Like so many others, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has crossed the line into dangerous demagoguery when it comes to COVID-19 vaccination and it must not be tolerated moving forward.
According to Trudeau, all people who do not want the COVID-19 vaccine are savage “extremists.”
“They don’t believe in science. they are often misogynists also often racists… It’s a small group that muscles in and we have to make a choice in terms of the country, in terms of the leaders, do we tolerate these people?”
This is what the viciousness of tribalism looks like in action.
Trudeau’s comments prompted the People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier to call him a “fascist psychopath.”
The takeaway from his remarks: in contemporary Canada, anybody who dares question the wisdom of the mass vaccination policy should automatically be dismissed as a racist or a misogynist, even if they’re voicing well-considered criticisms, like Dr. Robert Malone is doing.
Trudeau made the comments to a Quebecois television station, although he was careful to stipulate that the people of Quebec aren’t the problem. Rather, Trudeau questioned whether good vaccinated Canadians should be forced to “tolerate” their unvaccinated brethren.
“We are going to end this pandemic by proceeding with the vaccination,” said Trudeau in French.
“We all know people who are deciding whether or not they are willing to get vaccinated, and we will do our very best to try to convince them. However, there is still a part of the population (that) is fiercely against it.”
“They don’t believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist. It’s a very small group of people, but that doesn’t shy away from the fact that they take up some space.”
“This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people? Over 80% of the population of Quebec have done their duty by getting the shot. They are obviously not the issue in this situation.”
While Trudeau would like Canadians to assume that all anti-vaxxers are racist, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth, because – just like in the US – black Canadians are generally more skeptical of vaccines.
One study from Innovative Research Group showed black Canadians reported vaccination rates that were 20 percentage points below the Canadian average.
Black Canadians also self-reported much lower rates of willingness and confidence pertaining to vaccines.
President Biden has made a similar mistake in the past, and some have credited this dichotomy with influencing the White House to finally dial back its hostile rhetoric toward the unvaccinated.
So, in reality, many of the “anti-vaxxers” Trudeau has condemned as racists are actually black themselves.
Then again, racial sensitivity has never been one of the boyish PM’s strong suits.
In a sense, Trudeau is conjuring up boogeymen, since vaccination rates across Canada are already extremely high (well beyond the levels once considered the threshold for “herd immunity”, before scientists decided to quietly scrap that concept when they realized the vaccines weren’t as effective as they had hoped).
In Quebec, 84.5% of residents have received at least one shot, and a total of 14,900,242 jabs have been doled out since the start of the pandemic. Across Canada, 90% of people aged 12 and over have received at least one dose, while a total of 87% have received two jabs. In Alberta, it’s 90% of the people with one jab and 85% of people with two.
Trudeau’s comments prompted People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier to lambast the PM, calling him a “fascist psychopath.”
