(Ottawa) The Prime Minister of Canada was miserly on details on Wednesday on Quebec’s proposal to charge a health contribution to the unvaccinated. However, he will want to ensure that the Canada Health Act is respected.
Posted at 12:08 p.m.
“We are waiting for the details. […] The details will be important, ”he said at a press conference in Ottawa, the day after the announcement of the upcoming establishment of a“ health contribution ”by Prime Minister François Legault.
But what is also important, is that the measure that Quebec will give birth to “respects the principles” of the Canada Health Act, he dropped, recalling that the federal government had for its part implemented “very harsh” measures such as compulsory vaccination in the public service and in other sectors.
Justin Trudeau was accompanied by his Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos, who launched a debate on compulsory vaccination last Friday.
In the federal Liberal ranks, MP Joël Lightbound said he feared for the foundations of the Canada Health Act.
“COVID has made us lose a lot, but we must not give it the power to make us lose our principles,” he wrote on Twitter Tuesday afternoon.
“These are fundamental principles,” added the one who once served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health in Ottawa.
Opposition parties in Ottawa have yet to comment on the CAQ proposal.
This has not yet been detailed, but it already raises several legal and social questions.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) tore it to pieces, seeing it as a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
“Our Charter recognizes that individuals have autonomy over their own bodies and their medical decisions,” Fundamental Freedoms Program Director and Acting General Counsel Cara Zwibel said in a statement.
“Some basic services, like basic health care for the sick, transcend these individual choices. This is divisive and will ultimately punish and alienate those who may be most in need of public health support and services, ”she added.
The opposition parties in Quebec also fear an exacerbation of the marginalization of already vulnerable populations.
“Among the 10% of unvaccinated, there are homeless, undocumented, people with mental health problems”, pleaded the spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
“Will he send them an invoice?” “Asked the solidarity parliamentary leader.
The Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois have expressed similar concerns, and accused the Legault government of having announced this major measure without consulting them first.
” One show de boucane “that the Prime Minister orchestrated by relying” on the polls and his political instinct “, denounced the liberal leader Dominique Anglade.
“Why make an announcement as important as today’s without having taken the time to inform us or consult in any way? Asked the PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
The details of this contribution that François Legault said he wanted “substantial” were not disclosed at the same time as his announcement on Tuesday at a press conference.
In some provinces elsewhere in Canada, such as British Columbia and Saskatchewan, the idea of imposing what looks like a tax on the unvaccinated has already been ruled out.