(Ottawa) An unvaccinated Conservative MP – because he claims to have a medical condition that prevents it – refuses to have his medical history checked on the pretext that it is private information.
Dean Allison, Member of Parliament for Niagara West, Ont., Refused to disclose to reporters the medical condition that prevents him from being vaccinated against COVID-19. He also does not intend to entrust it to parliamentary bodies who will want to double-check it under a new motion that should be adopted in the coming days to bring hybrid work back to Parliament.
“Medical information is a matter of private life,” he said, while specifying that he undergoes screening tests twice a week – Mondays and Wednesdays – to gain access to parliamentary buildings.
The motion, to be tabled by the Liberals on Wednesday, provides that MPs with medical exemptions will be able to participate in House of Commons proceedings in person, provided the exemptions follow guidelines from the Ontario Ministry of Health and of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.
The New Democrats have already confirmed that they will support this motion in its current form.
The Bloc members are not going to support the motion since they are opposed to the return to work in hybrid form. However, they raised a question of privilege on Tuesday evening so that the House mandate the Board of Internal Economy (BIS), the decision-making body that made compulsory vaccination in parliamentary buildings, to cross-check medical exemptions.
The Conservatives find themselves going it alone in this fight to protect the privacy of their elected officials, an unknown number of whom are not vaccinated for medical reasons. Liberals, Bloc and New Democrats urge the official opposition to reveal the number of their elected officials who are not vaccinated and thus evacuate the subject.
“Yes, we think the Conservative Party needs to be more transparent. Beyond that, we think that the Conservative Party must think for a moment what their goal is, what their raison d’être is. He’s the official opposition, and for weeks […] the only thing raised in the Conservative Party is that it wants to have […] special permissions, ”said New Democrat Leader Jagmeet Singh.
“There I think it is necessary […] everybody get a column pushed out there. Then we say: “OK, this will be silly”. For the safety of parliamentarians […], if you are not double vaccinated, then if you do not have an independent verification of your medical reason, you will not come back, ”added the Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet.
The immunization status of the conservatives is under scrutiny, especially since one of theirs contracted COVID-19 in the last days.
Beauce MP Richard Lehoux was in Ottawa last week for two days of meetings with all of his colleagues in person. Official Opposition Whip Blake Richards then announced that all MPs and their staff would follow public health guidelines.
These provide that unvaccinated people must self-isolate immediately. Vaccinated and unvaccinated people should be tested more than seven days after their last exposure to the person who contracted the virus.
The caucus having ended last Thursday, the Conservative MPs should in principle all take a new test on Thursday. Charlesbourg-Haute-Saint-Charles MP Pierre Paul-Hus confirmed to reporters that this is what he was going to do. The office of Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has argued that all MPs “follow the rules of public health.”
All except Mr. Allison who says he did not need to isolate himself, even if he is unvaccinated and that he spent two days in the same closed room as his colleague from Beauce there less than seven days. “I’ve never seen him, honestly. I am still standing at the back of the room ”, he justified himself, when he was passed in a corridor of the parliament.