Issue

The unprecedented government response to the covid-19 pandemic has had massively negative repercussions on Canadians’ physical and mental health, economic well-being, as well as their rights and freedoms.

The standard approach to pandemic management had always been to protect the vulnerable and allow the rest of the healthy population to go about their regular lives while building herd immunity. Lockdowns of entire populations were never part of any pre-covid pandemic planning.

This experiment was largely ineffective in reducing the spread of the virus, but caused significant collateral damage. The vast majority of covid victims were elderly patients with comorbidities in nursing homes that governments failed to protect. Lockdown measures will cause even more deaths in the longer term due to stress-related illnesses, depression, postponement of surgeries, drug overdose, suicide, domestic violence, etc.

Governments don’t want to admit that they were wrong and are imposing increasingly authoritarian measures on the population, including vaccine passports. Both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated will suffer under a regime of segregation, constant control, and surveillance. It is illusory to believe that the virus can be eradicated. We have to learn to live with it, without destroying our way of life in the process.

FACTS

Lockdowns, mask mandates, school closures, and other authoritarian sanitary measures have not had any noticeable effect on the course of the pandemic. Regions or countries that implemented strict measures have been as impacted as those that did not.

Both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated can get infected and transmit the virus, which negates the rationale for segregation and vaccine passports.

Section 1 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that reasonable limits to our rights and freedoms can only be imposed if it has been demonstrated that they are justified in a free and democratic society. Such a demonstration has not been made for covid restrictions, most of which are arguably unconstitutional.

Our Plan

Although most of the measures in response to the covid pandemic have been implemented by provincial governments, Ottawa has an important coordinating role to play at the national level and can influence provincial policies. The federal public health agency coordinates policies with provincial agencies. Ottawa also encouraged and supported lockdown policies through the transfer of tens of billions of dollars in financial aid to provinces and territories.

A People’s Party government will:

• Promote a rational and scientifically based approach to the pandemic that focuses on the protection of the most vulnerable, guarantees the freedom of Canadians to make decisions based on informed consent, and rejects coercion and discrimination.
• Fire the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada Theresa Tam and replace her with someone who will work with provincial agencies to implement a rational approach to the pandemic, instead of following the recommendations of the World Health Organization.
• Repeal vaccine mandates and regular testing for federal civil servants and workers in federally regulated industries.
• Repeal vaccine passports for travellers.
• Oppose vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and other authoritarian measures imposed by provincial governments, and support individuals and groups that challenge such measures in court.
• Support emergency provincial measures to protect the most vulnerable, but stop bailing out provinces that impose economically destructive lockdowns.
• Support medical research and development of therapies to treat covid-19 and other viral diseases.