Public Health has discussed with the government of François Legault the possibility of closing the doors of SAQ and SQDC for Quebecers of full age, but not vaccinated. In fact, the imposition of the vaccination passport is excluded only in places of work and education.
On Tuesday, the General Directorate of Public Health agreed to have evaluated this option with Quebec. Since the QR code arrived in the lives of Quebecers, it has always been requested at the entrance of non-essential businesses. The branches of the Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) and the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) were automatically excluded, due to their essential status in the eyes of the authorities.
On Tuesday, neither the SAQ nor the SQDC confirmed the application of the measure, first mentioned in the pages of the Journal of Montreal, in the morning.
“The SAQ had some discussions with the government on this subject,” said the spokesperson for the state corporation, Yann Langlais Plante. If the government goes in this direction, we will apply this health measure as we have done with all the other measures deployed since the start of the pandemic. “
The SQDC, for its part, remains stingy with comments. “I can not confirm or deny anything concerning the eventuality where the vaccination passport would be imposed in the branches of the SQDC”, wrote the spokesperson Fabrice Giguère.
But the General Directorate of Public Health of the Ministry of Health and Social Services was indeed consulted for this purpose. Senior strategic medical advisor Marie-France Raynault raised it on Tuesday.
“These discussions are not successful,” she said, also evoking “feasibility issues”, without naming them.
According to Dr. Raynault, public health teams have “always followed a line” in the application of the vaccine passport in essential sectors. “We can impose the passport, as long as it does not affect work and education. When it does not apply there, we can consider other applications, ”she said Tuesday on the sidelines of a technical briefing on periods of isolation related to COVID-19.
“Protect the unvaccinated against themselves”
Prime Minister François Legault had already indicated, on December 30, his desire to further limit public space to unvaccinated people.
“What I asked my team,” he said at the time, “is to see how we can expand the use of the vaccination passport. That means in more kinds of shops, in more places […] to protect the unvaccinated against themselves ”, underlined the Prime Minister, when announcing the closure of restaurants and gyms, extended holidays until January 17 for schoolchildren and the return of the curfew.
Asked about the new measures that the government is considering imposing on the doors of the SAQ and SQDC branches, the unions concerned affirm that the employers never mentioned them to them. “Both the SAQ and the SQDC union have not received any communication in this regard,” says Jason Brochu-Valcourt, communications advisor at the CSN.