The War against the Unvaccinated continues...
The war on the unvaccinated continues….I am fully vaccinated, realize the value of vaccination and yet, I am against mandatory Covid vaccination. Here in Canada, according to the government agency Health Canada, up to March 2021, only 4 children under the age of 18 had died of Covid. By comparison, the Nov 1999 - Apr 2020 flu season killed 10 children and we did not close schools then or mandate flu vaccines for children without their parents’ consent. Last weekend, for the first time, I learned of the death from Covid of someone known to me. A young person, with no known comorbidities other than being a little overweight. So, Covid is real and it can be deadly. The question is, what do we do about it? The answer seems to be vaccination – even making vaccination compulsory if necessary. Other solutions such as closing borders and lockdowns have been abandoned – good riddance!
To justify mandatory vaccination, a number of arguments are made:
The ‘we mandate vaccination for children to go to school’ argument: Most courts in liberal democracies have ruled that minors are not competent so the state has the right to reject the idea that parents’ philosophical or religious convictions can justify health care-related decisions that can harm their children, as shown by judgments authorizing the administration of treatments involving blood transfusions for children despite opposition from their Jehovah’s Witness parents. Therefore, the state may have the right to mandate vaccination for children. However, when it comes to mandating vaccination for an entire adult population, there are doubts that an adult can be legally forced when the unvaccinated are no more risk to the public than the vaccinated. For example, adult Jehovah’s Witnesses can refuse transfusions even if that means they die. History is replete with cases of people choosing to die rather than accepting a particular treatment. In my own case, I have legally documented and made it clear to my medical providers that if my vital signs fail, I do not want to be resuscitated – even if that resuscitation can prolong my life. My body, my choice.
The ‘it was done in the past during the smallpox pandemic’ argument: Smallpox has an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of over 30%. For Covid, the IFR is under 1% overall, and an IFR of 0.04% for those below 70 years of age. With the Delta variant, the IFR for younger people is rising. Even those low figures may be inflated as many infected are asymptomatic or suffer such mild symptoms that they don’t go for testing. Although businesses may be collapsing (mostly from governments’ over-reaction), because the survival of the vast majority of the population is not at risk of dying from Covid, the courts will be reluctant to approve mandatory vaccination the way they did the mandatory smallpox vaccination especially considering that the current vaccines offer less than 50% protection against the Delta variant and that for only up to 8 months.
‘The Seatbelt’ comparison or ‘Greater/Common Good’ or it’s for ‘Your Own Good’ arguments: It is argued by the proponents of mandatory vaccination that governments have to impose unpopular rules sometimes for the ‘Overall Good’ or ‘Greater Good’ or for ‘your own good’. As my lawyer friend Courtenay wrote, ‘we are toying with the idea of individual rights versus the common good. We should tread carefully. Using the seatbelt comparison is comparing apples to beef’ (not oranges, the difference is so vast). An external safety device such as a seatbelt is no comparison to injecting something into one’s body. In addition, the vast majority agrees that seatbelts are a good thing. The same is not true of the vaccines. Poll after poll show that most Jamaicans are either hesitant, do not want to take the vaccine or are against the mandating of vaccination. If we group these people all into a group called ‘antivax’, we do them a disservice as their reasons for not taking the vaccines now range from wanting to wait and see how it goes, to Bill Gates planted a chip in it to the idea that the vaccines are the mark of the beast and some vaccinated people like me who are against mandatory vaccination on principle.
In a real ironic scenario, the Canadian Museum of Human Rights will not allow employees, visitors or anyone else on their property who have not been fully vaccinated. As I said in a previous missive, although a Black Swan event like this Covid pandemic is a once in a hundred-year event, this is not our first rodeo. This is not the first time we have had a pandemic. We should know what to do. We have had polio and TB pandemics in the last 70+ years. There have been the less fatal measles and mumps pandemics. During those pandemics, we certainly did not divert policemen from dealing with marauding gangsters to pepper spraying and arresting ordinary citizens for not wearing masks. We did not burden the health system to the point of collapse because we built special temporary facilities for these pandemics.
The ‘Good Intentions’ argument: I am not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ so I do not believe that those who support mandatory vaccination are malevolent. I believe that they mean well. However, my idea of governance is a liberal democracy based on the rule that those who govern us do so with our informed consent which is periodically legitimized through periodic elections. Legal jurisprudence from Nuremburg onwards has already defined that no amount of medical knowledge or good intentions can justify overruling the need for a patient’s informed consent. The Canadian Supreme Court has already adjudicated previously that a patient’s consent must be freely given i.e. voluntary - without any form of coercion including ‘force of authority’. Mandating vaccination in the current context, breaches this legal precedence. I underlined the idea of informed consent because informed consent and the legitimization that flows from it, are not static. It is an ongoing process. Even if the vast majority of a population support mandatory vaccination, a government backed by that majority does not have the right to impose mandatory vaccination on the minority and dispose of the doctrine of informed consent. Even worse, if, as in Jamaica, the vast majority are against mandatory vaccination, how much more the minority does not have the right to impose mandatory vaccination upon the majority. This whole issue has come down to power and who has it. The political and corporate elites have the power so, supported by a compliant mainstream media that is in their pockets, they are going to make vaccination compulsory ignoring the long-standing principle of informed consent for any medical procedure.
It’s not like we elect governments and then they can do as they like. Yes, we elect them for a constitutionally limited time but during that time, if they want to bring in something completely new, change or remove something that was there before in the constitution and these ideas were not in their electoral platform, in the same way, they must return to us to gain our informed consent. For example, when the idea of a Caribbean Federation came up in the 50s, because a significant number of Jamaicans led by Bustamante were against the federation, our Premier Norman Manley put the idea to a referendum. Most Jamaicans voted against federation and the rest is history; Manley then called a general election, lost it and Bustamante led Jamaica into independence. I am going into this history to make a point. If Norman Manley felt that to make such a radical shift to federation when that was not in his party’s platform when he was elected, the liberal democratic thing to do was to either put the issue to the electorate in a referendum or call a general election. Norman Manley did both. I take from Norman Manley’s actions that, if a party is elected and its platform did not include something radically new and abhorrent to the current constitution and charter such as mandating vaccination, that party is duty bound to follow Norman Manley’s example. If that is not done, then the governing party loses its legitimacy. When a government such as the Andrew Holness government mandates vaccination or turns a blind eye while the corporate sector mandates vaccination in the workplace, then that government’s actions are no longer legitimate. Such a government’s actions cease to be legitimate because it is no longer governing with our consent. My friend George agrees with me. As George wrote me to say: ‘…consent must be required and given by those who take the vaccine, otherwise humans are now reduced to chattel, and to non-autonomous entities, while government on the flip-side assumes the role of Big Brother. Such a state of affairs now becomes intolerable in a liberal democracy….what this amounts to is the recognition that for the social compact to work effectively, then as many people as possible should buy into the rules, values, and expectations that bind society together; and, for as many people as possible to work towards the common goal. In our case, the elimination or at least, the mitigation in the transmission and spread of Covid-19 and its variants.’ In my opinion, a referendum or election is the way to get this ‘buy in’. At least in Canada, the Trudeau government did call an election and include mandatory vaccination in their platform. Winning that election, he now has an electoral mandate to make vaccination compulsory and he has done it. Therefore, it is now up to the courts to deal with mandatory vaccination in Canada. In the same way, if Holness called a referendum on the issue or resigned and called an election with mandatory vaccination in his platform, if he won, then he would have an electoral mandate to bring in mandatory vaccination. Whether the courts would buy that is another story.....
My other friend Nicholas wrote me, ‘On the subject of “mandatory vaccination”, I believe a population should be able to exercise its right NOT to (get the vaccine), as was mentioned earlier. People should have a choice unless it is determined that those not vaccinated can be detrimental to the rest of the population. And how this is done and exercised would have to be with caution. Unless something like this becomes the law, there should be no grounds for anyone to deny access to employment, services, etc. This type of discrimination and “forcing of hand” is currently rampant.’ On occasions where there is an emergency, the constitution allows the imposition of a State of Emergency (SOE) with limitations. The duration of a SOE is limited and its imposition and renewal have to be justified and approved by Parliament. Since both vaccinated and unvaccinated people are both ‘detrimental’ to others in that they both can transmit the virus, there is no constitutional justification for the government to mandate vaccines for the unvaccinated. As my friend Nicholas goes on to say: ‘People for religious, moral and health reasons among others should be able to say no. If it becomes the law (constitutionally legal), then it boils down to choosing whether to stay in the country or not. You should also have the choice to leave. But then where to go? It seems many countries are heading down the path of making it extremely difficult for citizens in many ways if they don’t vaccinate.’
Freedom of association, the freedom of peaceful assembly, the freedom of thought and expression, and the freedom of conscience and religion are enshrined as fundamental rights in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Jamaican constitution and the Jamaican Charter. These freedoms are being set aside under the auspices of a public health emergency – without declaring a SOE. The question I would ask Canadians, Jamaicans and our politicians is: What sort of nation is being preserved when fundamental civil liberties have been cast aside and the inviolability of conscience has been despoiled as a medical necessity? What sort of country will we return to, and what will our children inherit when the freedoms our Charters call “fundamental” give way to appeals to what is ‘safe’ (it’s not), or politic, or popular, rather than what is right? Canadians pretty much rolled over or should I say rolled up their sleeves and accepted vaccine mandates. Will Jamaicans do the same? Time will tell….
In closing, Holness has two choices: Hold a referendum on mandating vaccines or resign and call still another election with mandating vaccines in his platform. For Holness to mandate vaccination or for his government to allow the corporate elite to impose mandatory vaccination in the workplace without obtaining our consent either through a referendum or election is a breach of trust and nullifies the principle of governing with our consent. Once Holness violates that principle of governing with our consent, his government lacks legitimacy. When that legitimacy is lost, excrement can hit the fan….
Raymond D. Grant
Alberta, Canada
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