As the provinces continue to scrap COVID-19 restrictions, Canada’s health minister is still refusing to provide a target or date for when the federal government will lift the remaining vaccine mandates..“These measures are focused on vaccination, because vaccination is the key to the least disruptive possible measures to protect the health and safety of Canadians and their loved ones,” said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos at a.House of Commons health committee meeting on Monday..At the meeting, Conservative MP for Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, Ont., Michael Barrett grilled the health minister on why the federal government wouldn’t give a target when to lift the restrictions..“What different information does the federal government have that is causing it to not provide dates, or a plan that will see federal COVID mandates lifted?” Barrett asked. Duclos responded the virus was “still out there” and that dozens of Canadians were still dying with COVID-19 every day..“And that’s what I think we should be mindful of,” Duclos said, adding the government’s remaining restrictions were mostly focused on encouraging vaccines, which he said remains the most effective way of preventing the virus from spreading..Duclos said he was also concerned with the implications of long-COVID, which he said seemed to impact between 10 and 30% of people infected with the virus..Duclos said while the government is reviewing its COVID-19 policies “weekly,” the need had to take a “prudent and measured” approach..Canada’s provincial governments ended most COVID-19 restrictions, including lockdowns, mandatory masking and vaccine mandates. But the federal government still requires federal workers to be vaccinated, and unvaccinated Canadians are unable to board a train, fly domestically, or even leave the country..Canada’s chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, said March 18 Ottawa was reviewing its vaccine mandates for both travellers and federal workers and its COVID-19 policies could shift from “an emphasis on requirements to recommendations.” But she also suggested a global resurgence of COVID-19 cases could delay that plan..During Question Period on March 22, Barrett gave Duclos “another chance” to give a date when federal COVID-19 mandates would be lifted..Adam van Koeverden, the Liberal MP for Milton, Ont., and parliamentary secretary to the minister of health, responded that while Canada was in a “very different place” compared to March 2020, the future “remained uncertain.” He said the federal government would continue “following the science going forward to get out of this pandemic for good.”.“If the parliamentary secretary says the government is going to follow the science, then he should do that, just like the 10 chief medical officers of health have done in every single province in this country,” Barrett said. .“They’re all ending the mandates. So we want to know what the benchmarks are. What are the data points that this government is going to use to end the mandates?” he asked..van Koeverden responded COVID-19 was a “very, very complex issue,” and reiterated that the federal government would make decisions based on the “best science.”.“The provinces will make decisions accordingly with their health officials and we will make our decisions based on the exact same science with our health officials,” he said..In a March 23 tweet, Ontario MPP for York Centre and Conservative party leadership candidate Roman Baber said the federal government’s travel restrictions are “textbook.totalitarianism.”.“My family and I weren’t allowed to travel outside USSR until 1989,” said Baber, who was born in the Soviet Union in 1980. “We should not accept that three million Canadians have no mobility rights.”.Matthew Horwood is the Parliamentary Bureau Chief of the Western Standard
