Discrimination against unvaccinated Canadians not based on science

Banning unvaccinated people from flying would be a necessary and just law only if the government could establish at least two things. First, that COVID is an unusually deadly killer that everyone should fear, like the Spanish Flu of 1918. Second, that unvaccinated people spread COVID a lot more than vaccinated people do.

Sadly, the federal government is not basing its policies on facts or evidence. Statistics Canada tells us that death rates in 2020 did not differ dramatically from death rates in 2019, 2018 and prior years. The March 2020 prediction of Professor Neil Ferguson, that COVID would kill tens of millions of people like the Spanish Flu of 1918, has been proven false. Resoundingly false. COVID's impact on the overall life expectancy of Canadians has been minimal. For Canadians not living in nursing homes, COVID is statistically less likely to cause harm or death than driving your car to work. Ignoring basic facts, the federal government as well as provincial, municipal and territorial governments continue to spread fear by pretending that we're facing something truly terrible like the 1918 Spanish Flu.

The new COVID vaccines do not prevent the transmission of COVID. This is what the vaccine manufacturers themselves have said publicly, claiming only that the vaccine would reduce the severity of illness when vaccinated people get infected with COVID . To date, no government has presented the public with evidence to support its repeated and fear-filled propaganda message that the COVID vaccine stops the spread of COVID.

In addition to clear statements by vaccine manufacturers that the COVID vaccine does not stop the spread of COVID, we know from the experiences of highly-vaccinated places like Ireland, Israel, and Gibraltar that COVID and its variants spread freely when 94 percent or even 100 percent of the population has been injected. Both the vaccinated and unvaccinated can get COVID and can spread COVID, without any proven difference between these two groups. Both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated die from COVID.

Canadians have good reasons to get the COVID shot, and good reasons not to. Natural immunity in those who have already had COVID is as effective, and likely more effective, than vaccine-induced immunity. The COVID vaccines are still in clinical trails until 2023, and have not been subjected to any long-term safety testing. The new COVID vaccines have harmful side effects in some people, including myocarditis and death, that have caused many Canadians to withhold their informed consent to taking one. For young males, the from the COVID vaccine is higher than the risk of harm from COVID.

Since COVID is not an unusually deadly killer, and since both vaccinated and unvaccinated people spread the virus, why are some Canadians reduced to second-class citizenship on account of their own personal medical decisions?

Governments have no scientific basis for escalating their persecution of the millions of Canadians who exercise their constitutional right to bodily autonomy, protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Preventing millions of Canadians from travelling by plane or train is a gross infringement of their civil liberties, and is guaranteed to hurt their employment, their education (many students attend out-of-province universities), and their ability to earn a livelihood and feed their families. Parliament has not been consulted about this blatant violation of section 6 of the Charter, which protects the right to freely enter and leave the country.

Vilifying an identifiable group in society as somehow 'dirty' or as 'spreaders of disease' is a page from the playbook of history’s most abhorrent tyrants. This Transport Canada Ministerial Order is an act of appalling cruelty and persecution not seen in Canada in many decades.

John Carpay is president of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca) which will be challenging the new travel restrictions in Federal Court.