Over 56,000 Canadians Have Signed Anti-VaxxPort Petition, With Months to Go

Showing that there is still a strong sense in Canada of the need to defend their civil liberties, an official Parliamentary petition, e-3236, launched on March 24 through the sponsorship of Independent MP Derek Sloan has already gathered over 56,000 signatures of Canadians who oppose the implementation of a vaccine passport for travel.

What has been dubbed as the “VaxxPort” would require Canadians if they want to travel anywhere that is not requiring vaccine passports of their own, or just domestically, they must present proof of vaccination in order to board a plane, or cross the border into the United States, and potentially even attend public events. It could be described as a broadly authoritarian 

Nicolas Ouellette, from Quebec, was the citizen who created the petition, where he listed several objections to the use of this form of medical identification, which has been displayed below.

Ouellette ends his petition by stating that:

We, the undersigned, citizens of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to commit to not rolling out any e-vaccination status/immunity passport to the Canadian public for travel, work, public events or otherwise.

This is a clear violation of Canadians rights to freedom of movement, especially considering the fact that the COVID-19 virus to large portions of Canadians does not pose a significant threat to their lives. This will in effect, regardless of some people’s reasons for not wanting or being unable to get the COVID-19 vaccine, create a two-tiered environment in Canada.

With the government allowing discrimination based on someone’s personal healthcare choices, it would also potentially open the doors to private businesses and local governments being allowed to pass their own discriminatory policies around health care status. 

Petitions in the past have been celebrated for achieving over 100,000 signatures by the time the opportunity to sign closes, but Ouellette’s petition sponsored by Sloan has already garnered over 56,000 signatures in a little over a month and is still open until July 22, 2021. 

After July 22 MP Sloan will then be able to present the petition in Parliament requiring an official response to be given by the federal Liberal government. 

Petitions in and of themselves do not have the power to change any laws, but the gathering of signatures to causes like this signals the mood of Canadians to elected officials. Especially if this petition can break 100,000 it demonstrates that the petition represents a large proportion of Canadians as it is notoriously hard to get people to sign official Parliamentary petitions. 

For anyone who is interested in signing this petition, it is linked here, and at the beginning of the article.