Canada PM denies ‘forcing anyone to get vaccinated’
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday denied he ever forced Canadians to be injected with the COVID-19 shots, despite implementing one of the harshest vaccine mandates in the world.
In 2021 Trudeau began ordering extraordinary restrictions to force Canadians to take the injections, which included forbidding children 12 or over from traveling on public transportation. Federal workers who refused the shots were placed on unpaid leave. Unvaccinated Canadians were forbidden from entering the country or even crossing provincial borders.
“You don’t get to work in the public service, you don’t get to go to movie theaters or gyms or restaurants,” he told the unvaccinated in 2021.
As recently as October, Trudeau was still threatening the hyper-vaccinated populace with more restrictions if vaccinations did not continue. The prime minister made several such ultimatums last year, including more lockdowns if every single Canadian did not become fully vaccinated.
During a talk at University of Iowa Monday, Trudeau said he only provided “incentives” for vaccinations in order to respect the individual choices of those who refused the shots.
“Individuals are allowed to make their own choices. There may be all sorts of reasons why someone is hesitant to get vaccinated,” said Trudeau. “And therefore, while not forcing anyone to get vaccinated, I chose to make sure all the incentives and all the protections were there to encourage Canadians to get vaccinated.”
Trudeau’s newfound respect for individual choice contrasts with his statement in July 2021 when he said, “There are no more excuses to not get vaccinated.” His denial of vaccination enforcement also contrasts with a statement he made in October 2021 that “enforcement measures are in place to ensure everyone gets vaccinated.”
At another point during his Monday speech, Trudeau admitted that “there are people who have gotten very sick from vaccinations” though he argued they were collateral damage in the war against COVID-19.
In December 2020 however, the prime minister promised that “any vaccine distributed to Canadians will be safe for Canadians”, adding, “every vaccine that is approved is safe for Canadians, is uncompromising”.
Trudeau’s relentless push for vaccinations came even as data were showing possible vaccine-induced harm to Canadians.
Official data from the Manitoba government last year showed that in May 2022 — the last month for which data broken down by vaccination status is available — “vaccinated but unboosted people were about 50 percent more likely to be hospitalized or die of Covid than unvaccinated people. People who had received boosters had roughly the same risk of hospitalization or death as the unvaccinated.”
Those were the data for Week 30, the reporting period ending July 30th.
Following the release of these data, the Manitoba government announced that beginning Week 31 (August), it would no longer be including vaccination status in its COVID-19 reports.
“Monthly updates about severe outcomes after vaccination have been discontinued starting Week 31,” said the government in its latest report. “Manitoba Health will continue to monitor COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness and report periodically when data allow. COVID-19 vaccines continue to provide important protection against serious illness following infection due to all variants of concern (VOC) of COVID-19.”
