Without giving details on the health contribution that his government wishes to impose on unvaccinated people, François Legault indicated Thursday that parliamentarians will have their say on the question. The National Assembly will be seized of a bill at the beginning of the next session, at the beginning of February.
With good reason, the opposition parties called for a debate on the measures surrounding the pandemic. That the Prime Minister is showing a desire for consensus is a good omen. We also welcome the fact that he has pledged to avoid “hurting people who are in a bad way” by exempting the poorest from penalties, as demanded by Québec solidaire.
With regard to this health contribution, it is worth remembering that such a measure should only target public health objectives, namely to encourage everyone to get adequately vaccinated, for their own protection and that of others, and to reduce the spread of the virus.
When he spoke on Tuesday about this exceptional health contribution, François Legault spoke of the “discontent” he felt rising within the vaccinated population towards this minority of recalcitrants.
The CAQ government cannot act out of revenge and become the agent of popular vengeance. In this fight against the pandemic, he must not let himself be guided by his partisan interests or his popularity rating. Certainly, there is a relationship between how he reacts to this fifth wave and his electoral prospects. But it would be wrong to instrumentalize the grumbling of the vaccinated majority.
This means that the measures must produce convincing effects so that the constraints they impose on the individual freedoms guaranteed by the charters and authorized by the health emergency and the Public Health Act are justified.
Such a contribution can be considered as a hitch to the universality of our health system. Currently, taxpayers fund the public system through their taxes based on their income. They don’t have to pay extra if their lifestyle doesn’t align with healthy living creeds. Smokers, cola drinkers, gluttons and sedentary people do not pay more than other citizens for the public health system.
We can always say that smokers, like alcohol consumers, pay additional taxes, but there is a margin between taxing certain products whose consumption we want to restrict more—we can also think of gasoline—and imposing an additional premium, like private insurers, to a portion of the population because of their lifestyle choices to supposedly finance the public health system.
In addition, this health contribution, if it is collected through income tax, could probably only be paid next year, when taxpayers file their income tax returns. Moreover, it could only apply to those who produce one. Now is the time to act to encourage vaccination.
The path that would be promising is the threat of being imposed a hefty fine, from which vulnerable people or those who cannot receive the vaccine would be exempted. It would not be a health contribution: it would not be intended to finance the hospital system. The goal is that we do not pay this fine and that a greater number of Quebecers agree to be vaccinated. For themselves, of course, but especially for the suffering people who see their operation postponed. In this context, there is no harm in forcing the hand of the recalcitrant.