How rapidly we have watched our leaders flip towards a disturbing enjoyment of demonizing and dividing.
Remember Justin Trudeau’s “A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” remarks?
They came in the 2015 federal leaders debate.
Trudeau was opposing Stephen Harper, as Harper sought to revoke the citizenship of convicted terrorists.
Trudeau’s response?
“A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
Trudeau said the government couldn’t just pick and choose which rights to defend.
And then, consider this…
Response to Khadr settlement
Amid the backlash to the immense amount of taxpayer dollars the Trudeau government gave to Omar Khadr, Justin Trudeau said this:
“The measure of a just society is not whether we stand up for people’s rights when it’s easy or popular to do so, it’s whether we recognize rights when it’s difficult, when it’s unpopular.”
Interesting.
Where has that attitude gone?
A complete reversal
Not only has Trudeau abandoned his ‘A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian’ rhetoric, but he has completely reversed himself.
As we saw in the election campaign, Justin Trudeau was glad to ruthlessly demonize fellow Canadians over their vaccine status, calling them ‘those people’ and driving a wedge in between the populace.
And, that wasn’t just an election technique.
It is clearly the ongoing policy of the Trudeau Liberal government.
“Employment Minister @CQualtro says those fired for refusing vaccination shouldn’t be able to access Employment Insurance: “It’s a condition of employment that hasn’t been met and the employer choosing to terminate someone for that reason would make that person ineligible for EI.”
Employment Minister @CQualtro says those fired for refusing vaccination shouldn't be able to access Employment Insurance: "It's a condition of employment that hasn't been met and the employer choosing to terminate someone for that reason would make that person ineligible for EI." pic.twitter.com/5MSIzof0Cf
— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) October 21, 2021
You of course can note how the supposed ‘condition of employment’ is a condition that governments have imposed on companies.
In effect, Qualtrough and the Trudeau government are saying they won’t provide EI to people who lose their jobs because of government policy.
Further, EI policy is set by the government, meaning they could easily ensure that individuals who are fired because of their vaccination status are still eligible.
But of course, that wouldn’t serve the interests of the statists like the Liberals and most provincial governments.
What they want is obedience, control, and domination.
Refusing to give EI to those fired due to their vaccination status is all about using a fear-based manipulation strategy, in this case, the fear of financial ruin and the inability to provide for oneself and one’s family.
In a country where the government can’t outright kill people with impunity, financial ruin is the next ‘best’ thing for those who want to exercise near-unlimited power to push compliance with state orders.
Why not allow evidence of immunity/negative tests?
Governments seeking to use risk of financial ruin to induce compliance with their dictates is quite disturbing, particularly when we consider that alternatives are available.
For example, if governments were truly ‘following the science,’ then their only concern would be to ensure that people in a workplace are healthy.
Evidence of immunity from prior infection, and negative tests could easily substitute for mandating vaccines, especially when we note that – as pointed out in this Israeli study – there are serious questions regarding natural immunity compared to vaccine-driven immunity:
Sivan Gazit, Roei Shlezinger, Galit Perez, Roni Lotan, Asaf Peretz, Amir Ben-Tov, Dani Cohen, Khitam Muhsen, Gabriel Chodick, Tal Patalon
Background Reports of waning vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 have begun to surface. With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear.
Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study comparing three groups: (1)SARS-CoV-2-naïve individuals who received a two-dose regimen of the BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine, (2)previously infected individuals who have not been vaccinated, and (3)previously infected and single dose vaccinated individuals. Three multivariate logistic regression models were applied. In all models we evaluated four outcomes: SARS-CoV-2 infection, symptomatic disease, COVID-19-related hospitalization and death. The follow-up period of June 1 to August 14, 2021, when the Delta variant was dominant in Israel.
Results SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees had a 13.06-fold (95% CI, 8.08 to 21.11) increased risk for breakthrough infection with the Delta variant compared to those previously infected, when the first event (infection or vaccination) occurred during January and February of 2021. The increased risk was significant (P<0.001) for symptomatic disease as well. When allowing the infection to occur at any time before vaccination (from March 2020 to February 2021), evidence of waning natural immunity was demonstrated, though SARS-CoV-2 naïve vaccinees had a 5.96-fold (95% CI, 4.85 to 7.33) increased risk for breakthrough infection and a 7.13-fold (95% CI, 5.51 to 9.21) increased risk for symptomatic disease. SARS-CoV-2-naïve vaccinees were also at a greater risk for COVID-19-related-hospitalizations compared to those that were previously infected.
Conclusions This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.
Zero balance
In an effort to appear reasonable, governments often claim to be seeking a ‘balance’ between freedom and social responsibility.
Of course, we’ve seen that balance be obliterated, with governments going all in on centralized control, draconian restrictions on rights, and demands for control.
Now, when you consider the study shown above, you can see how any reasonably ‘balanced’ policy would ensure that – rather than requiring vaccination – people could show evidence of natural immunity or a negative test.
Eliminating Covid?
There is something else to consider:
Why should governments require any of this at all?
Why are they still pursuing a strategy that seems predicated on eliminating Covid entirely, rather than living with it?
At some point – and many other countries have already reached this point – Canadians will need to acknowledge that restrictions have to end and life go on, while recognizing that Covid will never fully go away.
While this seems ‘radical’ in the Canadian context in which all the large political parties have pushed the fear-narrative, many parts of the world have already returned to normal, without restrictions, without mandates, and without destroying people financially based on their personal health decisions.
Until Canada is one of the countries that is back to normal, and until we finally stop demonizing and threatening people over their vaccine status, any claim of ‘a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian‘ will continue to be hollow and meaningless, serving only to illuminate the brutal hypocrisy of those in charge.
Spencer Fernando
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