Some facts (and a few polls) suggest that the Trucker convoy isn't a broadly popular movement of truckers as much as a well funded tiny minority without broad support even from truckers.
I'm not sure why people think getting vaccinated is evidence of support for mandatory vaccinations.
Taxes are mandatory too, I pay them not because I think they're at the right level and used for the right things, but because of the practical repercussions of what would happen if I didn't and I got found out.
(it shouldn't matter, but - I'm double vaccinated, mainly because the jurisdiction I live in requires it for air travel. I have no strong feelings about vaccines either way).
I don't support the convoy, but this still makes me extremely uncomfortable. This is an actual extreme measure. When his father used it, he JAILED communists and "suspected terrorists" in Montreal for more than 24 hours without any evidence, effectively suppressing their rights.
> police officials sometimes abused their powers without just cause, and some prominent artists and intellectuals associated with the sovereignty movement were detained.
And to all the comments saying Canadians are supporting this move, they also supported it back in 1970. It's when they saw the consequences and that they actually understood how wrong it was that popular support dropped.
As a Canadian: this response should not be downvoted. It is correct and important. The War Measures Act used during the October Crisis was a different law; the Emergencies Act, which was just invoked, was passed as a response to concerns about civil liberties and abuse of power under the WMA. Temporary laws made under the Emergencies Act are, unlike the WMA, subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Subject to the charter, subject to the bill of rights, subject to parliamentary review, and mandatory public inquiry afterwards. It's a very sensible law.
Laws made under the act are subject to the charter unless they invoke the non-withstanding clause.
Furthermore, have you read the link you sent? The entire "Provisions" explains while this is way out of line to deal with protesters in Ottawa.
Using it for "Public Order" as Trudeau is doing, was meant to be a tool against:
"The Act references the definition provided in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, which includes espionage, sabotage, detrimental foreign influences, activities which support the threat or use of violence for a political, religious or ideological objective; or those activities which threaten to undermine or otherwise destroy, or overthrow the Government of Canada."
> When his father used it, he JAILED communists and "suspected terrorists" in Montreal for more than 24 hours without any evidence, effectively suppressing their rights.
You'll never guess who was actually planting the bombs at that time. [0]
> Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign (IE not from canada)
Your sources indicate that the majority of the funding is from Canada. The second largest source is from the US (which doesn't seem out of place, given that cross-border trucking restrictions affect both American and Canadian truckers):
> A review of the data shows that some $4.3 million came from Canada, while another $3.6 million originated in the United States, though the United States accounted for the most individual donations. Small donations from dozens of other countries made up a fraction of the total amount raised.
> and that most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners, not workers
This is true for most causes. Workers don't have much money to donate, and rely on wealthier people sympathetic to their cause.
> > Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign (IE not from canada)
> Your sources indicate that the majority of the funding is from Canada.
Note that these two statements don't contradict, and yours is incorrect. There were more individual donors from the US contributing a smaller overall amount (56% of donors giving $3.62 million) compared to Canada (29% of donors, giving $4.31 million)[1]. And the total amount raised was 8.7 million[2]. Summary: A large part of the funding is indeed American. The ever-so-slight majority of the funding is non-Canadian. A majority of the donors were American.
That's irrelevant. The protest is not against vaccines.
I'm fully vaccinated and have voluntarily received my booster shot, and I would support the convoy if I was Canadian. I also support vaccination and want the highest amount of people to be vaccinated. There's no contradiction there. I want people to get vaccinated, I just don't want people to be forced to get vaccinated.
> Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign
The news has spread to the world and it's currently the most notable example of government vs. anti-mandate disputes.
> most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners,
Most donations, in general, are almost always from wealthy people, for the very obvious reason that they have more money to donate.
Negative coverage is much easier to come by than positive coverage if you mostly consume legacy/corporate media on this issue. If you're interested in a deeper understanding of people who support this movement than you can gain from a few embedded tweets in an article or a reporter's attempt to summarize the motivations and backgrounds of a large group of people, here's a YouTube channel that has been doing extended live streams from the ground in Ottawa: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGiDDKdphJ0GFvEd82WfYQ/vid...
The channel owner is a Canadian lawyer named Viva Frei. Frei's personal attitude toward the protests is broadly supportive, but the valuable thing about his coverage is that he speaks to anybody who is willing to talk to him as he wanders around the streets of Ottawa, including counter-protestors.
A livestream can never be a true replacement for being there in person, but this is the best that I've found. Coverage from other livestream channels is also easily available on YouTube.
It's very easy for lack of understanding to lead to distrust, fear, and hate. You can (and very well might) disagree with people after having heard them out, but you will almost certainly view them as more human, and is that not the central feature the empathetic mindset is supposed to be about?
If you have the time, I recommend making an effort to watch extended and unedited interviews with the people behind any protest movement you intend to form a strong opinion about (not just this one).
Remember that the literal definition of "prejudice" is something close to a "decision formed without due examination of the facts or arguments necessary to a just and impartial decision." [1] If you don't wish to be prejudiced, don't let yourself form a strong opinion without first having learned what people you think you disagree with have to say for themselves.
This is deceptive. It's not supported by a majority of Canadians, but their message was still supported by almost half of Canadians at the outset, and is still supported by a third. When a third of your population speaks, you should listen if you're a representative democracy.
A recent poll indicated that most Canadians disagree with the protest on almost all matters[1] and that almost 3/4 of Canadians support vaccine passports. Not sure where you are getting your numbers.
Yes, you need to listen to your minorities but this is the tail wagging the dog.
Your own link supports my claims. Many of the activities listed there have much less than 75% support you claim for vaccination requirements. The soft "somewhat agree" is certainly not a definitive vote for vaccine mandates that you seem to implying.
This is a matter of policy; not race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, or disability all of which are well protected by the Canadian Bill of Rights.
Please don't try to conflate vaccination policy to the level of human rights.
> Please don't try to conflate vaccination policy to the level of human rights.
What you just said is:
> Please don't try to conflate medical human rights to the level of human rights.
The fact you can't clearly see that is staggering. People have a right to decide whether or not they want a medical procedure. This is absolutely no different than forced sterilization during the eugenics movement. A group of people in power, absolutely sure of their correctness, are trying to force medical procedures on people.
I can't believe we haven't learned this lesson yet.
You can be vaccinated and not support government mandates of vaccines. I don't get why people can't comprehend this. Trudeau's handling of the convoy is not popular, and he's underwater himself on approval rating (despite previously being fairly popular.) The polling on the protests ranges from 44% to 25%, that's not a majority but it's not a number you can just ignore. Foreign money floods into the US for movements that happen here via GoFundMe, etc, and I've never really heard it as a complaint or something the government actively has said they would freeze.
I actually go back to when I got my first shot. Nobody under 40 unless they had a morbidity qualified to get the shot. Yet 70% of canadians had the first shot already? It's impossible and they were fudging the numbers from the getgo.
>Most people have realized the covid shots are worthless. How did you come to this conclusion?
Lets unpack a little.
1. Efficacy of vaccine for omicron is well known for being worthless. Im sure I dont have to prove this.
2. Much more important factor. We found out the shots were misrepresented. It's not a vaccine. A vaccine prevents infection. The authorities clearly said 'if you get the vaccine, you dont get covid' but that's not at all how it is. You still get sick and contagious, it just reduces symptoms.
>As far as I'm aware, Canada is stepping down restrictions as cases drop/ICU beds free up. Can you share where restrictions are being increased?
The convoy ishappening because vaccination became mandatory for some truckers in January. That was a new restriction.
- Plenty of vaccinated people against vaccine mandates and other restrictions. Doctors are allowed to be Covid positive and treat patients in BC and QC. But apparently truckers who are Covid negative are a problem?
- Foreign money influence is a problem, sure, but businesses? They can’t support a protest?
- Last poll I saw (Ipsos) said 1 out of 3 Canadians support the protest. 1 out of 3. That’s HUGE.
"Survey Methodology: The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Feb. 11-13, 2022 among a representative randomized sample of 1,622 Canadian adults *WHO ARE MEMBERS OF ANGUS REID FORUM.*"
(emphasis mine)
> Doctors are allowed to be Covid positive and treat patients in BC and QC.
That's because hospitals were slammed. And because viral debris shows up as positive on PCR tests long after people are no longer contagious and that has been well-known since mid-2020. A doctor who is no longer symptomatic but is positive on a PCR is better than no doctor for the patient.
> 1 out of 3 colonists supported the American revolution.
Obviously, there isn't good polling data for support for the revolution, but the information I can find puts estimates at 40-45%, with support for the Crown at between 15-20%. I wouldn't put too much weight on even that, though.
The popular 1/3 each for, against, and indifferent to the Revolution seems to be based on misinterpreting an 1815 letter from John Adams to James Lloyd recounting his estimate of support in America for France and the French Revolution in the US ca. 1797 (with the strong anti- side being supporters of England and opponents of the Revolution, and the neutrals being indifferent between England and France that would attach to one or the other side based on transient circumstances.)
All that matters is that - generally - the politicians and media opposed to these protests supported the 2020 protests and encouraged people to violate stay-at-home measures at the then-height of the pandemic - pre-vaccine - because they claimed that cause overrode the Covid exposure risk.
And they wonder why large swathes of the public find it difficult to trust them.
Ask after truckers start burning down neighborhood grocery stores and looting, threatening residents to make proper salute, and tearing drivers out of vehicles to beat them.
You are the one who compared the two. Pointing out points on which they are not analogous is perfectly fair game. Calling an inappropriate comparison whataboutism when you are the one who raised the comparison is dishonest.
"Last poll I saw (Ipsos) said 1 out of 3 Canadians support the protest"
That grossly misrepresented poll asked only if respondents sympathize with their cause. If you agree that mandates need to go. Note that when asked directly, 60-70% of Canada are over mandates, and just being asked to show sympathy already lost 50% of those people.
But this doesn't mean that those people support this protest. Indeed, in subsequent polls, over 60% of the country wants the protesters jailed.
Note on the definition of sympathy. One can have sympathy for where someone’s coming from but completely disagree and be opposed to an action it inspires them to take.
From the Ipsos poll:”A sizeable minority of Canadians (37%) agree (16% strongly/21% somewhat) that while they might not say it publicly, they agree with a lot of what the truck protestors are fighting for”
You claimed that the survey showed that they "support" the protests. The question asked only if people "sympathize" with the "frustration" of the convoy. That is a very low barrier, easy yes, given that a strong majority of Canada is tired of mandates. Indeed, the question went so far as adding "may not support the protest" to specifically delimit.
Canadians are very against this protest. If they simply parked some trucks and hung some signs, whatever. Once they were blasting horns 24/7, and then when that didn't work (given that the overwhelming majority of "truckers" are not with their cause and continued working) blocking international borders, the Canadian public turned dramatically against this petulant outrage. Having a bunch of Americans cheering it on, financing it, and even trying to join in has made it a cause that most Canadians find outright treasonous now.
Having sympathy is a form of support. And even the latest polls say 1 in 5 Canadians "want the protestors" to stay. That's what? A few million Canadians?
Plenty of people are sympathetic if a starving man breaks into a store to steal some food. That isn't the same thing as being supportive of breaking and entering or theft.
In democracies, we tend to ignore things when they only get 20% support, and that's if nobody is actively being harmed.
I hope that the convoys are not only completely cut off from economic support, but also that the people driving those trucks are identified and prevented from ever crossing the border into the US. Truck driving is a decent job. Be a shame if some of them were forced to earn a living doing something else from now on.
In democracies, we tend to ignore things when they only get 20% support, and that's if nobody is actively being harmed.
This is a terrible understanding of Canada's system and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (including the ones that Trudeau just suspended with the Emergencies Act).
It's not hard to understand how authoritarian systems come about - it's people like you who gladly support them as long as the enemy is someone you agree is bad.
Yes, and the emergencies act was required because the police in Ottawa were _letting the protesters violate the law with impunity_.
There are multiple _legal_, _judicial_ injunctions in place and the police are failing to enforce them. The rule of law is breaking down and that cannot be allowed to happen.
>Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign (IE not from canada) and that most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners, not workers
Others have addressed the fact that more than half the funds are from Canada.
Imagine if someone tried to discredit BLM by saying that most of the funding came from wealthy business and not individual black community members...
and from the linked NYT article:
>A review of the data shows that some $4.3 million came from Canada, while an additional $3.6 million originated in the United States, though the United States accounted for the most individual donations. Small donations from dozens of other countries made up a fraction of the total amount raised.
Phrasing it as the majority of the donors are foreign to drive a narrative that Canadians don't care about this issue when they are putting their money and their time on the line is absurd.
Money doesn't vote, people vote. Democracy is about people and not amount of money. Example, because one billionaire donates $5millions and 5000 Americans put each $200. Doesn't mean that Canadians care more because $5millions is more than $1million.
Let's see where your data comes from. Ah, COVID-19 Monitor, which gets it from Vox Pop Labs. [1]
>The data presented herein are derived from survey data produced using Vox Pop Labs' online public affairs panel
So, it's useless... their primary method of polling is journalists interviewing people that they select? The people that do not support mandates generally do not support journalists, making this survey utterly useless and biased from the start.
If you look at a reputable pollster, and not a couple of ideologues sitting in a room, you'll find large swathes of populations that are very skeptical of mandates, even in very liberal Europe. [2] In Germany, a whopping 62% are against it. While in France, it's 75% against.
The pew survey you linked is from February of last year, before vaccines were available and before their extreme effectiveness in preventing serious illness was known. Have they done more recent surveys in those countries you mentioned? More to the point, have they surveyed Canada recently?
France is well known as a vaccine hesitant country for what it's worth.
Just want to make sure everyone has the correct piece of data to think about this.
The mandate says that non-Canadian truckers need to be vaccinated to enter the country.
The mandate says that Canadian truckers, if they are not vaccinated, are not going to be exempt from the normal border entry measures, which is that they'd need to quarantine on entry unless they are vaccinated.
The US has a similar mandate for Canadian truckers, they're not allowed to enter the US without being vaccinated.
It's a little strange, because it effectively means that a trucker, either US or Canadian, who want to cross the boarder and then come back needs to be vaccinated because the other country forces them to do so.
Each respective country doesn't force their own citizens Trucker to be vaccinated, but Canada does force them to quarantine on entry if not. That said, this doesn't really matter because to enter the other country they'll have to be vaccinated anyways.
> I mean I am vaxxed and oppose vax mandates.
How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
> How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
The same way I feel for them paying for my care the day I drove drunk and crashed, or when despite vaccines, I still got Covid Delta.
Because I was obese, vaccines didn't help much. I had a lot more problems, and for several months longer than I would have had, had I : lost 35 Kg/75 lbs, lowered my blood sugar level (no diabetes but consistently high), eaten less meat, and had a regular life rythm to lower my blood pressure, as my family doctor implored me to do last three and a half years.
Now I learned my lesson in really being responsible first of myself, and then acting according to principles of solidarity (as you imply the unvaccinated don't do).
I now walk 10+ km a day, see a nutritionist and go to the gym three times a week. I also pay attention to my vitamin intake, and take blood samples every three months.
> How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
I'm not anti-vaxxer nor oppose vax mandates; but your question misses the point. I am happy to pay for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated the same way I'm happy to pay for healthcare of smokers with lung cancer. I would still do my best to educate them, though. Negligence or ignorance of others should not affect our social duties.
Ideologically, I'm with you. But you can't dismiss the practicality of it all.
When it comes to smokers for example, people have realized that adding a tax to cigarettes and other tabaco products could make it practical that people get subsidized treatment of smoking induced medical issues.
So the increase in medical cost and strain to the system is offset by a tax. On top of that, there are also restrictions of where you can smoke/drink, how you can advertise for it, etc., making the prospect of doing so less enticing. And the tax act as a disincentive as well.
This also applies to alcohol.
In other cases, substances have been outright banned, and I don't mean just narcotics, but also things like chemicals in foods, products, construction materials, etc.
Some people argue the same in order to tax sugar and fast food (and I can't remember if there are any such tax in Canada yet or not, but some cities in the US have it).
Similarly here, the institutions are faced with a real practical challenge. The cost and strain to the Canadian healthcare system of COVID as a whole is huge, and of that cost and strain, the majority is now from unvaccinated.
You can ideologically agree they all should be covered, but it's now hurting other medical care, and the cost is just getting larger and larger.
That's where, similar to tobacco and alcohol taxes, options for COVID are being explored.
That's why people have been talking about a tax for the unvaccinated. And maybe that's a better way then mandates, but in any case, I don't think it is useful to just dismiss the practical cost/strain of the unvaccinated right now, because that's what is motivating the legislature and other civil servant to pursue mandates.
So the topic needs to be addressed, if you want to convince people mandates aren't the way to go, you need to address their concern with why they want mandates in the first place, and that's the strain/cost to the healthcare system primarily.
These are all good points but unfortunately I can't decide where the state spends their money. It should be spent on educating people instead of trying to heal them after they get sick. The health insurance system should be revamped and the cost of healthcare should be lower too. I just can't do much about these issues right now.
All I'm saying is that we can't just say "well, then don't ask me to pay for your medical bills" to a human being just because they are being ignorant, negligent, or plain assholes, whether or not they pay a tax to compensate their choices.
A few with your overall point, though it's worth noting that smokers pay a lot of tax to help offset their costs. A $15 pack of cigarettes in Ontario has about $9 of tax included in the price.
I live in a country with free health care. No one is going broke from health costs here. However, people not getting the vaccine are filling up hospital beds which is preventing other people from getting care they need for other things. Therefore, not getting your vaccine is negligent.
> How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
I’m a vaccinated boosted physician and will continue to get boosted every 6 months. Mandates/coercion for medical treatment violate patient autonomy and medical ethics.
I am ok with those who aren’t vaccinated getting medical treatment. Same with flu, mmr, DTP, and other vaccines.
I’m ok with alcoholics, addicts, smokers, and the obese getting treatment. I’m ok with women getting pap smears and cervical cancer screening even if they don’t have gardisil. I’m ok with type 2 diabetics receiving insulin even if they did absolutely nothing to lower their A1C. What else is there? STD treatment? Coronary artery disease? Almost everything.
Many people have health problems that are directly related to their own personal decisions. And yes, they should get treatment.
> Many people have health problems that are directly related to their own personal decisions. And yes, they should get treatment
I agree in ideal, but the next question to make that a reality is how? You'll have to find ways to scale the system and pay for it all. And that's where you can experiment with taxes, levies, preventative mandates, regulations and such.
This is how we managed to scale and offer those for smokers and all other prior.
> How do you feel about paying for healthcare of people who are not vaccinated and need care to treat COVID?
Do you really want to go down that path? We provide healthcare to all sorts of people that choose to do things that impact their health (drunk drivers, drug addicts, etc). Hypothetically, what happens if there are long term health effects from the vaccinations? Should the unvaccinated say, "why should we pay for your heart treatments"?
>That said, this doesn't really matter because to enter the other country they'll have to be vaccinated anyways.
Obviously an unvaccinated trucker from Canada cannot enter the US and return until both the Canadian and US restrictions are lifted. It doesn’t matter in which order they are lifted, but both need to be. Since they are Canadian citizens obviously they are protesting the Canadian component of the travel restriction.
On a side note: How does it make sense that an unvaccinated trucker in Canada can legally deliver goods in Canada, and an unvaccinated trucker in the US can legally deliver goods in the USA, but they cannot deliver goods between the US and Canada. What is the science behind this exactly?
The science says get vaccinated. It is not required to be vaccinated to deliver goods domestically because that would mean imposing the vaccine on citizens of their own respective countries, which is a can of worms neither government wants to open.
But requiring foreign visitors to have certain vaccines is much less politically fraught. If you don't like it, tough, you don't get to enter said country.
Asking what is the science behind these decisions is being disingenuous and you know that. Please stop.
The difference is in jurisdictional authority? Inner-provincial policy is mandated by the Ontario government and does not enter into federal politics.
As to scientific or not science, the science is in. Vaccines reduce the spread and severity of COVID and governments generally attempt to mitigate the risk of dangerous things happening to their people needlessly. Why are mandates constantly changing? Look to the knowledge available to the decision makers when they set policy. Most governments try to thread the needle between positive economic and health outcomes, but to be sure, nobody know the right answer. All decisions have consequences.
What's your BMI, because in fact maybe I don't to pay for your healthcare? Did you eat fast food at all this month because in fact I don't really feel like paying for your healthcare anymore. When is the last time you played basketball or ran a couple miles, because in fact I don't want to pay for your healthcare. What is your diet like because I want you to upload it to my servers so I in fact can judge if I should pay for your healthcare. Do you have furniture with fire resistant material, do you have engineered hardwood floors, do you use roundup on your lawn, did you feed your children formula instead of breastfeeding, did you get an exterminator to spray pesticides when baits are just as good, do your pets get flea medication on their fur, because you know what if you did these things I don't want to pay for your health insurance because I personally think you make bad decisions.
Agreed. I was forced to get the vax due to my company's business dealings with the federal gov't. One of my developers, meanwhile, refused to get vaccinated, and so far the threat from my employer has just kind of stalled as different state and federal lawsuits have been going through the courts, while he walks on eggshells about his employment status and future career. My team works remote 99% of the time, btw. Engineers rarely deal with the customers either.
Regardless, I think he's been treated poorly by the company as we explicitly denied him the ability to join us at a few on-site meetings and outings. I'm not sure anyone can credibly assert anymore that his un-vaccinated status puts anyone other than himself at increased risk. At this point, it's a form of psychological warfare against him for refusing to conform, and that's WRONG.
I don't know if I would have gotten a vaccination without the threat of termination. I probably would have, but being forced has left me feeling anger towards both my employer and the gov't. And I've been with my employer for 8 years or so - I've enjoyed my time there.
You are mad at your employer for taking common-sense health measures to ensure that unvaccinated people like your coworker don’t spread the disease to other colleagues?
why? could you explain your stande on other mandates/requirements and what's this vax mandate does that makes it so different? (eg. you need a passport/visa-like thing to enter, you need clothes, if you arrive by car that needs papers and a valid safety profile, you need to use the seatbelt, and so on)
If you really want to know why I oppose them honest to God?
Because whenever the government does something, or is given the ability to do something, whether de jure, or de facto, I ask myself "Would I feel comfortable with my worst political enemy having the power to do this?"
EDIT: The answer I was responding to edited his answer before I finished posting, so the original question was just. "Why do you opposse vax mandates?" My answer still stands.
I'm personally not sending my kid to any school that doesn't require the standard vaccines: here it is Hepatitis B, DTaP, IPV, MMR and Varicella. It is weird that vaccines mandates didn't gather as much resistance for the last century, but I guess things are just way more political now.
Those vaccines were for diseases that were highly lethal, and also highly lethal to children (well, not varicella), and they had years of research behind their safety. Mass vaccination also effectively stopped transmission. Schools also allowed medical and religious exemptions, with California's recent removal of that option being very controversial.
The polio vaccine was mandated five years after it was invented, and that was in the early days of the field.
Mass vaccination is the only way to stop transmission, of course, you just can’t have some people vaccinated and others not, vaccines don’t work like that. The exemptions have never been very deep (very few takers each year), but if they exceed something like 5%, then an adjustment must be made. Washington state for example, revoked personal and philosophical exemptions for MMR vaccines after an outbreak. Religious exemptions are still allowed, but those have a much higher bar than a philosophical exemption. Medical exemptions are always allowed, they are one major reason why most everyone else needs to get vaccinated in the first place (because people who can’t get the vaccine are at risk from transmission).
I guess one could argue that everyone that wants to should get vaccinated to better protect those who don’t want to be vaccinated. That makes sense, but hardly seems fair.
Yes, because polio was killing kids rather than older people with health problems. Also, they shut down a lot of infrastructure (like swimming pools) to prevent transmission before a vaccine controlled the problem, similar to are lockdowns and mask mandates today p. And you know, I’d like life to go back to normal, it’s just a quick needle prick.
> Would I feel comfortable with my worst political enemy having the power to do this?
Why would that be any different than your preferred political party/politician telling you to get vaccinated?
Just because you don't agree with someone on some (many?) topics, doesn't mean you can't ever agree with them.
We're talking about well established scientifically backed public health advice. It doesn't matter who most recently repeated the advice, it's the advice itself that's important.
I think you misunderstand I don't do this with just the things I agree with. I do it with everything the government tries to do, regardless of the politician supporting it or my personal feelings on the subject.
For example the creation of the no fly list, red flag laws, drug laws, civil asset forfeiture, hate crime laws, etc.
Laws have a tendency to get divorced from the situation that created them over the many years but seldom are repealed when their original cause is gone.
As such it is often very likely that my political enemy or your political enemy will have the power of those laws.
This just like development one must always think of the edge cases and error path not just the happy path.
I think you're right. I do misunderstand you. Do you oppose this vaccine mandate or the Emergencies Act?
Because you've indicated you oppose this vaccine mandate.
We're discussing a specific use of an already existing piece of legislation (Emergencies Act). There's no additional power granted here, the act was pre-existing, it's being applied.
You certainly may take issue with the fact the Emergencies Act could be used for nefarious purposes i.e. that the scope is too large. That's likely a valid concern. Sadly, most laws and legislations are open to interpretation and susceptible to abuse.
However, if this mandate were to be rolled back, the Emergencies Act isn't going anywhere. The Emergencies Acts is still sitting there available to future leaders.
Let's suppose you think a Covid vaccine mandate is a good thing, but you're ideologically opposed to it coming into force via an act that could be abused. Firstly, you're most certainly not on the same page as the majority of people opposing this mandate.
Secondly, what's your plan? Get rid of the Emergencies Act and come up with new legislation for a vaccine mandate, in record time, and with no holes in it, all the while people are unnecessarily dying, hospitals are unnecessarily overloaded and there's unnecessary economic damage... for ideological reasons?
That could be applied to making any law. We're talking about a specific law. This specific law lets Canada transition to endemic Covid, where there is enough community immunity that its public health system isn't overwhelmed and rationed. Without it, Canadians either have to wait through prolonged mitigations until community immunity is built up naturally or Paxlovid supply becomes sufficient, suffering the economic consequences of those mitigations, or rip the mitigation band-aid off and let care be rationed (and divert taxes to pay for all the hospitalizations) until natural immunity takes care of the problem. If my worst political enemy likewise justified their policies in my interest, I would happily let them implement those policies. If my best political friend did not justify a policy in my interest, I would oppose it. Each policy should be evaluated on its merits.
Your appraisal is an example of the slippery slope fallacy. The only slippery slope is encouraging people to evaluate policies by who is proposing them rather than whether the policy is beneficial. Then the person who is proposing policy can get away with policies that are more and more in their interest and less in mine. As long as the standard of evaluating policy by whether it is beneficial is upheld, there is no slippery slope.
Because we are free individuals and can make medical decisions for ourselves and our abilities to feed our families should not depend on upon our willingness to take a medication that does not appear to stop the spread of Omicron COVID. The mandates also make no exception for natural immunity which DOES appear to at least slow the spread of Omicron COVID.
> medication that does not appear to stop the spread of Omicron COVID
The current evidence indicates that the vaccine reduces the spread of the virus by about 50% [1]. It's a preprint, so take it with a grain of salt, but it does seem to match our prior 50% estimate for delta. [2]
That is a significant reduction, especially when we are talking about truckers who are inherently high risk as they tend to visit a lot of small towns.
This answer seems to be a mix of principles and practicals. I'm curious which matter more to you. Hypothetically, in an alternate reality where the vaccine is super effective at reducing transmission of Omicron, and where Omicron is super deadly, would you support a vaccine mandate? Or is it the principle that matters more, where regardless of the vaccine's effectiveness or the dangerousness of the virus, you believe you should be free to decide for yourself whether to get a vaccine, without it impacting your employability?
That's a great question, seriously. In a world where Omicron is as deadly as, say, SARS or Ebola, and the vaccine is super effective, you would not have to institute mandates to get people vaxxed. They would gladly get it or they would perish. This is where the trouble with the COVID vax lies: many of us look around and we don't see people dying like flies. We don't have dead friends or relatives. We do, however, see vaxxed people sick with COVID, and we a government doing its best to suppress information about COVID that it perceived as harmful to the vax effort, regardless of its veracity.
The totality of all of this makes many of us very distrustful of our government and foments resistance where there used to be none.
Thanks for your answer! I really want to get at the root principles here, so let's veer even further from reality and say that the virus is lethal only to people with, say, type-AB blood, or blue eyes, or whatever. But other people are asymptomatic carriers.
Is it justifiable to impose a vaccine mandate, if brown-eyed or type-A/B/O people are not bothering to get vaccinated because they feel safe themselves?
(I'm really more interested in the philosophy and ethics than the facts of the actual situation. I agree that on the factual level in 2022, there's plenty of room to argue about the usefulness or counterproductivity of these mandates. I want to know if vaccine manades are ever justified).
I'm not the parent but you have posed a funny question.
> in an alternate reality where the vaccine is super effective at reducing transmission of Omicron, and where Omicron is super deadly
If either of these were true then mandates would be far less required because people would be far more willing to take them voluntarily.
Instinctively though I do want to answer yes, I would support mandates more under higher risk scenarios. In an ideal world though I would probably prefer if communities could self select by risk tolerance i.e it's possible to live/work/party somewhere nearby with like minded people.
> We have seen how easily people are manipulated via misinformation campaigns.
I'm also not against a small amount of natural selection. People choosing their own fates helps to keep everyone happy and some Darwinism is probably a good outcome for humanity in the long term.
Thanks for the answer! I posted a followup question to the sibling but I'm curious about your thoughts there too, ie if hypothetically, say, the virus had selective lethality based on eye colour or blood type, so most people with that trait feel safe without themselves getting a vaccine.
Self selected communities are another good answer although I imagine it's hard to totally bubble communities up along the axis of vaccine-opinionation without any overlap.
> if hypothetically, say, the virus had selective lethality
It might depend on how selective the lethality is! If a small population is vulnerable then I don't have a problem with them protecting themself to the best of their own abilities (no mandates). This is fairly common already with the immunocompromised etc.
If a large portion of the population is vulnerable then it becomes more grey. I'm pretty uncomfortable with there being a large amount of preventable suffering but intellectually my brain wants to take a long term view. The best possible society in the future seems like one where humans have stronger immune systems and take fewer vaccinations, not more. Is this something we can evolve towards? Is my poor knowledge of biology leading me astray? Who knows!
Given I know nothing I'm happy to fall back onto the distributed decision making apparatus (individual choice).
For me, this hypothetical is more a situation where we're talking about one's freedom to make choices that endanger those around them, in addition themselves. When the principal danger is to oneself I think restrictions are rarely justified, but when the consequences are borne by others, I think it's more justified. For example, when operating cars, we don't allow you to drink and drive, run red lights, or drive on the sidewalk, primarily because it creates at least as much risk for your neighbours as it does for yourself.
> When the principal danger is to oneself I think restrictions are rarely justified, but when the consequences are borne by others, I think it's more justified.
I think this point makes broad sense but needs refinement. For example if we assume there is a vaccine available that:
- Reduces personal injury
- Does not prevent transmission
Using the above logic would mean that after taking the vaccine restrictions are more justified because the burden of the disease has shifted. I don't think that's what you intended and probably means that there still needs to be reference to absolute harm and taking reasonable minimization measures.
I guess I meant that the restrictions are justified based on the harm prevention to your neighbours, rather than to yourself (I didn't mean to imply that it's based on some ratio).
In that sense, if a vaccine purely reduced transmission even without offering any other protection, mandating it could still be justified for certain activities, just like a driver's license is considered reasonable today.
I'm sure driver's licenses were considered very controversial restrictions on personal freedom back when they were first introduced.
I definitely think both extremes become... extreme. The freedom to drink alcohol while driving your car down the sidewalk without a license as people dive out of your way is also pretty anti-human!
Of course, we could allow that freedom and then just penalize people in court when they happen to injure others with their car. But it might be even more dangerous to set a precedent where you can take someone to court for transmitting a virus to you, or get charged with murder for being part of a transmission chain that results in a death.
Anyway, so I agree with you that it's about balance, and I do agree that Canada's policies are not getting that right (and, in many instances, lacking common sense).
The issue is that individual medical decisions impact the community. Individual decisions, in aggregate, impact the community and those most at risk.
The various vaccine mandate restrictions really aren't about protecting the young and healthy. We'll be fine. It's about limiting the most dangerous, transmission risk areas (eg. bars) to people who are best able to handle the disease (ie. are vaccinated) as others are more likely to die of the disease and more likely to catch it in these places.
How do you feel about paying for other people's healthcare who need treatment for getting Covid and have taken no measures of their own to avoid catching it or being severely ill from it?
Are you arguing that socialized medicine can't exist in a free society and treatment should be based on meeting a list of requirements? Are you arguing that the government should only make benefits available if you make the correct fiscal choices? Let's say you are poor and choose to have a child, should the government prevent you from getting benefits for that child because of the choice you made?
This kind of lunacy, where nothing has meaning, since everything is "just like everything else" has got to stop. There's a big difference between the accepted norm of wearing clothing and being forced to inject your body with drugs. Expecting people to explain it to you is a bad faith attempt to let them say enough words so that you can argue semantics endlessly with them.
I am not the OP, but hold a similar stance, primarily for the reason that the mandates represent a "the last 20% takes 80% of the time" inefficiency in what should be a global effort to dampen the pandemic, and the massive resources invested in first world countries to claw every last hundredth of a percent of the population to get vaccinated could be invested to see much greater effect in second & third world countries.
(UK) At some point it started to feel like stirring division for its own sake, since everyone will be exposed to the virus regardless of whether we get another 0.1% vaccinated. Luckily it seems to be calming down now.
True, but the problem, at least in Canada, isn't the spread from/to the remaining 20%, but the strain and cost to the public healthcare system. The spread from them is a small part of it too, but not the primary factor.
Canada is kind of in a difficult place, because refusing medical treatment is an even bigger taboo then forcing vaccination. But the publicly funded medical system is having to pay a high price both in cost and in capacity due to that remaining 20%.
This is why people are looking for ways to reduce that. Refusing medical care is not currently seen as a viable option, thus vaccine incentives are being explored, like restricting what someone can do if unvaccinated.
> but the strain and cost to the public healthcare system.
In Ontario, today, over half the ICU cases are vaccinated.
In Ontario, today, almost 75% of the hospital cases are vaccinated.
In Ontario, today, 70% of reported cases are among the vaccinated.
The idea that the unvaccinated are somehow driving, causing, or are to blame for the pandemic is completely wrong. For most of January, in Ontario, the rate of infection was higher among the vaccinated than among he unvaccinated!
The case for vaccine mandates or vaccine passes make absolutely no sense when you look at the actual data, actual reality. Even if you could magically force-vaccinate everyone today, you would only reduce the strain on the healthcare system a tiny amount. And yet people support governments forcing people to get vaccinated?
47% of all ICUs and 33% of all hospitalizations considering only 15% of the all age population is unvaccinated is pretty high.
I really don't understand how you can say the rate of infection is higher in vaccinated using this data? It points to the complete opposite, with the smallest percentage of population 15% accounting 2x to 3x more in hospitalization and ICU.
And the data gets worse if you look only at adults.
I'm not saying unvaccinated are causing the pandemic, but they are currently the reason for the continued restrictions. It's because we fear that without restrictions they'd create a sudden surge in cases needing hospitalization and ICUs which the healthcare system might not be able to handle.
That's what people mean when they say that the unvaccinated are preventing us to lift restrictions and to make the pandemic endemic.
Asking to both be unvaccinated, and for all restrictions to be removed, but also asking to be promptly and freely treated if you catch COVID and need to be hospitalized or put in an ICU is a nice thing to demand, but it's not realistically feasible. Based on the data, it is likely to create a surge to the healthcare system that it couldn't handle.
> I really don't understand how you can say the rate of infection is higher in vaccinated using this data?
It isn't right now, but it was in Ontario up until January 27th. Scroll down to the section "COVID-19 cases by vaccination status", and look at the graph.
Note: This data is true but misleading! Antivaxxers are claiming that this is evidence that the vaccines make you more susceptible to infection, but that is probably not true, because all of this data is missing information about previous infection. The unvaccinated cohort is more likely to have natural immunity than the vaccinated one, which skews the data.
> It points to the complete opposite, with the smallest percentage of population 15% accounting 2x to 3x more in hospitalization and ICU.
You started the paragraph talking about infections, and then switched to talking about hospitalizations. The rate of hospitalization and ICU patients is higher among the unvaccinated, yes. And at the same time, the rate of cases was higher among the vaccinated, in January, in Ontario.
> It's because we fear that without restrictions they'd create a sudden surge in cases needing hospitalization and ICUs which the healthcare system might not be able to handle.
Yes, but that fear was completely unfounded, as evidenced by the peak numbers. Canada passed the Omicron peak in cases over a month ago.
And again, you're blaming a minority of infected, a minority of hospital and ICU patients. The majority of patients are vaccinated, and yet you assign zero blame to them.
> Based on the data, it is likely to create a surge to the healthcare system that it couldn't handle.
Denmark lifted all restrictions two weeks ago, despite having the highest number of cases/capita in all of Europe. They already had much less restrictions in place then, than Canada has now. Denmark is fine. Canada will be fine. The Omicron wave has followed the same pattern in every US state, despite wildly different amounts of restrictions. No-one was overwhelmed, and now the wave is over.
There might be future waves, in the fall, because the virus is highly seasonal, and they will be even milder, because there will be even more immunity among the population by then. It'll be fine. We'll be fine.
In Ontario, today, around 80% of the population are vaccinated, so those 20% are making up half the ICU load. You would then expect something like a 40% drop in ICU occupancy from covid if they were vaccinated.
> The case for vaccine mandates or vaccine passes make absolutely no sense when you look at the actual data, actual reality.
> Reaching for a mandate 'just because', is poor government.
This is exactly what happened with the TSA. If people don’t stand up against mandates, like people failed to do after the War on Terror, we’ll still be wearing masks at airports and proving our vaccine status decades from now.
I'm vaccinated but I have no particular interest in forcing anyone else to be. And at this stage I'm not convinced that having a small percentage of the population unvaccinated will have a noticeable impact on transmission (or even that we should be worrying about transmission anymore).
> I'm pretty sure we did not eradicate smallpox by firing people for not getting the vaccine...
Yes we did:
> In 1901 a deadly smallpox epidemic tore through the Northeast, prompting the Boston and Cambridge boards of health to order the vaccination of all residents. But some refused to get the shot, claiming the vaccine order violated their personal liberties under the Constitution.
> One of those holdouts, a Swedish-born pastor named Henning Jacobson, took his anti-vaccine crusade all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation's top justices issued a landmark 1905 ruling that legitimized the authority of states to “reasonably” infringe upon personal freedoms during a public health crisis by issuing a fine to those who refused vaccination.
Smallpox was actually deadly though. If Covid had the death rate of Smallpox then everyone would have gotten a vaccine. That's the end of the discussion. If your neighbor is bleeding from their eyes (Ebola) then people will take the vaccine. The reason Covid is different is because most people have to be reminded every day that it even exists, take a test every-time they sniffle to get diagnosed. So you can imagine vaccine uptick is just going to be less. It's a fact of life. The connection just isn't there.
Smallpox is like - at minimum - 30x more deadly - probably up to 70x more deadly - kills fully half of infected children under age 1 - and renders blind around 1% of those infected.
And you just ignored the main point, which was not the amount of the fine, but the "1905 ruling that legitimized the authority of states to “reasonably” infringe upon personal freedoms during a public health crisis". Not that I think this is a good (or a bad) thing, but it's a historical fact.
Yes, sorry for not mentioning it, but the reply button was not visible for some reason (possibly HN thought that it's a flamewar), hence the closest comment and the quote. :/
> Contrary to popular belief smallpox was not eradicated by mass vaccination. Though tried initially it proved difficult to implement in many countries and was abandoned in favour of surveillance-containment. This involved trained workers searching for cases, with rewards for those who found them. Cases and their contacts were then isolated; contacts were vaccinated. Interestingly this strategy incorporated elements of a system devised in 1778 by John Haygarth in Chester. The last natural case occurred in Somalia in 1977 and after exhaustive enquiries the 1980 WHO Assembly concluded that smallpox had been eradicated.
> I am far from saying that vaccination is a delusion, but the experience of Leicester during the past thirty years
has been unique, and shows that compulsory vaccination is not
essential for the effectual control of smallpox, for despite the neglect of vaccination, the authorities here have been successful in stamping out numerous outbreaks of smallpox, the deaths from the disease have been very few, and the expense involved, when compared with that in other well-vaccinated towns, has been trifling. Under these circumstances I have ventured to publish the following paper, read at the Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health, held at Exeter, in August, which explains in detail what is known as the “Leicester system of dealing with smallpox.”
Because at this point it's not a particularly effective solution & is just political theater. It's also not just needing a vaccine you also need a non expired government-ID and a smart-phone to partake in society. And in 20 years these things will still be around, just like TSA and the Patriot act.
Pretty simple to answer this. Passports work. Car safety regulations work. Seatbelts protect you.
COVID vaccines, however, are not effective at preventing the transmission of COVID, this is well established science at this point. So, that said, why the mandate?
The vaccine mandates prevent unvaccinated people from accessing areas of higher risk transmission. Unvaccinated people (particularly the elderly) are more likely to end up dead or with a serious hospital visit if they catch the disease.
At the moment hospitals are overwhelmed and so at this point the vaccine mandates are about keeping hospital admissions from exploding.
It depends on the mandate but the gun barrel is generally at the end of a long chain of escalating non-cooperation that starts with a sternly worded letter.
Some governments are more trigger-happy than others, but at least in gentler societies, to get to the point where you're looking at a gun barrel, you'd probably have to respond somewhere along that chain with significant violence yourself.
In societies where you are allowed to carry a gun, the government having an even bigger gun is rather implied by the word enforced, because a mandate couldn't be called enforced if the police could only hand sternly-worded letters to you while you ignore it and shot at them.
You're drawing a false equivalence between "contracts between private parties" and "private properties"
By and large, the government does not come take away your freedom for breach of private party contracts. There are some exceptions, where we wrote law (government mandate) elevating some types of private party contract.
But generally, no, me violating your NDA won't escalate to the government shooting me, no matter how uncooperative I am.
If the defendant is ordered to pay damages and refuses, then the government does step in eventually, doesn't it? A continued refusal to comply eventually leads to arrest. That does not necessarily involve a gun, but presumably parent commenter is using the phrase for rhetorical effect.
Ultimately, enforcing (almost) any law does come down to use of force if the guilty party is intransigent enough. Exceptions are when some thing can be "snatched" away and held truly inaccessible to the guilty party, such that they cannot possibly retrieve it.
Wage garnishment is a pretty effective way to collect civil judgements sans violence, I think.
Not sure what happens if you have a civil judgement entered against you and then quit having income. (Not reporting income is probably a real Crime, and they’d go after you for that)
>If the defendant is ordered to pay damages and refuses, then the government does step in eventually, doesn't it? A continued refusal to comply eventually leads to arrest.
Are we talking about "first order enforcement" or not?
If we are, neither private contracts nor vaccine mandates are directly enforced at the barrel of a gun - the RCMP aren't busting down people's doors to shoot them for failing to get vaccinated, just as people aren't immediately killed by the feds for violating legal contracts.
If we're talking about how they're ultimately enforced, if all else fails...well, they're both enforced the same way.
The police (who carry guns) have shut down events for mandate violations in Canada, and arrested people. (There was a particularly stubborn anti-vax pastor in Alberta IIRC.)
For private disputes, it’s also not uncommon to have an armed officer help enforcement. Consider an extremely common private contract dispute - an eviction - where the police may come to remove the tenant.
The “barrel of a gun” is of course a metaphor, but first order enforcement can be closer than you think.
All you're doing here is arguing with yourself: you agree that the barrel of a gun is, in the final analysis, ultimately used to enforce both vaccine mandates and private contracts. Therefore an opposition to things being enforced at the barrel of a gun alone is an incoherent reason to oppose vaccine mandates and not private property.
Honestly, I’m not sure what point you are arguing here, let alone what you think I am arguing. I’m certainly not opposed to mandates solely because they’re enforced at the barrel of the gun (because yes, obviously that is every law in existence). But since we’ve clearly lost the thread or perhaps we’re mixing each other up, let’s just call it a day.
I don't understand what this argument means. Aren't all rules enforced by whatever incentive or deterrent attached to the rule? Is "No parking from 9pm to 6am" enforced at the barrel of a gun?
Certainly yes. You are fined. If you accumulate several fines, you will eventually be arrested. If you resist the arrest, you will find where the barrel of the gun is ;)
For sure. You may get a ticket the first couple times, then they'll take you to jail (where you cannot drive). If you insist on continuing to drive, that means you have to resist going to jail. Resisting going to jail is an excellent way to have force used on you, up to and including guns.
Heck, if the right country wants you in jail for the right reasons, you could flee somewhere else and have the _Air Force_ used against you.
No, but you'll get detained and then you'll like your freedom back so you'll try to walk away, but they won't let you. If you insist, you'll eventually get shot.
So you're saying that, in your region, it's possible to have a warrant (say, for failure to appear at your unpaid-ticket trial) and avoid jail by... running away? Indefinitely?
They won't arrest you the next chance they get (say, when your plate shows up on a scanner)?
I'd propose that avoiding jail indefinitely will eventually lead to violence in any halfway-organized jurisdiction. And if you start shooting, eventually the government will shoot back.
All over a driving misdemeanor. We just assume that reasonable people won't let these things escalate that far, but yes: Every law written is ultimately enforced by a man (or woman) with a gun.
If we’re arguing technicalities, a gun is not strictly speaking required. If it’s you against 20 cops they can just physically subdue you and throw you in jail. At no point they even need to threaten to shoot you. So a threat of physical force - yes. Actual guns and deadly force - not in every situation.
They will shoot you to defend themselves and others if necessary. But not to prevent you from escaping. They will overpower you if they get the chance.
Bottom line: If you are not a danger to anyone, they will let you escape rather than kill anyone (including you), even if it means you are never brought to justice.
It makes a lot of sense, if you don't have a revenge based justice system.
Do it enough, and ignore the authority of the government to require these things of you, and eventually violence will come of it (forcibly ensure your appearance or imprison you, and that force knows no upper limit if you keep resisting).
It's not about any mandate, because there isn't one. If people don't want to get vaccinated they can quarantine for 14 days when they cross the US-Canada border. Or they can just move trucks domestically within Canada or the US. All those options are open to them. Truckers just no longer get a special cross-border exemption and have to play by the same rules everyone else has for a while when they cross the border (vaccinated or quarantine)
Around here the only people who wear the mask are the obvious crazies and the ones being forced by the boss. And that second class doffs the rag every chance they get.
But I live in the sticks. Social pressure is much lower here compared to the city.
In the city. Yeah. The city is rough. All those people crammed together. It changes reality.
On the surface, yes. But in reality this is the fringe far right using the vaccine as a reason to disrupt the country.
My biggest concern with this all is the timing. The vaccine rules have been around for months, but right at the same time as Russia is preparing an invasion of a Canadian ally, we have unknown foreign money pouring into the country supporting an ill-defined movement with the sole goal of disrupting the country.
Handy hint for arguing on the internet. All your sources, with the possible exception of cp24.com are openly politically biased in the direction of your argument. There's no use using them to persuade anyone. Using sources whose bias is opposite to what they're showing is much more powerful.
The New York Times article linked by the parent comment said so:
> Leaked data said to be from the GiveSendGo crowdfunding platform, posted last night to a now-defunct web page by anonymous hackers, lists records of more than 92,000 donations totaling more than $8 million. A review of the data shows that some $4.3 million came from Canada, while another $3.6 million originated in the United States, though the United States accounted for the most individual donations. Small donations from dozens of other countries made up a fraction of the total amount raised.
First 90% of Canadian truckers are vaccinated. https://newrepublic.com/article/165341/fox-news-vaccine-cana...
Evidence suggests that funding for this protest is in large part foreign (IE not from canada) and that most canadian donations are from wealthy business owners, not workers https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/14/22933772/givesendgo-fundi... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/world/canada/canada-truck...
The convoy is unpopular both in Ottawa and provincially, and is in fact not supported by a majority of Canadians
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22926134/canada-truc... https://www.cp24.com/news/almost-2-3rds-of-canadians-oppose-...