In Desperate Retreat, Trudeau Suspends Vaccine Mandates
Why Were They Implemented in the First Instance?
In Desperate Retreat, Trudeau Suspends Vaccine Mandates
Why Were They Implemented in the First Instance?
Playing catch up, last week the Trudeau government suspended remaining national Covid restrictions, including vaccine requirements for foreigners, reporting health information through the ArriveCAN app, and Covid testing.
Previously in June, Trudeau lifted vaccine mandates for Canadian citizens boarding a plane or train.
This is certainly good news and a major relief for millions of Canadians (and their foreign relatives) whose constitutional rights to travel freely were restricted. However, we ought not to get lost in celebratory fervour and forget how our rights were suddenly stolen without even an iota of scientific evidence.
Recall, last August, the Canadian government was among the first countries on the global stage to impose vaccine apartheid on its citizens. Egregious travel bans aside, the federal government incentivised provinces to implement stringent vaccine passport systems wherein citizens couldn't exercise at a gym, attend large social gatherings, or dine in at restaurants without getting double-jabbed (in my province BC, for example).
Quebec arguably took the most drastic measures, such as restricting unvaccinated citizens' ability to freely shop at large business stores such as Walmart.
They nearly imposed a financial penalty on the unvaccinated but later scrapped the plan because it might undermine "social cohesion."
The question is, what prompted this sea-change in government control from the top? How was this enabled? What science justified the overnight desecration of constitutional guaranteed rights? Luckily, a lawsuit challenging Trudeau's sweeping mandates revealed the bizarre origin of my country's devolution into tyranny.
First reported by Rupa Subramanya in Bari Weiss' Common Sense, the public documents from the lawsuit show not public health officials designing policy based on some overwhelming evidence in favour of mandates, but the opposite: scrambling to piece together justification for vaccine mandates for travel before they were imposed. It’s also worth noting, none of these “public health officials” part of Trudeau’s Covid recovery team have any training in epidemiology, immunology, or medicine.
On October 22, top Transport Canada official Aaron McCrorie emailed the Public Health Agency of Canada's general director Dawson Lumley-Myllari,
“Our requirements come in on October 30...so need something fairly soon.”
To translate in the proper context, ‘vaccine mandates are going into effect in a week and we need something to justify them.’
Subramanya neatly summarised the following email correspondence between McCrorie and Lumley-Myllari:
On October 28, Lumley-Myllari replied to McCrorie with a series of bullet points outlining the benefits, generally speaking, of the Covid vaccine. She did not address McCrorie’s question about the transportation system, noting that the Public Health Agency of Canada was updating its “Public health considerations” with regard to vaccine mandates.
This is an incredibly disturbing chain of events.
The violation of millions of Canadians' rights originated from the desired policy first, not from scientific evidence. Even if it were the other way around, it would've been egregious. Clearly, the government prioritised implementing discriminatory policies over supposedly benefiting the health of Canadians.
Only two months before announcing nationwide vaccine mandates, Trudeau promised, "we're not a country that makes vaccination mandatory."
And although Austria was the only country that mandated vaccines for all citizens, when Trudeau forced unvaccinated Canadians out of their jobs, livelihoods, community gatherings, and sacred places of worship, he implemented de-facto compulsory inoculation.
Some of those who didn’t take the economic, political, and social risk to maintain bodily autonomy had to face near-deadly consequences from the mRNA vaccines. Recall, my piece profiling the 38-year-old South Asian law enforcement member who almost died after being forced to get jabbed to keep his job:
When the paramedic measured his heart rate and it said 210 beats per minute, the paramedic couldn’t believe that he was still alive. They had to then shock his heart with a defibrillator into a normal rhythm. Compounded by all the anxiety from the situation and the worsening pain in his chest, he was convinced he was about to die.
“I thought I’m never going to see my girlfriend and family again,” he said. “Scariest time of my life.”
A few hours after arriving at the hospital, his doctor said, “You’re really lucky. If you had waited any longer, you would’ve died.”
As a first-generation immigrant from India — moving to the land of “The True North strong and free” — I have been revolted by my country’s sudden plunge into medical authoritarianism. Depriving the citizenry of ownership over their own bodies was previously unthinkable in the free, liberal democracy of Canada.
With mysterious, unclassified motivations — and a vacuum of supporting evidence — the Trudeau government wielded all its power in forcing the jab on millions of Canadians.
This is not the country my family and I immigrated to. This is not the land we were promised. Thankfully, some semblance of normalcy has been restored after the recent suspension of vaccine mandates. However, such an imposition in the first place marks a dark chapter in Canadian history, paving the way for future abuses of power.
Let us hope the worst is behind us.
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