Finally, it is anger that François Legault saw at the end of the tunnel.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The Prime Minister gives up taxing the non-vaccinated. Or to “impose a contribution” on them, as they modestly say at the Ministry of Finance.
According to Mr. Legault, this risked enraging this noisy minority and weakening “social peace”.
It’s not false. Still, it wasn’t entirely unpredictable.
Another threat, another setback.
Last fall, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, abandoned compulsory vaccination for health care workers so as not to aggravate the shortage of personnel. It was thought-provoking. Couldn’t we foresee it?
Now it’s the unvaccinated tax that goes to the shredder. And we wonder: has this become a strategy? Do we launch popular but inapplicable threats to score political points, then back down by playing the card of wisdom and humility?
It seems, a little at least… But it’s still more complicated than that.
In seven Canadian provinces, healthcare workers must be vaccinated. For employees of institutions for the elderly, it is eight provinces. Quebec is the exception1.
Mr. Dubé’s objective was therefore legitimate. His threat seems to have slightly increased the vaccination rate. But he also lost credibility. A doubt will hover the next time he promises to take out the stick, for example against general practitioners.
As for the tax, it suffices to reread the December newspapers to see the discontent that reigned against the non-vaccinated. It is in reaction to this that Mr. Legault proposed to tighten the screw on the non-vaccinated.
This delicate reflection was carried out out of order. Without knowing how much would be billed, to whom, when and by what mechanism.
Without understanding who these unvaccinated were and why they refused an injection. And without having the slightest idea either of what Public Health thought of all this.
Like his predecessor Horacio Arruda, the national director of public health, Luc Boileau, has remained silent. This tax issue is not a matter of public health, he justified. True, his schedule is overloaded and it was not a priority. Still, the taxation of risky behavior is also a matter of community health. For example, the National Institute of Public Health (INSPQ) supported in 2018 a tax on sugary drinks.
Who did Mr. Legault listen to? Basically, the polls.
This in itself is not a problem. For the measures to be effective, people must buy into them. This is important data. The INSPQ also publishes a bimonthly survey on this subject.
The most recent was conducted from January 7 to 192. We learn that 59% of respondents want to tax the non-vaccinated and that 69% support the expansion of the vaccine passport. Our CROP survey measured similar rates two weeks ago3.
It’s not that surprising. Everything was closed. This majority said: why do we have to sacrifice ourselves when the non-vaccinated refuse to contribute?
Restaurants have since reopened and it will soon be the turn of performance halls and gyms. On one condition, of course: to have the vaccine passport. It is now the non-vaccinated who feel aggrieved.
The argument of social peace, used in January to defend the tax, thus serves today to throw it in the trash.
Mr. Legault admits to having been influenced by the demonstration in Ottawa, which some would like to reproduce in front of the Parliament of Quebec.
Even if this anger is expressed more loudly, people who strongly oppose vaccines and health measures are not more numerous.
According to Ève Dubé, a health anthropologist who works at the INSPQ, they represent barely 5% of the population. What has changed, she notes, is the percentage of people hesitant about vaccines. Last May, they were around 15%. In the fall, they were only 10%. We deduce that some have rolled up their sleeves because of the vaccine passport or the awareness campaign.
Whatever their reason, this work must be done again with the third dose.
The adhesion of these people is fragile. If the carrot has ever worked for them, it’s odd to pull out the stick. Especially if it’s that hard to handle.
The tax would have required the tabling of a bill, its study, and then its passage. It takes a few weeks at least. Even in the most optimistic scenario, the effect would have occurred after the fifth wave.
This is different from the vaccine passport, which is more preventive than punitive, which is applied quickly and which, if used in the right places, reduces risky contacts upstream.
The opposition has said it and said it again… It is ironic that Mr. Legault considers his tax ill-advised and criticizes the Liberals, Parti Québécois and Solidarity for having wanted to slow down its adoption.
In short, the Prime Minister says to them: you were wrong to be right…
If Mr. Legault only governed by polls, as the opposition claims, he would have imposed this tax, which remains popular despite everything. Still, this psychodrama could have been avoided if we had been interested in the major trends in the polls, instead of examining them with a magnifying glass and reacting to them hotly.
Even if hindsight is preferable to proud stubbornness, this quality has its limits. It would be better not to launch such delicate debates out of the blue. Anger can become contagious.