Vaccine Passports Have Come to Canada; Don’t Expect the Canadian Constitution to Stop Them
By Patrick Carroll
Of the many terms we’ve become accustomed to over the course of the pandemic, “vaccine passport” is perhaps one of the more ominous ones. Although the idea was initially dismissed as little more than a conspiracy theory, many people now believe that “showing your papers” is a reasonable prerequisite for participating in normal public life. Indeed, New York City has already implemented a vaccine passport, and many other municipalities are also considering it.
Two years ago we would have called this dystopian. Today, we call it a public health measure.
Canadians in particular have embraced the idea of vaccine passports, and two provinces (Quebec and British Columbia) have now announced plans to implement vaccine passport systems in the coming weeks.
Quebec was the first to announce that they would be implementing the policy.
“People who have made the effort to get their two doses must be able to live a somewhat normal life,” Premier François Legault said in the announcement on August 5. “We will give certain privileges to those who have agreed to make the effort to get their two shots,” he continued. “Some non-essential services will be available only to vaccinated people.”
The system, which comes into effect on September 1, will apply to places with high capacity and a high rate of contact, including festivals, bars, restaurants, gyms, and training facilities.
Drawing on Quebec’s example, British Columbia recently became the second province to introduce a vaccine passport. Their initiative, which goes into effect on September 13, will likewise restrict access to high capacity areas for unvaccinated people. The list of restricted areas includes indoor concerts and events, movie theatres, gyms, and restaurants (including patio dining), as well as “organized indoor events” which include weddings, parties, conferences, meetings, and workshops.
Though Quebec and British Columbia are currently the only two provinces planning comprehensive vaccine passport systems, other provinces have also introduced vaccine-related privileges in recent months.
Manitoba, for example, has an immunization card which exempts vaccinated individuals from the self-isolation requirements upon entering the province and allows them to visit loved ones in personal care homes and hospitals. Prince Edward Island has also introduced a pass offering similar privileges.
Federally, things aren’t looking much better for the unvaccinated. On August 13, the government announced that it will soon require that all federal public servants, some 300,000 people, be vaccinated as a condition of their employment. They also announced that all commercial air travelers, passengers on interprovincial trains, and passengers on cruise ships will have to be vaccinated.
Second-Class Citizens
Taking these measures as a whole, it’s hard to deny that Canada is well on its way to creating two classes of citizens, the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Activities that were once considered basic human rights, such as assembling in various social settings or boarding a flight, have now become “privileges” that are reserved for the vaccinated class alone.
In many ways, these policies are eerily reminiscent of the laws that were used to target marginalized groups in the past such as women, blacks, and jews. Of course, the oppression in those cases was often far more egregious. But the moment we concede that some people should have more rights than others, we are operating within the same paradigm. The differences between those historical injustices and the present-day treatment of the unvaccinated are merely differences of degree, not kind.
Indeed, the principle of equal rights and equality under the law really is the crux of the matter here. If a private business wants to discriminate against someone based on their vaccination status, that is their right. But when the government gives legal privileges to a certain group and systematically discriminates against another group, it has crossed a major line. Make no mistake, this is how you get second-class citizens. This is what subjugation looks like.