Repost: Vaccine Mandates Are Dividing Canadians: Former Judge (The Epoch Times)

Vaccine Mandates Are Dividing Canadians: Former Judge

Most Canadians gave up their charter rights and freedoms during the pandemic, emergency management expert says

By Isaac Teo

November 6, 2021 Updated: November 6, 2021

The vaccine mandates pushed by the federal and provincial governments have divided Canadians, and the way the unvaccinated are berated is “extremely ugly,” a former judge says.

“I would never have thought such a thing could happen in Canada,” said Brian Giesbrecht, who served as a provincial court judge in Manitoba from 1976 to 2007.

“The idea of forcing people to be vaccinated, and then yelling at them if they don’t do what you say, is something that should not occur in a country like Canada.”

Giesbrecht was speaking at a webinar on Oct. 28 titled “No More COVID-19 Lockdowns,” hosted by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He was commenting on how governments’ responses to the pandemic are “almost exactly wrong.”

“We’ve almost demonized a good portion of the population,” said the retired judge on how unvaccinated individuals are targeted online and being labelled by some politicians. A poll conducted by pollster Leger in September for the Association for Canadian Studies found that some 77 percent of Canadians hold a negative view of the unvaccinated and that when it comes to vaccinated Canadians, 85 percent of them hold that view. The poll also found that a vast majority of vaccinated people in Canada believe that the unvaccinated “are behaving irresponsibly, are being selfish, and [are] putting others at risk.”

Giesbrecht said governments should have just laid out the “honest facts” about the COVID-19 vaccines and let people have the final say.

“People in different age categories, people in different health categories, etc., should be able to make their [own] decision,” said the retired judge, who chose to be vaccinated because of his age.

“The individual makes a much better health decision for themselves than does a government.”

Throwing Away ‘All the Lessons Learned’

David Redman, a former head of the Alberta Emergency Management Agency (AEMA), said most Canadians have surrendered their charter rights during this pandemic.

https://m.theepochtimes.com/vaccine-mandates-are-dividing-canadians-former-judge_4089859.html