The vaccination passport, is without a shadow of a doubt, the bone of contention. Premiers in favor and premiers against are giving life to a clash with blows of words while the infections return to rise a little everywhere. Yesterday in Ontario there were 423 new cases, the highest number since June 14. And with the infections, hospitalizations and intensive care go up. But all this does not seem to change the mind of the prime minister of the province Doug Ford who continues to remain firm on his positions: the vaccination passport, at the moment, is not talked about.
Unlike the prime minister of our house, that of Quebec François Legault has expressed in recent days the intention to adopt this type of certificate.
Earlier, Legault had said that he would wait until the beginning of September to launch the vaccination passport, but only if the epidemiological situation worsened. But now, he says, we need to try to curb the fourth wave of Covid and to do so we need to get vaccinated.
And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also talked about vaccination passports, which is considering making Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for some federally regulated workplaces: among them airlines, railroads, banks, Parliament and Crown corporations such as Canada Post. There are almost a million workers in federally regulated industries and almost half a million people working directly for the federal government, the army or the RCMP.
Meanwhile, Toronto Mayor John Tory has also joined the doctors and nurses in asking the province to come up with “some sort of plan” in this regard. Tory pointed out that since the federal government asks people to prove that they have been vaccinated in order to travel, for example, health authorities must already provide “something” for people to be able to prove it, “something that in the absence of a better term is called a vaccination passport”.
And on the vaccination passport there is also a clash between Steven Del Duca and Andrea Horwath. The leader of the NDP harshly accused of supporting Ford in opposing the vaccination passport, has returned to her steps. “I made a mistake – said Horwath – I was wrong to say that during a pandemic the mandatory nature of vaccinations comes after the Charter of Rights. I fully support mandatory vaccination for health and education personnel”.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, on the other hand, does not give up an inch, saying that he is not willing to “take lessons” from federal health minister Patty Hajdu on how to manage Covid-19. In recent days Hajdu has written a letter to his Alberta counterpart saying that he agrees with the Canadian Pediatric Society of Alberta that he considers the lifting of all restrictive measures as an “unnecessary and risky bet”. “We’re not going to… take lessons from Minister Hajdu, particularly when it seems that she and her boss (Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau are determined to throw themselves headlong into a federal election campaign.”
