(Quebec) The leader of the Conservative Party Éric Duhaime calls for the gradual lifting of all health restrictions despite the perilous situation in the Quebec health network.
Posted at 1:03 p.m.
“If the sanitary measures worked, we would know. If the sanitary measures were that effective, we would have the best results, not the worst, ”said Mr. Duhaime at a press briefing on Wednesday.
He cited the UK as an example, which announced the end of most anti-COVID-19 restrictions soon. “Wearing a mask will no longer be compulsory. The health passport will no longer be compulsory. They are coming out of the crisis. We see a bunch of countries coming out of the crisis. Here, we still act as if we were in the first wave, and that is what is the problem, ”he denounced in a press briefing on Wednesday.
The day before, the Minister of Health Christian Dubé nevertheless affirmed that the health network in Quebec is “at the end of the line” and that the elastic is “stretched to the maximum”. “To say today that we are going to remove measures” when the network is overloaded would be to show “lack of conscience”, said Mr. Dubé, reminding people who plead for the reopening of restaurants or gyms that we had to “be careful not to give reasons” for not respecting the rules. And with 88 new deaths on Wednesday, Quebec has more deaths than at the peak of the second wave last winter.
For Éric Duhaime, however, the time has come for Quebecers to rediscover “pleasure”: “There is no fun in Quebec, there, we have abolished pleasure here for too long. It is time to put Quebec back on the normality of things, ”he said. He pleads for the abolition of the vaccine passport, the reopening of restaurants, cinemas, and gradually, the lifting of all health measures. “We have a scientific committee there, which advises us. I have five, six doctors on the board,” he explained. He did not wish to reveal their identity during the press briefing.
Mr. Duhaime believes that the number of hospitalizations in the health network is “inflated with helium”. “As I speak to you, we are now being told that there are 50% of people who go to the hospital, who are found to have COVID, who are counted as COVID, but who are not not there because they have COVID,” he said. He also questions the mortality figures.
Another requirement of the PCQ: the lifting of the state of health emergency and the return of the 125 deputies to the National Assembly. “We can do it gradually, there. Let’s sit down and discuss it. That’s the goal here. That’s why we need a functional Parliament and then we need to stop being led by a single man who does this with his nose, ”he said. He points to the American example. “We’re going to look at the games from the NFL this weekend for the playoffs, we’re going to see 70,000 people gathered no masks in states where people are half as vaccinated as us, then these people, everything is fine. »
Non-vaccinated tax
The leader of the Conservative Party also intends to fight against the imposition of a tax for the non-vaccinated, but he believes that in any case, it is only a “bluff” from the Legault government.
“I think the government is bluffing. I don’t think there will be a vaccination tax in Quebec. I think that government is putting pressure on it which is obviously not working, but it is always in a mode of wanting revenge. I do not see legally how he will be able to implement this in Quebec and in Canada, ”he said.
He opposes it even if a majority of Quebecers support this idea, according to a poll commissioned by the Toronto Sun, since he wants to defend the minority of unvaccinated people. “Unlike François Legault, it is not the polls that dictate our policies and then our ideas. Me, I have a principle in life, it is that citizens are equal and that we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And, for me, that is fundamental. Then democracy is not the dictatorship of the majority, it is also respect for our minorities,” he said.