- the vaccines are relatively new and long term effects are unknowable,
- efficacy against the current variant questionable and
- the current variant being mild enough even in unvaccinated populations
it is perfectly reasonable to have a significant percentage of the population to be unvaccinated, just to have a control for long term studies and for backup in case horrible side-effects come up in the long run.
The vaccine makers will try to argue otherwise and try to sell as much as possible, which is why the governments should have made strong commitments to make it strictly optional and prohibited any private attempts to make it mandatory.
Instead, we have seen most world politicians act as if they were completely bought out by the vaccine manufacturers.
One or the other.
We Canadians had a fairly single issue election in the fall around vaccine mandates and the Liberal party won. The question is not “are mandates allowed” but “can a group be allowed to take cities hostage while trying to overthrow democratic rule.” The issuing of mandates was not even passed through fiat like an American executive order, this government is a minority government and at least one other party must support them to pass legislation.
One man’s authoritarianism view can be another man’s view of the state protecting it’s people. There certainly should be limits, but our election was highly focused on determining those limits (whether you like the FPTP system or not).
Right now the hospitals continue to be overloaded and so long as that is the case the government's health officials absolutely have a right to limit risky activities that are likely to explode the amount of people going to the hospital.
If governments recklessly open up here the system could fall apart. Already Alberta and Saskatchewan have conceded to the protestors and are winding down health measures so we'll see what happens. I hope the worst fears don't come to realization.
The hospitals here in Quebec have been overloaded and badly managed ever since I was of age to vote, and that's more than 20 years ago.
Most hospitals here have been operating above 100% capacity (you can find this information btw) for years. Waiting time in ER are crazy and the time to see a doctor have been reported to take in average 15 hours and up to 20 hours (pre-covid data in 2019) [1]. God forbid if you need to be hospitalized, as it can reach 24-48 hours.
Firing nurses over COVID measures before Christmas certainly didn't help, which is worth pointing out.
The politicians are trying to shift the blame of the bad healthcare systems happening under their watch to COVID.
[1]: https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/2fe607e4-1054-4f10-9f56-703...
> 32.62% voted for Trudeau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election
“The People's Party was the only party opposing vaccine passports, mask mandates and lockdowns”
The PPC received 4.94% of the vote, which implies more than 90% of voters chose a party which in some way supported mandates.
The majority of vaccine mandates are provincial. The federal government has only issued them for workers in federally regulated industries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_in_Canada... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_vaccination_mandates_...
Welcome to a parliamentary system where coalitions are often required.
So yes, Trudeau has the will of the majority. Plus 2/3 of Canadians want the protest ended even with military force.
the minority is retaliating because they feel their rights have been violated.
i'm not taking sides and i'm not asking you to, but you're kidding yourself if you think these truckers are a greater existential threat to you and your way of life than your government with its self appointed "emergency" powers.
For good or ill, "tyranny of the majority" is exactly how democracy works - and it's only ever "tyranny" to those who don't like the democratic outcome. Did you mean constitutional democracy, perhaps? Most constitutions, definitely including Canada's, enumerate rights that are supposed to be beyond the reach of normal legislation or executive action, but that's the "constitutional" part rather than the "democracy" part.
> i'm not taking sides ... but you're kidding yourself if you think
That's taking a side.
And respectfully, no I'm unable to take sides because I don't have skin in the game.
That's also very different from "picking a side". Like watching the superbowl because you care about the outcome, but don't support one team over the other. You just want to see a good, fair game.
Having an ideological stance is also very different from "picking a side". I'm not automatically friends or allies with people who happen to share a view with me. I'm not automatically enemies with someone that holds different or opposite views.
Further you've conflated an objective observation with an ideological one. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Executive figures with armies are a greater threat to the people than the freight labor class. This claim doesn't need "proving", it's reinforced by history. Feel free to challenge yourself to find evidence to the contrary instead of trying to saddle the burden on someone else.
Consider that the verbiage chosen is very easily construed as snark, or at worst a personal affront. If you meant neither, better words could have been chosen.