Juno News - September 04, 2021Are vaccine passports suppressing participation in civic life？
Episode Stats
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Summary
Vaccination passports have been introduced in the midst of an election and many people are wondering how this might affect their right to vote. Is this a good or bad thing? In this episode, I discuss the introduction of Vaccination Passports and why they are a concern for democracy and civil liberties.
Transcript
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because a handful of provinces have introduced vaccine passports in the midst of an election
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many people are wondering how this might affect our right to vote elections canada made it clear
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right away that proof of vaccination would not be required in order to cast a ballot but that
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doesn't mean that the vaccine passports aren't interfering with election activities because i
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would argue that they are firstly people's party of canada ppc leader maxime bernier because he is
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not vaccinated he chose not to get the covid vaccine he was not able to campaign in pei
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nova scotia or newfoundland and labrador as he would be subject to an 8 to 14 day isolation period
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which is just not feasible with such a short campaigning window so that means people in
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those provinces who wanted to meet maxime bernier attend one of his rallies or events hear him speak
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hear his ideas they were not able to do so and likewise bernier was unable to connect with potential
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voters in that region simply because he does not have a certain vaccination and the option of rapid
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testing is for some reason not being offered i was reading my local newspaper the other day
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and it announced what day the all candidates meeting in my local riding would be which is good
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news to me as i like to attend these events get informed and hear what these candidates have to say
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and this event is occurring in mid-september but i thought wait september 13th is the day that the
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vaccine passports come into effect in british columbia and the vaccine passport applies to indoor
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organized meetings so i asked the the chamber of commerce because they are the event organizers
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if they would be requiring proof of first dose vaccination to attend this all candidates meeting
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and they said yes you will have to sign a declaration uh saying that you have your first dose
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so because i uh made the decision not to get the covid 19 vaccine i will not be able to attend that
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election event i won't be able to hear these candidates speak and you know these are the
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people who are vying to represent me in public office i won't be able to ask a question won't be
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able to try to talk to them or their their party representatives face to face after the event
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none of that and many will try to argue that i'm perfectly welcome to tune into a live stream
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however you know a virtual event just does not provide the same opportunities to directly ask
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questions or speak to the candidates and you know i have always maintained that virtual events cannot
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replace in-person events in any scenario really um because you don't get the same kind of feeling of
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community um you don't get the same opportunity to assess the feel of a room um and express yourself
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that kind of thing so you know i ask the people who are pro-mandatory vaccination
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is it really okay with you that because someone made a health decision not to get the covid
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vaccination or they made a personal risk assessment uh not to get the covid vaccination is it okay with
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you that they should be denied full participation in democracy because i also came across two other
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election all candidates meetings in quebec that are requiring proof of vaccination and identification to
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attend the event and there are two or three total in british columbia uh that are requiring vaccination
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and likely more to come as more all candidates debates are being organized and so i asked elections canada
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if they're concerned about this um and they're not because they said that all candidates meetings are
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privately organized events and it has nothing to do with them however i talked to civil liberties lawyer
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james kitchen and he said that just because these events are privately organized it doesn't mean that
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the charter doesn't apply in the context of a political debate section 7 and 8 of the charter can apply
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and vaccine passports could be violating the charter so i i wrote an article about this um i'll link it in
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the description here so you can check it out but what i'm getting at here is that we are so early in the
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introduction of these vaccine passports and a lot of people are predicting that these things are going
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to be sticking around or they might evolve into a larger program and you know if already within the
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first few few days and weeks of these vaccination passports we're already seeing um you know some
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people being denied participation in civic life you know denied the opportunity to participate in
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democracy um what else is going to come of this that's my concern but uh you can let me know what
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you think in the comments i'm lindsay shepherd with true north if you enjoy true north's coverage and
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commentary please consider supporting us at donate.tnc.news otherwise i will see you next time thanks bye