DENYING EI BENEFITS TO THE UNVACCINATED

 Canada’s Employment Minister, Carla Qualtrough, has warned that unvaccinated workers who lose their jobs may not be eligible for employment insurance benefits, potentially bankrupting them. Does this go too far?

COVID-19 has clearly replaced terrorism as the major threat the government must protect us from, and it is using it to justify policies that, in the short term, may seem strict but necessary, but whose long-term implications should give all Canadians pause.

In December 2021, the Federal Court of Canada heard arguments from dozens of federal bureaucrats and four Canadian soldiers against vaccine mandates. The court refused to grant an injunction for the bureaucrats but has reserved judgment in the soldiers’ case.

Most of these challenges claim that vaccine mandates violate Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to security of the person, including psychological security. As the Supreme Court put it in 1988, requiring women to obtain certificates from specialized committees before being allowed to have abortions is unconstitutional, because the Charter guarantees freedom from “unjustified state-imposed psychological stress.”