Canada should accommodate the unvaccinated during the Omicron wave: O’Toole

Canadians unwilling to get vaccinated against COVID-19 must adapt through measures such as rapid tests, conservative leader Erin O’Toole said Thursday, as health experts warned that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant threatens to overwhelm hospitals.

Ontario reports an increase in hospitalizations and made a decision days ago to keep school-age children learning from home for at least two weeks, which, according to the Doug Ford government, was to ease pressure on the care system. medical.

Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott said that of the 319 intensive care patients, 232 of them are not fully immunized against COVID-19 or have an unknown status, while 87 are double vaccinated.

With millions of Canadians once again living under sweeping public health restrictions that closed businesses and forced families to stay home, O’Toole blamed the liberal federal government. With more than 75 percent of the country’s population now fully vaccinated, he said the government has failed to keep society open through tools like making rapid antigen tests more available or ensuring there is a local supply of personal protection equipment.

Mandatory vaccination policies have proven to be a particularly difficult topic for O’Toole to handle, even within his own caucus, as some of his MPs have refused to confirm his status. Some of these members strongly condemn vaccination mandates for threatening people’s livelihoods and violating their medical privacy.

O’Toole opposed vaccine mandates during last year’s election campaign and on Thursday accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of fueling questions about vaccines by targeting those who have not yet received them.

Trudeau said Wednesday that Canadians are angry at those who refuse to be vaccinated because they are filling hospital beds, causing cancer treatments and elective surgeries to be postponed.

What people are reading

The conservative leader said he refuses to criticize people who are not vaccinated and believes that “reasonable accommodations” should be provided to people like truck drivers to avoid service disruptions and exacerbate supply chain challenges. He warned that mandatory vaccination policies could result in a shortage of “tens of thousands of workers” in the crucial trucking sector.

Recently, Conservative Ontario Transportation MP Melissa Lantsman wrote a letter to her government counterpart outlining the risk of losing truckers to businesses and consumers and asking if Ottawa would consider rapid testing as an alternative.

The federal government’s schedule for truckers to be fully vaccinated is January 15.

In his letter, Lantsman noted that the United States made an exception to its rules for drivers traveling alone in their cab.

Canadians should be proud that the majority of the population has been immunized, O’Toole said Thursday, adding that medical experts he has spoken with say the way to reach those who have not is through education and addressing your anxieties.

“There is going to be up to 15 percent of the population that is not vaccinated,” he said.

“In some cases, you will have to try to find reasonable accommodations between keeping people safe and people not losing their jobs, losing their home, not being able to support their children. I don’t think that position is irrational when life is people are on the line. “

Despite saying that exceptions should be made for those like truckers, the Tory leader appeared to have no problems with the mandatory vaccination policy that applies to members of the Canadian Armed Forces, of which he is a veteran.

“With the service above itself that we see in the Canadian Armed Forces, there will be a requirement for many and most operators to be vaccinated,” he said.

This Canadian Press report was first published on January 6, 2022.