Justin Trudeau refuses to say if he supports taxing the unvaccinated

OTTAWA—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says more details about Quebec’s proposed tax on unvaccinated residents will be “extremely important” to ensure it respects legal requirements for public health care in Canada.

Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill, Trudeau said Wednesday that the Quebec government has assured Ottawa that the proposal, the first financial penalty for people who refuse COVID-19 vaccines in Canada, will not violate federal law. Canada Health Law, which includes principles of universality and equality of access.

But Trudeau repeatedly refused to say whether he agrees with the principle of taxing people who refuse their COVID vaccines, stating that it is a “complex” issue and that his government needs more details on how the Quebec proposal would work. .

He also said provinces are “right” to look at different ways to motivate people to get vaccinated as cases of the Omicron variant skyrocket across the country and strain hospital capacity.

“We want to make sure that the principles of the Canada Health Act are respected,” Trudeau said in French.

Later, in English, he added: “Details will be important on how this works, how it balances the values ​​and rights that we all hold dear as Canadians, with the need to keep people safe.”

Trudeau would not say whether Ottawa is considering similar taxes for unvaccinated Canadians, instead pointing to existing federal incentives, such as a vaccination mandate for government workers and requirements to get vaccinated for people taking planes and trains in Canada. .

He urged all Canadians to get their booster doses and to make sure children ages five to 11, 45 percent of whom have received a first dose, also get their shots.

With hospitals overwhelmed and 62 more COVID deaths in the previous 24 hours, Quebec Premier François Legault made the surprise announcement Tuesday that his Coalition Avenir Québec government would impose a “significant” tax on people in the province who refuse to be vaccinated against COVID-19. 19 He said it would be similar to the drug insurance coverage some Quebecers pay for when they file their annual taxes.

“All people who are not vaccinated for non-medical reasons will have to pay a contribution,” Legault said, suggesting that the amount people will be forced to pay will be more than $100.

The move came just days after Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal health minister, pondered the possibility of mandatory vaccinations as infections of the highly contagious Omicron variant soar across Canada. On Wednesday, Duclos said his conception of vaccination mandates are measures to encourage people, not force them, to get vaccinated against COVID.

“I think no one is thinking or certainly talking about physically and forcibly vaccinating people in Canada,” he said, pointing instead to existing measures, such as mandatory vaccinations for people who work in the federal bureaucracy and travel on airliners. passengers.

While no-tax taxes are rare around the world, Quebec would not be the first jurisdiction to create one. Greece announced last November that people over 60 who refuse to be vaccinated will have to pay 100 euros a month. In Singapore, unvaccinated patients must pay their own hospital bills.

Don Davies, an NDP health critic and MP from Vancouver, said his party has not yet discussed Quebec’s “novel and unusual” proposal, but he is concerned that such measures could interfere with what he described as a fundamental principle of the Canadian public health care. : universal access.

“We will guard that principle very carefully,” Davies said, adding that he believes governments would be wiser to put more resources into education campaigns and other efforts to vaccinate more children and ensure more people get their booster doses as soon as possible. soon as possible. .

One way to do this would be for the Liberal government to marshal military resources to help administer vaccines in the provinces, he said.

As of January 1, about 77% of the Canadian population had received two doses of the COVID vaccine, while about 17% had received a booster shot, according to federal data.