaccination is it okay with
00:03:14.200 you that they should be denied full participation in democracy because i also came across two other
00:03:21.280 election all candidates meetings in quebec that are requiring proof of vaccination and identification to
00:03:26.980 attend the event and there are two or three total in british columbia uh that are requiring vaccination
00:03:33.780 and likely more to come as more all candidates debates are being organized and so i asked elections canada
00:03:40.520 if they're concerned about this um and they're not because they said that all candidates meetings are
00:03:46.360 privately organized events and it has nothing to do with them however i talked to civil liberties lawyer
00:03:51.980 james kitchen and he said that just because these events are privately organized it doesn't mean that
00:03:57.640 the charter doesn't apply in the context of a political debate section 7 and 8 of the charter can apply
00:04:05.120 and vaccine passports could be violating the charter so i i wrote an article about this um i'll link it in
00:04:12.240 the description here so you can check it out but what i'm getting at here is that we are so early in the
00:04:17.040 introduction of these vaccine passports and a lot of people are predicting that these things are going
00:04:22.680 to be sticking around or they might evolve into a larger program and you know if already within the
00:04:30.680 first few few days and weeks of these vaccination passports we're already seeing um you know some
00:04:37.720 people being denied participation in civic life you know denied the opportunity to participate in
00:04:43.200 democracy um what else is going to come of this that's my concern but uh you can let me know what
00:04:50.520 you think in the comments i'm lindsay shepherd with true north if you enjoy true north's coverage and
00:04:56.260 commentary please consider supporting us at donate.tnc.news otherwise i will see you next time thanks bye