I don't want to get political here, that's not my intention but this even was 100% peaceful protestors who just happened to be somewhere the President wanted to go were gassed for no reason.
Yeah, I have 5 nieces and nephews and friends with kids that live and around Hamilton. Tell me what they're going through that's insane.
Don't just drop comments like this without backing up your assertions, because it's false. Is it ideal for the kids right now? Fuck no. None of us want this. But to sell the narrative that there's a whole class of parents/teachers/administrators who are not trying their goddamned hardest to make this as easy on kids as possible, while stradling the line of what's responsible during a pandemic, is just belittling all of the effort being done for no discernable purpose at all.
My oldest kid been going to in-class school since September 2020 [1]. Maskless since October 2021. She missed, in a year and a half, a total of two or three weeks of school. This is a blessing that my kid has received.
As has been pointed out, you can visit relatives in Canada. What you can't do is zip back and forth across the border willy nilly during this pandemic, while refusing to take the preventative measures 4/5ths of your (eligible) countrymen have taken, namely vaccination.
I'm an American living in Canada. Like you I chose to live across an international border from my family. Guess what? Living abroad inconvenient from time to time! During a pandemic when one country (USA) chooses to behave idiotically, the result being a 3x per capita death rate compared to Canada, it's even more inconvenient. Ironically, people like you (who can't be bothered to do anything to prevent virus spread) are the reason we have to have all these damned restrictions.
Despite the inconvenience to me (didn't see family for over a year) I support the border closures and restrictions fully. I am very proud of Canada's success in keeping death and hospitalization rates down compared to USA, and proud of Canadians' civic spirit and collective solidarity. That civic spirit is a big part of why I prefer living here.
If you never want to be inconvenienced in your travels to and within Canada: move back home. You are opting into a certain amount of inconvenience by living abroad, that is your choice.
The adversity of your words is against hacker news rules. This isn't reddit.
>>Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
I appreciate the feedback. What in particular did you find objectionable about my comment? Feel free also to "flag" my comment for moderator review if you think it isn't suitable for hackernews.
Who is barred? I’ve travelled to Canada to visit family a number of times last year and once so far this year. I have another trip planned for late spring.
There was a time that entering as a Canadian citizen by air would get you escorted to a gov't approved place of quarantine for a few days, regardless of your living situation / ability to self-isolate. Granted, that's not the situation currently.
Quarantine != "barred". Perhaps inconvenient to the point of rethinking the trip, yes, but that's different than a citizen being denied the right of return by their government.
And even that inconvenience can be removed with a free, safe shot that takes 30 seconds to get for those that aren't prevented by some other health condition.
Former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford, one of the men who helped draft our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is suing the government, claiming that these travel restrictions on Canadian citizens are unconstitutional.
It's a pretty remarkable situation to have someone who wrote our constitution pointing out that the government is in error.
The case was doomed before it was filed because the pretense and premise is a bit absurd. Air Travel is not a right on its own and the federal government is freely able to place limits on who is allowed onto an airplane already, for a lot of arbitrary reasons (Canadians or otherwise). Setting that aside, provinces also have a say in how that works and could easily also force isolation on returning travelers and invoke the notwithstanding clause to enforce it. Either way, by the time it is argued we will hopefully be past COVID restrictions.
It will also be interesting to see the moment of Peckford's lawyers arguing the intent of the constitution and the crown having to argue against it, given Peckford was there at its drafting. However, it would be foolish to believe the man to be automatically correct and infallible on this point in the court's eyes.
However, I do believe the discussion is worth having because if nothing else it will force the Canadian government to rethink its policies that were clearly developed on the fly without due consideration. Right now, with the benefit of hindsight, 14-day enforced quarantines and 3-5-day enforced stays at government designated hotels don't seem to have done much of anything other than throw the hospitality industry a bone. Personally, I would have preferred to see more aggressive testing done at points of entry, with quarantine notices essentially handed out to individuals who need it. Unfortunately successive governments undermined Canadian biotech industries and left the country without the needed capacity.
There need to be better policies and plans in place for the next time this happens and it is important to have the discussion of just how much you're able to dictate to a given individual.
Next time this happens, public health agencies will be dealing with large swaths of their populations who have zero (actually, negative) trust in them and refuse to comply with any and all measures from day one.
Peckford didn't really contribute to drafting the charter in its relevant portions here, though he had peripheral involvement in its contours as a premier of a province during the period it was negotiated and as part of the basis for the Kitchen Accord that led to s.33. His major position on the constitutional negotiations as a whole was mostly a losing position. So it's a little like arguing the anti-federalists had unique constitutional insight in the U.S. Especially given that the constitution was shortly relitigated vis-a-vis Meech Lake and Charlottetown and the heirs to Peckford's position... lost again!
After losing election in Newfoundland (thanks partially to betting the province's economic future on hydroponic cucumbers -- a little surprising that didn't work!) he left the province, and he's had no real involvement in politics since except to endorse the far-right political party in the last election and become a professional anti-vaxxer, as you note.
I think the appeal to authority here is odd. Whether Peckford has a legal point on the travel restrictions or not, it's not because he was ostensibly in the room when the finer points of the constitution were hammered out. The whole point of the Court Challenges Program and other measures was because everyone -- the legal profession, the provinces, the federal government, and interest groups -- believed that the charter required extensive jurisprudence to understand.
I doubt Peckford wins as the case works its way through; the dominant policy view on the Charter and the court is basically dialogue theory, that the court exists primarily to work affirmatively with the government and that even when the court strikes government policies it typically does so in a cooperative way. The court is largely deferent to state interests. This deference is built right into s.1, which is why charter rights are subject to s.1.
But even beyond that, the court has already circumscribed s.6(1) rights e.g. in Divito v. Canada (which held that, for example, citizens are not entitled to prison transfers to serve international sentences domestically; both because the state has an s.1 interest in limiting such rights and because s.6(1) isn't that expansive to begin with). The court has never held, e.g., that s.6(1) grants an affirmative right to fly, or an affirmative right to fly without ID, or even an affirmative right to get a passport without following instructions. The alternative argument is some kind of nonsense s.7 argument which would clearly crumble when applying s.1.
I suspect they would decline to rule in Peckford's favour here, they aren't in the business of whole cloth concocting these kinds of affirmative rights. The most likely vote would be 8-1 or 9-0, with maybe Brown dissenting?
Of course Peckford being legally incorrect doesn't mean he has no point from a moral or policy standpoint. Totally reasonable to say "I think Peckford's point is well taken." Just think the bizarre invocation of him as a legal authority doesn't hold up at all.
The last man alive who sat with PET and the other premiers to discuss how Trudeau’s unacceptable constitution (to the premiers who had to be on board) was going to pass muster.
Being barred to enter a country because of a lack of vaccination is nothing new from the pre-Covid-19 era.
Like Brazil requires a Yellow Fever vaccination for people from some African countries.
There are probably about 100 other reasons they can be banned from entry if they don't comply. Saying they are "banned" if they don't get a vaccination (even though of course it's not a ban, it's a "de facto" ban) is no more interesting than if they're "banned" if they won't submit to a search, or if they've filled their car with fruit.
> Quarantine != "barred". Perhaps inconvenient to the point of rethinking the trip, yes,
The original quote was "de facto barred". If something is "inconvenient to the point that it makes the trip infeasible" it's pretty much as good as barring entry.
> And even that inconvenience can be removed with a free, safe shot that takes 30 seconds to get for those that aren't prevented by some other health condition.
I'm vaxxed and boosted, but at this point it doesn't seem like vaccines inhibit transmission and thus it's purely a matter of bodily autonomy. "yield your right to bodily autonomy and you may enter" is some authoritarian nonsense.
First, vaccines do inhibit transmission. They're not perfect, and the protection begins to wane after a few months, but to say that they don't inhibit transmission is false.
Further, the vaccines have consistently significantly reduced hospitalization, and most Canadian hospitals continue to be stretched with a long backlog. The continued strain from COVID hospitalizations continues to impact others. Freedom has always been limited when it interferes with the rights of others, (in this case timely access to healthcare) and borders have always had stricter rules than normal life within a country.
We're in a gray area here, granted. Ideally ones' own health choices would not impact others, and hospitals would be back to normal, but the restrictions are not nonsense.
> First, vaccines do inhibit transmission. They're not perfect, and the protection begins to wane after a few months, but to say that they don't inhibit transmission is false.
I was a little imprecise--I don't think the transmission inhibiting effect is literally zero, but I suspect it's marginal (based on US health officials remarks about 'everyone is going to get omicron' https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/11/health/us-coronavirus-tuesday...).
> Freedom has always been limited when it interferes with the rights of others, (in this case timely access to healthcare) and borders have always had stricter rules than normal life within a country.
I can't take this argument seriously while Canada tolerates so many other things that increase one's risk of consuming hospital resources (drinking, smoking, driving, etc) and fails to mandate other things which would similarly reduce load on hospitals (diet, exercise, etc). In these other cases, it's regarded as the responsibility of the government to provide enough healthcare to meet demand--not to infringe on the rights of citizens.
> We're in a gray area here, granted. Ideally ones' own health choices would not impact others, and hospitals would be back to normal, but the restrictions are not nonsense.
I think we left the gray area when it became clear that COVID would be endemic and vaccines don't do much to reduce transmission.
> Abortion in Canada is legal at all stages of pregnancy, regardless of the reason, and is publicly funded as a medical procedure under the combined effects of the federal Canada Health Act and provincial health-care systems
Quarantine procedures were in place during Zika and Ebola outbreaks as well. And those procedures were substantially more harsh. Major metro hospitals had quarantine facilities brought in for Ebola. Patients were shoved into a mobile field hospital for 14 days. Not a single protest happened for that.
The takeaway here is that none of this is new. People are mostly just pissed off that the quarantine procedures now apply to them. It was a-okay when other people were shoved into isolation tanks because, "that's what happens when you go to Africa."
When the rights are infringed upon just for the fuck of it without solid proof that it is to prevent endangering large amount of lives - maybe it is technically legal but I think it is crime.
You can make it illegal and actually a crime. The democratic way to make it one is either make that point democratically elected leaders in a civilized manner or vote against them next election and organize into parties/block to influence policy.
Terrorizing and hold regular people hostage with noise pollution, blockade and disrupt their lives is what revolutionary/terrorist organization would do.
If protestors behave like terrorists and insurgents then sooner or later they will be treated like one.
No Canadians are barred from entry, nor have they been. You'll still be getting into the country, just with testing and quarantine requirements. Working cross border isn't a right
> Not all unvaccinated people end up in a hospital though. So aren't we discriminating against them?
We absolutely are, and I applaud the effort.
If they were fighting against rabies or measles or tetanus vaccinations, I'd say "Good on you! Do your part to clean out the shallow end of the gene pool."
But once their stupidity endangers others, we as civilized people step in and stop them.
When unvaccinated COVID patients flood the hospitals, it means that other people with serious or life threatening medical situations can't get the quality treatment they need. At this point, the antivax stupidity crosses over into danger-to-society.
So yeah, block them until they no longer pose a threat.
> When unvaccinated COVID patients flood the hospitals [..]
In our part of the world, despite eye-watering infection rates over the last few weeks, hospitals are absolutely nowhere near capacity (and that's putting it mildly).
Were younger and fitter people really flooding hospitals if they got Covid? Thought the data on age and comorbidities is pretty clear and has been for a while now.[0][1]
> The fact that Canadian hospitals haven't been overrun is testament to how well the situation is being handled. But one must remain vigilant. Even Germany had problems with their hospitals despite their best efforts.
> Health officials in Sweden have warned that intensive care units (ICUs) in and around Stockholm are under severe pressure and close to capacity for the first time during the pandemic.
> Although the city’s hospitals could increase the number of beds allocated to ICUs, there are insufficient specialist staff to support them, said Björn Eriksson, director of Region Stockholm Healthcare.
> He told The BMJ, “So far, we have been one step ahead of the virus by continuously opening more care places so that they’re available when the need arises. Now, healthcare staff are so hard pressed and the margins are so tight that on 10 December I formally asked the National Board of Health and Welfare for more specialised staff.”
> One option being considered is “borrowing” trained staff from private care providers, he said.
> The Swedish government changed its approach to the pandemic last month when it introduced tougher restrictions on social interactions after cases started to rise. The soft approach the government had adopted, based on recommendations and voluntary behaviour of citizens, has shifted as cases of infection with SARS-CoV-2 have continued to surge along with hospitalisations and deaths.
> This week Prime Minister Stefan Löfven announced that the ban on gatherings of more than eight people would extend to the Christmas holidays, while secondary schools have been told to switch to distance learning for the rest of the term. The government has also asked the parliament to grant it more authority to implement new measures such as closing shopping malls and gyms.
Upstream in this thread we have "it's not torture because no-one is making those residents who live in the area stay" - because of course, they all can afford the time and effort to go stay in a hotel out of the area for a few weeks...
Here we have "oh, well, it might as well be a ban, if you're going to inconvenience someone for a few weeks".
Look, I get it. They’re icky and Canada has a long history of denying or trying to deny entry to “icky” ppl. Mediterraneans, Asians, Eminem (though I forgot about that one eh?).
Canada has just a long list of things its apologized for. Like barring entry to Mediterraneans, Asians and Eminem.
Fun fact - people who live or have lived in disease-plagued areas of the world are far more likely to willingly adhere to guidelines on masks, isolation, and the like, because they've seen, firsthand, the devastating effect of pandemics and epidemics.
Let's not pretend for one moment that your average antivaxxer in the US or Canada is in any way on some sort of moral crusade for the third world.
It's just a "better" reason than "because I'm selfish".
I’ll help your argument out and make it stronger (because “reserved” vaccines have indeed been shipped overseas):
Once a vial is opened the vaccines contained therein can’t be shipped overseas and will expire in a few hours. I could therefore wait outside a Walgreens before closing and get the shot.
Except Im not a utilitarian. I cannot take what is rightfully another’s just because they cant enjoy it. I believe that all young people should have refused the shot, therefore liberating millions of doses. Mine is but the first (literal) drop in what should be an ocean; and Im actively encouraging my friends to do the moral thing and refuse to get boosted.
It is rightfully yours. your government put in the work to develop and produce these vaccines on your behalf. You can always put in more work to make more vaccines to get to others if you think they should also have vaccines
Do you only do this for vaccines? other medical treatment? food? water?
I don't know where to draw the line myself, so I wonder what kind of rules you set for yourself. This sounds like one of the most extreme examples I've heard.
Nice sentiment but this is analogous to the concept of not throwing out food because there are starving people out there. The vaccine you're not taking isn't going to magically get reappropriated for use in the third world. Most likely, it will just go to waste.
Yes it is. My parents were vaccinated with vaccines not used by first world countries.
EDIT:
Also, consider that perhaps the West should be consuming (far) less resources including food? Eat what’s on your plate, even if you’re full, and skip the next meal. Your discomfort and hunger will help remind you next time to have an appropriate serving.
I've had relatives come into the country from different countries many times, with no issues. They had to quarantine, one of them with us, but they were never denied entry, and even that is getting dropped progressively.
Some of us remember the “mostly peaceful” characterization by CNN of the protests in Kenosha.
We also remember the blockade of the rail in Canada.
We’re also not impressed by the pleas by inconvenienced government bureaucrats who couldn't be bothered to investigate the arson of 40 places of worship in Canada.
