University of Toronto professor Kerry Bowman sees no way for Canada and the developed world to avoid vaccine passports despite “layers of problems” involved in their implementation..“Looking at the global picture, meaning the international picture, I think it’s inevitable,” the teacher of bioethics and global health told the Western Standard..“If the European Union and the Americans and everybody else does it, Canada is going to have to. Otherwise it would be very problematic economically if we didn’t.”.The federal government has reached the same conclusion. In a tender posted June 7, the Canada Border Services Agency expressed an “urgent need” for contractors to set up a “Biometrics Authority.” Bids close on June 21 and start-up is slated for August 2. The contract runs one year with an option to run a second year..“Just stamping our feet and saying we’re not doing it is too problematic. It’s not going to work. From a purely philosophical point of view, we could say that, but it’ll be crippling economically to not do it. But that does not mean there’s not layers of problems with it,” Bowman said..A large concern would be any denial of services to the unvaccinated..“Would it be legal for a restaurant to say, all of our staff are fully vaccinated – fully – and all clients coming in here are fully vaccinated. Would that be a legal or illegal act? I don’t know. And if they can do it, and they’re trying to recover from this nightmare, they may do it – but what an infringement,” said Bowman..A Reuters article last January said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was opposed to vaccine passports..“I think the indications that the vast majority of Canadians are looking to be vaccinated will get us to a good place without having to take more extreme measures that could have real divisive impacts on community and country,” Trudeau said in an interview..By early May such misgivings were set aside as Canada and other G20 countries agreed to hammer out a common framework for vaccine certification..Bowman is concerned that people from poorer countries will be left out..“One of the things that really worries me with this approaching summer of 2021 is that the only people moving around this world are going to be people from high income wealthy countries because everyone else has really not had access to the vaccine at all. So there’s going to be some serious inequities for a period of time in relation to the passports,” Bowman said..“A lot of people want to get on with it, whether it’s working out of the country or travel, and we don’t have any direction yet as to how it’s going to work or what it’s going to be, so that’s a concern.”.Bowman hopes for the best, but has his doubts..“My hope, trying to be optimistic, is that things will go very, very well globally as they are nationally…and that these problems will be short lived, and that things…will just improve so quickly that this is just such a short window to worry about,” Bowman said..“I’m not convinced that’s going to happen, but that’s the most optimistic scenario I can come up with.”.Harding is a Western Standard correspondent based in Saskatchewan
