COVID-19 | Unvaccinated MP sponsors controversial petitions

Conservative Dean Allison notably supports the use of pest control to treat COVID-19

Melanie Marquis
Press

(Ottawa) Suspend use of COVID-19 vaccines, reject vaccine passports and make ivermectin available. An unvaccinated Conservative MP is sponsoring a trio of petitions that should be able to find their way to the Commons.

Dean Allison is one of four elected members of the Conservative Party claiming that a health problem is preventing them from rolling up their sleeves to be vaccinated against COVID-19. He does not want to specify which one, because “medical information is a matter of private life”, he recently justified himself.

The most popular petition with which he associates his name calls on the Government of Canada to “urgently examine the evidence in favor of ivermectin” – a pest control whose use is primarily veterinary – and to consider making it available “immediately” as a drug approved by Health Canada.

The product “could be used for protection or prevention against COVID-19”, it reads. In a report published last summer in a publication of the Public Health Agency of Canada, it is written that the use of ivermectin “is not recommended for prophylaxis or treatment. [de la COVID-19] “.

The petition supported by Dean Allison asking that Canadian citizens be able to obtain them directly from a pharmacist had collected more than 27,000 signatures as of December 10.

The other two are less popular: the one that calls for the “use of COVID-19 vaccines in pregnant women, children, youth and adults of childbearing age” to be suspended was signed by around 1,600 people, while than the one where we demand ” [rejeter] vaccine passports ”attracted nearly 4,600.

Electronic petitions such as those sponsored by the elected representative of Niagara West – who joined the efforts of three citizens not residing in his constituency – can be tabled in the House if the Clerk of Petitions certifies that they have received at least 500 signatures. The government must then respond.

At Dean Allison’s constituency office on Friday, it was argued that filing petitions was part of an MP’s job. Press requested an interview with the deputy, but the request went unheeded. The Conservative Party simply did not respond to the email from Press.

The Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Mark Holland, did not deprive himself of the opportunity to react. While he recognizes the right of any member to table petitions, he considers it “absolutely irresponsible” and “not at all acceptable” that these three be presented.

Mr. Holland invites the leader of the Conservative Party, Erin O’Toole, to intervene to prevent the presentation of petitions: “He has to prevent this. ”

The vaccine, a thorn in the side of the conservative

The leader of the official opposition is struggling to manage the issue of vaccination within his caucus. If he repeats in all the forums that vaccines are safe and that his elected officials respect the health rules in force, he is constantly haunted by the anti-vaccine deputies.

MP Cathay Wagantall, who is part of that group, raised a question of privilege live from the seat of her car last Monday to challenge the imposition of cross-checking of medical exemptions for elected officials, citing their ” inalienable right to maintain the privacy of health information ”.

The Liberals raise doubts about the prevalence of medical exemptions among Conservative troops. With four listed – the leader of the Conservative Party refuses to confirm this figure – out of a total number of 119 deputies, we arrive at a rate of just over 3%.

Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr.^r Kieran Moore, has previously said that the provincially recognized medical exemptions – whether severe allergy to a vaccine component or myocarditis – affect one to five people in 100,000, or between 0, 00001 and 0.00005%.

With The Canadian Press