Canada’s Trudeau should learn from India’s Supreme Court ruling against forced vaccinations
MAY 8, 2022 8:00 AM
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
3 COMMENTS
In a watershed decision, India’s Supreme Court ruled that “ no one can be forced to be vaccinated” and that “bodily integrity and personal autonomy” are protected under law as a constitutional right.
The National Post article below applauds India’s decision, while pointing out the Trudeau government’s abuse of power in trampling the rights of Canadians. Omicron has infected both the vaxxed and the unvaxxed, so it isn’t about the science. It is about compliance.
Canada’s Transport Minister has also refused to let go of his stranglehold. It should be no surprise. He is Omar Alghabra, a man known to Jihad Watch. See details about Alghabra’s questionable value system HERE.
Unfortunately, as the Post points out, the Courts are doing nothing in defense of the people against Trudeau.
Let’s hope for a resolution via greater pressure from the opposition Conservative Party, or Supreme Court intervention (which is unlikely).
Trudeau, who professes to believe in “my body my choice,” recently showcased his authoritarian tendencies yet again when he signed a pact with the even farther Left New Democrat Party (NDP) to prop him up as prime minister until 2025. The NDP is even more socialist than the Liberals. In fact, the New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus is a faction within the NDP, with a manifesto that criticizes the New Democratic Party for moving too far to the Right and thus becoming indistinguishable from the Trudeau Liberals.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s approach to mandatory vaccinations is even more tyrannical than that of Trudeau.
Canada remains one of the most backward countries in the world, rigidly maintaining vaccine mandates.
“Rupa Subramanya: India’s courts get it right on vaccine mandates — and Canada doesn’t,”
National Post, May 5, 2022:
On May 2, in a landmark judgment, India’s Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, ruled that “no one can be forced to be vaccinated” and that “bodily integrity and personal autonomy” are protected under the law as a constitutional right. Citing emerging scientific opinion “which appears to indicate that the risk of transmission of the virus from unvaccinated individuals is almost on par with that from vaccinated persons,” the judicial bench went on to argue that since infection rates are currently low, restrictions imposed on the unvaccinated, including those that curtail their freedom of movement and access to welfare and other services, are not “proportionate,” and urged organizations that imposed these restrictions to review these measures and modify them as necessary.
The court was responding to a plea filed by a former member of the country’s national advisory group on immunization, seeking disclosure on vaccine clinical trials and the posting of vaccination-adverse events data. The plea argued that Indian states’ legislation mandating vaccination for government employees and as a precondition for accessing welfare and other services, including travel in public transport, was a violation of basic individual rights and, therefore, unconstitutional.
The federal government in India itself has not issued any vaccine mandates and has always maintained that it is a voluntary, individual choice. The judgment was rendered even more extraordinary by the fact the directives were limited to the “present situation alone,” and the court upheld government restrictions on the unvaccinated “if the situation so warrants,” thereby striking a delicate balance between a person’s right to choose and the government’s responsibility in protecting public health.
What is fascinating is that this extraordinary Supreme Court judgment in India is in the context of a Westminster system, a system originating in the United Kingdom but also, of course, shared by Canada. Unlike in the United States, with its tradition of activist courts that are not shy to push back against the executive or legislature, and are highly protective of constitutionally enshrined civil liberties, the Indian judicial system, like the British and Canadian systems, tends to exhibit a culture of deference to Parliament. While India’s Supreme Court has clearly circumscribed the extent to which the federal or state governments can impinge on individual rights in the interest of public health, it’s noteworthy that nothing comparable has occurred in Canada. This is striking, given the similarities between the two countries’ judicial systems.
Why haven’t we seen greater pushback from the courts in Canada against federal and provincial vaccine mandates? While there have been numerous challenges at both the federal and provincial levels, arbitrators have been exceptionally deferential to the mandates, agreeing, in particular, with the federal government’s rationale that vaccine mandates are justified to protect the safety of the workplace. Given this, and the fact that courts are loath to intervene, federal government vaccine mandates in Canada have remained almost entirely intact….
Bizarrely, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra, responding to a question in the House of Commons, defended travel-related vaccine mandates by pointing to the life-saving properties of vaccines. This is disingenuous, at best. While someone who is vaccinated is likely going to experience less severe symptoms than someone who is unvaccinated, and more likely to avoid serious illness or mortality, travel-related vaccine mandates were never about the seriousness of symptoms but about curbing transmission. With the advent of Omicron, this rationale has entirely fallen away.
The bottom line: the Trudeau government’s refusal to budge on its vaccine mandates, which no longer have a sound public policy basis, is all about politics and has increasingly little to do with public health. The mandates are a perfect wedge issue for the Liberals, allowing them to continue to demonize the unvaccinated. While no one will admit it, of course, nothing could be better politically for the Liberals than, say, an anti-vaccine protest turning violent, as an increasingly demoralized, marginalized and frustrated group finds its patience wearing thin as they continue to face taunts from the government and its cheerleaders in the commentariat. There is also no better way to smear political opponents, especially in Conservative ranks, who have gone on record to show their sympathy and support for anti-mandate protesters, such as the erstwhile Freedom Convoy in Ottawa…. |
