Juno News - January 14, 2022Quebec's tax on the unvaccinated is coercive, totalitarian, and just plain wrong
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Summary
In this episode, Andrew Lawton talks about the Quebec's proposed tax on the unvaccinated, and why he thinks this is a backdoor to a mandatory vaccination mandate. He also talks about foreign interference in Canadian elections and domestic interference in our liberties.
Transcript
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Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show. This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.
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Coming up, we have foreign interference in Canadian elections and domestic interference in Canadian liberties.
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Welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.
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We'll be talking later on in the program with former Conservative MP Kenny Chu about interference, not just in Canada's elections, as I said in the teaser there,
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but also in Canada's system of government, Canada's institutions.
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A lot of it's coming from China, but the whole point of it is that we have vulnerabilities that could actually be exploited by any actor.
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So we'll talk about that later on in the show with Kenny.
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But I do want to talk a little bit more about Quebec's proposed tax on the unvaccinated, which is really just a backdoor way into a vaccine mandate.
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I played the clip in the last show. I have to play it again.
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Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal health minister, has said that he thinks provinces inevitably will go down the road of mandating vaccination.
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First, it's a view which is based on my personal understanding of what we see internationally and domestically,
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and in conversations with my colleagues, health ministers, over the last few weeks.
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And second, it's a decision that will be made by provinces and territories at some point, whether they move forward or not, that's going to be their decision to make.
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But what we see now is that our health care system in Canada is fragile.
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And the only way that we know to go through COVID-19, this variant and any future variant is through vaccination, PPE, physical distancing, tests, rapid tests, PCR tests.
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But what will make us move through this crisis and end it is vaccination.
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And I see in my own province, 50 percent of hospitalizations now in Quebec are due to people not having been vaccinated.
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That's a burden on health care workers, a burden on society, which is very difficult to bear and for many people difficult to understand.
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So that's why I'm signaling this as a conversation, which I believe provinces and territories in support with the federal government will want to have over the next weeks and months.
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You're going to be seeing a lot of that clip because it is such an important one, the federal government deciding that it's up to the provincial governments in this country to figure out whether you should get vaccinated, not your own choice.
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And when Quebec says, OK, what we're going to do is we're going to make you pay if you're unvaccinated.
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They're not mandating it because, again, they're saying, well, you still have a choice.
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But what they're doing is they're further stratifying societies.
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And in Quebec, when they put this forward, if you are not vaccinated, you will have to pay extra.
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And how the government is rationalizing this is by saying that, well, your burden on the health care system is if you are unvaccinated higher than if you're vaccinated.
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So they're trying to basically say that you have to pay for what the government says is your increased share of the health care system.
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A lot of the criticism that this has gotten from the left, for example, NDP member of parliament, I think it was Don Davies,
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had said that he doesn't like that this would compromise the universality of health care in Canada.
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It's not, well, I think it's wrong to judge people based on their vaccination status.
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It's, well, we can't do anything that steps on the toes of universal health care.
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But, hey, I'll take opposition to this however we get it.
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I think what the government is aiming to do is put forward a policy that seems unintrusive, that they can pretend is not intrusive,
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that they can pretend isn't just trampling on your right to bodily autonomy and your right as an individual to make these decisions.
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And they're saying, well, we're going to do it in the tax code.
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So that's how they're getting around the enforceability problem.
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This might be something that is on your income tax returns.
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So either you have to declare vaccinated or unvaccinated, or perhaps Health Quebec records are being sent over to Revenue Quebec,
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which raises a host of monumental other issues.
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Because what happens if we start taking this actuarial approach to health care in general?
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You know, I was on a left-wing podcast about this.
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Because a lot of the people on the left, and by the way, I've seen a lot of criticism left and right of this Legault tax.
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But if you are on the left and you believe in health care in this country as birthright, as so many Canadians do,
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Because if we go down the road of starting to demand that Canadians pay for their share of health care,
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which is basically what you're doing when you pay for something based on a risk criteria,
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if you do that, you're opening the door to a whole host of other issues in health care
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that I don't think people want to do in Canada.
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Bringing in that Americanized approach to health care that is so often resisted and rejected by Canadians.
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Sure, let's start changing your tax rate based on whether you smoke,
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whether you eat crappy food, whether you go to the gym or not, all of these other things.
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And some people will say, well, a lot of this stuff is embedded in sin taxes on tobacco.
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In many provinces, alcohol is just taxed at the regular sales tax.
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There's not a special alcohol tax per se that is tied to the health care system.
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And even in Ontario, when they did have a tax that was special to liquor,
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and I think they do still to some extent, but it's more hidden.
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They were not putting it always to health care.
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It was, oh, we're going to schools, we're going to roads.
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The OPSU, the union representing LCBO employees, liquor store employees,
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was always saying that this was basically just more government revenue.
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So the idea that these taxes are only tied to the health care system is just not accurate.
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And let's look at, I don't cover sports at all,
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but let's look at someone like Novak Djokovic in Australia,
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a guy who was held up in some immigration detention gulag because he wasn't vaccinated,
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Novak Djokovic is, despite being unvaccinated, probably healthier and more fit than,
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not probably, he is healthier and more fit than most people in the world.
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So I would take an unvaccinated Novak Djokovic and say that he is going to be responsible for less
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health care expenditures if he were in a public system than a fully vaccinated person who has
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Not even someone who's just, you know, like the opposite, but even someone who has just an
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average size, average health concerns and all of that stuff, average level of fitness and diet.
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So he's going to be less burdensome, but he would still be subject to that tax.
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He would still be subject under the Legault idea, irrespective of how much or how little
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health care he or anyone else uses, people have to pay the tax if they're unvaccinated
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and they don't have to pay it if they're vaccinated.
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But it's a backdoor into trying to make it so that health care is no longer the public good
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that Canadians have, generally speaking, affirmed they want.
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Now, by the way, I am totally, totally for an overhaul of the health care system.
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I find it is something that we cling to despite its shortcomings and we deliberately, deliberately
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delude ourselves into thinking that it lacks the inferiority it does.
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Now, I'm not proposing replacing it with the US system.
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There are a host of other systems around the world that do better than both Canada and the
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Nevertheless, I'm saying that right now, if we're going to have that health care discussion,
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So I do think there are both left-wing and right-wing premises that can be used to defeat
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My position on this is that all of these things are secondary.
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The most important one is that we should not be stratifying society.
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Government should not be using coercive measures to mandate anything along the lines of a personal
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They're questions you can litigate, but they're political questions.
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The fundamental moral question is, does the government have a right to coerce vaccination?
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I mean, I don't know how you sell that point to people who at this stage in the pandemic
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I mentioned on the last show, there are a lot of people who would say, well, you know,
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And it's the same as the big frustrations about privacy rights.
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People who use that old trope, well, I've got nothing to hide.
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Your right to privacy is more important than individual things you might want to keep private.
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Your right to decide for yourself whether you want to get vaccinated is more important
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The choice to do something matters more than the substance and the specifics and the details
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You have to look at the bigger picture of these situations because you may agree with the
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outcome, you may say, yes, Quebec wants there to be more people vaccinated.
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Apparently there was a surge in first dose appointments after they announced this tax.
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So they're already saying, you can see in the news coverage here, they're already saying,
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I mean, that was like in Ontario and BC and all these other places when they put in the vaccine
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The governments were saying, see, vaccine passports work.
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It's not something over which you can claim victory when the measure you use to coerce someone
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succeeds in exacting the behavior you were trying to coerce.
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We're not talking about whether it's effective.
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We're talking about whether it's right or whether it's wrong.
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Going door to door with needles and just tying people down who are unvaccinated and jabbing
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In fact, I would say to Quebecers outright, to the Quebec government and to Canadians wholesale
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here, that just because you see vaccination go up doesn't mean it's working.
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Because people are feeling coerced by government.
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People who may not have and probably at this stage wouldn't have gotten vaccinated on their
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And I know this may be perplexing, my position on this, because I stand by being pro-vaccination.
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But I am vehemently against mandatory vaccination.
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And I have zero issue reconciling those two positions.
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Now, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has come out, and I thought they were not as
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In fact, against the vaccine passports earlier on, I thought they were more silent.
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Now, they have done some stuff and they have been speaking out a bit more, but they've come
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out swinging against the Quebec vaccination tax.
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Kara Zwiebel, who's a tremendous advocate for civil liberties, says of the Civil Liberties
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Association, that our Charter recognizes individual autonomy over our bodies and medical decisions.
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Allowing the government to levy fines on those who do not agree with the government's recommended
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medical treatment is a deeply troubling proposition to justify this kind of restriction on constitutionally
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The government must provide clear and compelling evidence and demonstrate that there were no
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Now, that right there is out of the Oaks test in the Charter, basically, which is how
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governments defend their violations of your constitutional rights.
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And this is a legally sound, a morally sound proposition.
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The problem is, I don't know if it's politically sound.
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And that's the danger here, is that there are a lot of people that think what Francois Legault
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is doing in Quebec are hunky-dory, and they'd like to see other provinces doing the same.
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A report in the Toronto Sun by Brian Lilly says a poll shows a majority across Canada back an
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It was by Maru Public Opinion said that 60% of Canadians would support the concept put
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The federal health minister, of course, has said that we need to move towards mandatory
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That was ultimately the spirit in which they did this poll.
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They did this poll before Legault even announced it and found that 60% of Canadians were
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saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, tax the unvaccinated.
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And it's amazing when, I mean, if you study political theory at all, you'll know there's
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And it's something that political theorists agonize over, of how do you govern a population
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that has not necessarily consented to being governed because they've been born into a society
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This is proof that I think a lot of that is unnecessary because people will consent to their
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People will consent to a regime that tramples on their individual rights if they don't
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My goal on the show is to try to tell people who don't necessarily see that, that yeah,
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Even if the specific circumstances don't affect you, the precedent will.
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And by the way, I don't even think the precedent is that far off here because if Francois Legault's
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regime is applying to three doses, it's very likely that when we come time to get our fourth
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And someone who has doses one, two, and three is facing the unvaccinated tax if they don't
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So even if you are triple dosed right now, this could very easily affect you if the boosters
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become as perennial and permanent as they're certainly feeling.
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I think it's in France where they're talking about boosters every four months.
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So triennial or triannual, I always get the two mixed up, triennial or triannual boosters
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That's the direction it seems like we are headed.
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So I feel and I fear that it is politically saleable to start throwing up all these hurdles
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and roadblocks and restrictions on the unvaccinated who are a minority group.
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I mentioned in my newsletter last week that government right now has no choice.
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Government's legitimacy is absolutely shattered.
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So it has no choice but to try to find a population and scapegoat it for their problems.
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And for Justin Trudeau, that's the unvaccinated.
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They're looking at this group and saying, well, don't look at us and our advice that was
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wrong and our bungled border closure and our mismatched guidance and flip-flops on masks.
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Government leaders are sowing this division, driving wedges between the vaccinated and the
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unvaccinated because they are trying to and succeeding at scapegoating unvaccinated people
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Why not just say, we believe vaccination is the way to go.
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We believe in the science supports that vaccination protects you.
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We've been telling you for two years about this.
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We were telling you when we were developing the vaccination.
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You've seen a year of your friends getting vaccinated.
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Why not let people make their own decisions and be held accountable for those decisions?
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Now, you may say, think it sounds like a callous or uncompassionate policy, but it's
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better than the alternative, which is government making these decisions for people.
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Because freedom to make decisions is also the obligation, the responsibility to deal with
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And the only way you can get rid of that responsibility and get rid of those consequences
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And that's the path that government is trying to do here.
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You have no ability to make your own decisions.
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In fact, with lockdowns, a lot of people are barely surviving as individuals, let alone
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So what we're seeing from government now is this insistence that we're going to blame
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this group, yet also deny them the right to just do what they want after two years,
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which is the hallmark of being in a liberal society.
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And to go back to that polling for a moment, like I said, I fear that's correct.
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I fear that we are headed towards a period where most Canadians would quite easily throw
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their own liberties under the bus just despite their neighbor they may not like.
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Doug Ford had come out and said that he's not planning to go the road of the vax tax.
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Should we follow Premier Legault's vax attacks?
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Every single person that's not vaccinated, please protect yourself.
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Yeah, no one else is following along with what Francois Legault is doing.
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Will your government provide an actual card or proof of vaccination?
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Everyone gets their proof when they get the vaccination.
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If it's federal, getting across the border, that's up to the federal government.
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The vaccine passport exists and still exists, even though it was supposed to be gone by now.
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So I am not relaxing and resting on my laurels when all of these politicians across the country
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say at this particular moment in time that they don't plan on doing what Quebec is doing.
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They don't plan on doing what Jean-Yves Duclos is doing.
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I said last week, politicians need to be standing up loudly and denouncing and not just saying
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And if anyone does, they should resign and actually start putting some stakes,
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putting some stakes there so that if they go back on it, we can tell them, hey, you made
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I'm not optimistic of it, but that's what I would like to see emerge from this.
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When we come back, we'll talk to conservative and former MP Kenny Chu.
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Welcome back to The Andrew Lawton Show here on True North.
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There was a story bubbling around during the last election in August and September of 2021
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that didn't get a huge amount of national coverage.
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And even now, I would say it hasn't gotten a huge amount.
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More and more people are starting to talk about it.
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But this was a campaign that was taking place, a disinformation campaign against conservative
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He had been a strong and vocal supporter of Canada and democracy and human rights and
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had thus criticized the Chinese regime, which raised the ire of the Chinese regime.
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There were a number of messages swirling around in WeChat and elsewhere criticizing and saying
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things that were just patently untrue about Kenny Chu.
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And there were a lot of people that were raising questions, talking about whether this might
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have had the fingerprints of a state actor, namely China.
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Not just people in the Chinese diaspora talking, but something more orchestrated and organized
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Now, this is just one simple sliver of how foreign influence can take place.
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Misinformation, disinformation campaigns are a hallmark of foreign interference.
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If you are trying to upend a regime in another part of the world, you've got to get people
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talking, give a movement, give an idea a life of its own, which is what happens when
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these messages start swirling around in WeChat.
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And by the way, I ran as a candidate in 2018 in the provincial election in Ontario.
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I had WeChat, so I'm sure the Chinese regime had a file for me because it's a great way
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to connect with people who don't really use other forms of social media.
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The Chinese community is very conservative, very vocal.
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The problem is whether the Chinese diaspora and WeChat were being used by the Chinese regime
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or another actor to sow discord and whether that ultimately cost Kenny Chu, who was a good
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I want to talk about this in a bit more detail here because there was a report that came out last
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Researchers from McGill have found there's evidence to suggest Kenny Chu was directly
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I want to talk to the former conservative member of parliament directly here.
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So let me ask you first what all of this is about, because I know that you were a conservative
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MP, we had a lot of concerns that people had raised right after the election that in your
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seat and in some other seats, it seemed like there was some targeted misinformation going
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on that we could trace back to the Chinese regime.
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Well, in fact, Andrew, this is not something new.
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And this is not happening during the election, nor while I was a member of parliament.
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In fact, the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency, as well as the parliament's National
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Security Intelligence Committee, they've been they've been both sounding the alarm as early
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CESA's head Richard Fathen has already tabled concerns and also mentioned that China, Russia,
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and Iran are actively trying to infiltrate and also impacting Canada.
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And this is something that Canadians should take note.
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And the parliamentarians, the legislators should take responsibility to legislate to
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And that's basically the incentive behind my private member bill, Bill C-282, in the last
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So that bill, C-282, it was supposed to go after these sorts of influence campaigns in
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In 1938, the United States actually established something called FARA, the Foreign Agents Registry
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And in 2017, the Australians did something similar.
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And my bill was basically modeling after the Australians and, you know, in hoping that Canada
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The bill itself, if you look at it, Andrew, it's quite innocuous.
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And if you, some critics may actually say that it doesn't achieve much.
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And their criticism is actually right, because what I want is just the transparency.
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People who work for a foreign government or agent to influence our legislators, our member of
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parliament, senators, or other power office, they can continue to do that, to ask them to
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change some bills, to ask them to grant some grants, to do exactly what they want.
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And all my bill was asking is be transparent, leave it in the air, under the sun.
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And they will allow journalists such as yourself and True North to examine what's in the deal.
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And therefore, they will be able to let Canadians to determine whether these interference and
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So if, as you say, your bill wasn't actually going to change this, it wasn't going to stop
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it, it was just going to shine a light on it, is that enough?
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I mean, is that actually the kind of thing that would disrupt this misinformation, prevent
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it from taking place, and the disinformation influence and all these related issues that
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You know, give you a totally hypothetical example here.
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Let's say the new regime in Afghanistan, they've decided to ask the Canadian government to remove
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them from the terrorist list, terrorist nations list.
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And therefore, they empower some between some Afghans or non-Afghans, actually, or maybe just
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a white guy, to connect them with the Canadian senators and member of parliaments, so that they
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can lobby these government officials to remove the Taliban from the terrorist list.
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And that would be something that my private member bill would capture.
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And all they have to do is just register the fact that they are operating under the Afghan
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Taliban regime, and they're lobbying certain MPs or senators or government officials.
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So why is it that this bill, and let me take a step back here, I don't think it was just
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this bill that put you on the radar if we're talking about Chinese regime interference, because
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I know you've been a very strong critic of Chinese human rights abuses, you've been a
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big proponent of democracy, so this is not just an isolated incident, this is part of what's
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really been for you a long period of trying to push for accountability and transparency in
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Well, Andrew, I was a member of parliament for Canadian.
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I wasn't a member of parliament for the anti-Chinese Communist Party people or activists.
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My interest is to protect my Canadian compatriots first and foremost, and then also there are
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Canadian core values that we believe we hold up to, and that's why as the Vice Chair for the
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subcommittee of international human rights, I've been speaking up for the Rohingyas, you know, how they
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were being treated by Burma, and the Yashidis, how they were being treated by the Syrians, but also as
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well, you know, how the Hong Kongers and the Uyghurs are being treated by the Chinese Communist Party as
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well. So, yes, I believe in democracy, I believe in representative democracy, and therefore I'm just
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speaking as a member of parliament, as a parliamentarian, you know, advocating for for Canadian values for my
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Do you think that the influence here that we're talking about cost you your seat, or do you think it was
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something that was there, and there's, you know, not really a way to quantify how big an effect it had at the
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how one actually lost or won a campaign, and I'm not saying, I'm not saying I'm not blaming
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it's the Chinese Communist Party that cost my seat, but in an election of a very tight race,
00:29:59.680
of under the pandemic, when voters turnout was very low, a slight change in electorate, slight influence,
00:30:09.840
slight interference, could actually make the result one way or the other. And that's what I'm saying,
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across the country, China has realized that they could make all these fine tweets,
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and fine tune. And by doing that in many ridings across the country, they would be able to
00:30:27.360
exert some power that they would not have allowed any foreign nations to have in their own country.
00:30:35.920
They now even jail people just for talking to foreigners and foreign correspondents in Hong Kong,
00:30:42.720
and also elsewhere in Canada and China. And so what I'm trying to say is this is a free land.
00:30:52.560
So what we, what we as Canada and Canadian need to do, it's to protect our own interests,
00:30:58.000
protect our country. And that's what I was hoping that the bill will be able to do to let Canadians to
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enjoy the freedom that they continue to have, if they decided that they want to act on behalf of
00:31:08.960
foreign countries. And these countries happen to be listed by the bureaucrats, by the way,
00:31:15.440
as one of the nations that are subject to my Foreign Influence Act. Well, then all they have to do
00:31:20.560
is just be transparent and show it to Canadians, Canadians media, that they, why they are doing it,
00:31:26.800
what they have done, and let the public decide and judge.
00:31:30.400
Do you, going back to your experience in BC, did you feel, did you, were you aware of what was
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happening during the election? Were you seeing and hearing that this misinformation campaign
00:31:43.120
against you was going on and, and thinking, yeah, this is, this is something quite big that's taking place?
00:31:50.320
I noticed something happens way back at the beginning of my term as a member of parliament.
00:31:56.560
I was invited to monitor to be part of the elections monitoring mission in Hong Kong, Hong Kong being
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the largest cities outside of Canada with Canadians being, you know, having 300,000 Canadian passport
00:32:14.640
holders residing there. I figured that an election would provide, you know, a political resolution to
00:32:22.720
the struggles that they have in 2019. But as soon as I returned from Hong Kong, I started realizing
00:32:29.600
that something is actually working, some powers were actually working behind the scene. And
00:32:36.560
their supporters of ours, supporter of mine, who used to in previous election volunteer, they start
00:32:44.560
telling us that, no, you're, if you support these Hong Kong activists, they call it rioters,
00:32:50.320
then, then we're not going to support you. But a matter of fact is, I didn't show my support for
00:32:54.640
Hong Kong activists or not. It's just that we, we decided we realized that the political resolution
00:33:01.840
will be a way out for the situation in Hong Kong. But anyway, so we start losing friends. And throughout
00:33:09.360
the pandemic, there are many, as you probably be aware, many narratives that are saying, China only
00:33:18.320
country that are speaking up for Chinese around the world. And when facing anti Asian racism, China,
00:33:24.640
it's doing its job and advocating for all Chinese in around the world, including Canadian Chinese. And
00:33:32.560
these are the narratives. These are the operation that behind the scene, we know that the CCP, the United
00:33:39.920
Front Department are working very hard. They are driving a wedge in Canadian society, they are painting
00:33:48.400
everybody as white supremacists, anti Asian, and then only the CCP, only China can speak on behalf of all
00:33:59.200
Chinese Canadians. I reject that I object that, you know, Canadian, it's definitely living in a free
00:34:06.960
society where we're even we're free. This not this is not a perfect country. Let me be clear, racism did
00:34:15.840
exist. But in our society that we're in in 2022. Now, I reject the idea that foreign powers somehow is
00:34:24.720
the only one that can advocate for Canadian over any race, let alone of Chinese descent.
00:34:32.640
So I know it's difficult to quantify, but how much influence how much of a foothold do you think China
00:34:38.000
has in our politicians and in our leaders right now? I think you can draw on previous examples.
00:34:48.800
The Globe and Mail, for example, were sued by on an Ontario minister, just because of setting up a
00:34:57.120
report outlining how he was under the influence of the communist Chinese. I remember that. Yeah,
00:35:03.600
it was quite a big story. And there has also been incidents that tells us that China is exerting its
00:35:12.320
power and influence in the greater Vancouver area and greater Toronto area. And this last election,
00:35:18.640
we definitely have seen how it can use multi prong approach, very sophisticated approach to try to
00:35:27.040
infiltrate and influence the thinking of Chinese Canadian of Chinese descent. For example, there's a
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social media application called WeChat. And WeChat is not it's available in the Western free world. But
00:35:42.320
it's the only social media messaging app that is available in China that is authorized. Uighur Chinese
00:35:50.400
were put in jail for installing WhatsApp in their in on their cell phone. So WeChat, it's definitely
00:35:59.920
something that, you know, authoritarian regime like China would love to have control. It controls
00:36:07.280
what what is posted on the social media, what is being discussed, it allows them to track people. And
00:36:14.240
WeChat in the last election posted articles that, you know, from anonymous sources that we have no
00:36:20.320
a reason to there are no there are no power for Canadians to trace and hold the author, the author to
00:36:29.040
account. These articles were spreading not just disinformation, but completely false falsified
00:36:38.800
information. And these are things like, for example, we're trained by private member bill, Bill C 282,
00:36:44.240
as anti Chinese and it's hating and causing Chinese Canadians, all kinds of troubles in the future,
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etc, etc. The problem is, these are these are articles and information spread in
00:37:02.800
foreign control, tightly controlled social media app. But the problem goes further in the in the
00:37:09.440
Canadian airwaves CRTC controlled airwaves supposed to be regulated. There have been also ethnic Chinese
00:37:17.280
radio stations that are, you know, there are basically censoring their own commentary without,
00:37:25.040
you know, reporting on, you know, what, you know, MP Kenny Chu C 282 bill is really is. So by keeping
00:37:34.800
themselves silence, they, they pretty much are helping and providing assistance to to these regimes behind
00:37:41.040
the scene. But then worse, Andrew, is that there are also again, locally broadcasted CRTC licensed radio
00:37:51.120
stations of ethnic Chinese, they are helping to spread these same disinformation and false information and
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false accusations. Effectively, they're being used as another tool by these foreign actors.
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Well, it's no, it's such a huge issue. And I find so often it flies under the radar of the coverage
00:38:12.480
it very richly needs. The Globe and Mail has been very strong on this. But again, I think we need to see
00:38:17.280
a lot more exposure on this. Kenny Chu, former Conservative Member of Parliament. Good to talk to you. Thanks
00:38:22.320
for your work on this. I truly appreciate it. Well, thank you, Andrew. All the best to you.
00:38:26.960
Thank you very much, Kenny Chu. That does it for us. For today, we will be back with a weekend edition
00:38:32.880
of the show looking at independent media in Canada. This was a lot of fun to do. It's already recorded.
00:38:38.520
It was a lot of fun. You don't want to miss that. And then back next week with regular full strength
00:38:42.700
edition of the Andrew Lawton Show. So I hope we'll see you then. Thank you. God bless and good day to you all.
00:38:47.920
Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.