April 25, 2024
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Covid-19

Canadians back harsh penalties for unvaxxed

Michael Cook

“Canada is to niceness as Saudi Arabia is to oil,” according to the BBC. “It’s awash in the stuff.” (Yes, a BBC journalist really wrote that.) It might be hyperbole, but Canadians once had a long-standing reputation for being the nicest people on earth.

Nowadays not so much. Covid (and possibly Justin Trudeau) has un-niced them. In a recent poll, 27% of Canadians agreed that the unvaxxed should be jailed for up to five days “for endangering others/overwhelming (the) healthcare system”.

Maru Public Opinion found that many Canadians are in favour of harsh punishments for the unvaccinated “A majority of Canadians have little sympathy for the unvaccinated,” said John Wright, of Maru Public Opinion.

The poll asked about punitive measures. It found that:

  • 77% would back restrictions from entering public spaces and premises such as restaurants, cinemas, libraries, liquor and cannabis stores, and retail outlets.
  • 61% would back forcing the unvaxxed to pay out of their own pocket for the full medical cost of hospitalisation or ICU if they contract Covid-19
  • 61% would back a healthcare surcharge on taxes of up to $150 per month for the unvaxxed
  • 37% would back refusing them access to any publicly funded hospital or medical services
  • 33% would back refuse to allow them to renew their driver’s license
  • 27% would back serving up to five days jail for endangering others and overwhelming the healthcare system

“The sentiment out there is, if you’re going to clog up the healthcare system, then you’re going to pay for it yourself,” Wright said.

What’s behind figures like this?

In an interesting post on Impact Ethics, a Canadian site, its editor Chris Kaposy, points out that:

“Vaccine skepticism is now increasingly irrelevant. The thoughts and beliefs that lie behind skepticism no longer matter. With coercive strategies to get people vaccinated, these thoughts and beliefs will not be acknowledged, or addressed. There is also less effort to correct misinformation. The goal is simply to vaccinate as many people as possible, regardless of what people believe about the vaccines.”

Kaposy is in favour of vaccine mandates, but he contends that there is a trade-off:

“Coercion can be dehumanizing. In this moment while we remain in the midst of a pandemic, coercive policies might be acceptable, but we should nonetheless be wary when leaders cease treating some of our fellow human beings as thinking subjects.”

In, ,

4 thoughts on “Canadians back harsh penalties for unvaxxed”

  1. I am vaccinated. But we have a constitutional right to CHOOSE if we want or not to be vaccinated. What do you say and do about a victim of violence, at the hand of her partner, who control her and do not believe in vaccination ? What about the intellectual deficient who lives in an anti vaccination family ? What do you do with people who don’t have the real choice; no freedom and no knowledge. Do they have to be «punished» ? The vilain here is not the unvaccinated, but the COVID itself. Yes some unvaccinated are truly unrealistic. But the majority are not and do apply all the rules of protection but the vaccine. Don’t you think that for some unvaccinated who will contract COVID, being in the Intensive care unit is not sufficient punishment ? COVID touches all, vaccinated and non-vaccinated. The only difference is in the intensity of the illness. In general, milder for vaccinated and stronger for non-vaccinated. Freedom of choice, freedom of speech are rights of our Province, our Country. It would be a very dangerous path if we start touching it. It is unfortunate, sad and terrible for some unvaccinated to die from COVID. But we shouldn’t close the door to democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of choice. We shouldn’t open the door to government absolute control.

  2. Je plains les non-vaccinés par choix – sans autre raison valable, très peu nombreuses de toute façon. Il n’y a aucun doute que de nombreuses ^personnes verront leur vie écourtée à cause du délestage imposé par leur sur-utilisation des services médicaux. ^Pour le reste de leur vie, une mauvaise conscience va les tourmenter…la population va leur rappeler.
    Le grand philosophe Paul Ricoeur, dans « Soi-même comme un autre » écrit en p. 403 : `« La mauvaise conscience est celle qui vient trop tard »…
    Culpabilité ineffaçable parce qu’irréparable.

  3. “The fact, as Brian Peckford has pointed out, that the Charter is regularly flouted by the prime minister and dismissed or re-interpreted by an unelected judiciary is of no account. Most people are either blind or uninformed, or merely indifferent to the fact that the rule of law has become nugatory. The COVID moment of medical apartheid and political repression is a glaring illustration of authoritarian malfeasance and should have exposed the sophism and treachery of the governing class.”

    Giving Up on Canada
    JANUARY 23, 2022 / 4 COMMENTS
    BY DAVID SOLWAY JAN 22, 2022
    https://peckford42.wordpress.com/2022/01/23/giving-up-on-canada/
    Your article does not follow what is all over Canadian social media??
    Canadians are rising up with a massive truck convoy converging on Ottawa. They are fighting for freedom.

  4. Canada seems no longer a Democracy; such coercive extreme discrimination against the un vaccinated is the first step to absolute control, Canadians have been ” brain washed by politicians. So sad and of concern

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