There are more cases. You can google them. The Democracy Fund has been busy defending these people and getting their jobs back and getting their fines quashed. I didnt say that the vaccines weren’t legitimate. I was presenting the clear fact that people were indeed forced to comply in taking them. And some lost their jobs for not doing it. And some were given ridiculous fines for not doing it. Which contradicts the statement above that no one in Canada was forced to take the vaccine. We most definitely were.

I guess it comes down to your definition of “forced”. People were forced to get the vaccine in the same way they are forced to not walk around with a gun indiscriminately firing bullets - you’re welcome to do it in the privacy of your own home (as long as your home is big enough that the bullets won’t leave it) but if you want to participate in a society then you are forced to follow some rules.

At least they are saying it openly now.

If they think that will make more people support the conservatives they are very wrong, if anything it will do the opposite.

I mean yeah some people who refused to get the vaccine could lose their job and all. That was pretty bad in some sense but you have to understand that when there is a pandemic it’s important that if a vaccine is out and ready to take it not only for your safety, actually you could be just fine without it yourself, but for the safety of others around you too and those who are weaker. If not taking a vaccine will endanger others around you then you should either take the vaccine or not go to public places where there are many people who could be at risk of dying from the virus. What I was really against is the whole passport thing and how they tried to get you to use some app and tracking you through that which was a privacy concern for me.

What other definition of ‘forced’ is there, other than being coerced to do something against your will? Thats the definition of forced.

This was just reported this morning by a national press gallery media: “Incomplete figures show nearly 1,600 Canadian soldiers, sailors and air crew resigned, were discharged or faced discipline for defying Covid orders” Sounds pretty forced to me.

And recall what touched off the whole convoy event? The government insisted that cross border truckers, the same guys who had been praised for keeping our international trade going and supplying our stores for the previous two years were going to be FORCED to get covid vaccines. These are guys who spend all their time in a truck cab and barely interact with anyone except the guy running the forklift to load them in the US but suddenly, after two years, Trudeau decided that to “participate in society” as you put it, they needed to get vaxxed. It didnt make any sense at that point, still doesnt. Thus the spark that ignited a huge protest. We were tired of being forced to do things that no longer made sense even if they did in the beginning.

Unfortunately, I’ve run into a lot of very average people who think the convoy was what “ended covid lockdowns”. They know it messed up Ottawa for a while, and feel bad about that, but are “happy with the end result.” The vast majority havn’t ever listened to those racist rants by the organizers, read their manifesto stuff, or read the journalism investigating their funding sources. Mainstream media never covered any of that in detail -probably because of how distasteful it was. They remember messy street protests, annoyed residents, and lockdowns ending. That’s it.

Job requirements are a thing.

It was only “forcing” in the same way we force people to not drink and drive.

Both the vaccine restrictions and drunk driving laws are in place for the safety of everyone around you. You are free to choose to defy those restrictions, but that doesn’t mean you are free from the consequence of that choice. Just like driving drunk could result in the loss of your license. No one was breaking down doors and literally forcing a vaccine into people. There was always a choice. But there are also consequences for choosing the option that endangers the rest of the society you are participating in.

I am totally on board with there being consequences for stupid decisions that endanger others.

for stupid decisions that endanger others.

Sure. But there are plenty of reasons people had for refusing the vaccine that arent stupid at all. Including my cousin who is a pediatric ICU nurse and VERY well acquainted with vaccines and how they work. She was required to take the SARS vaccine and it physically damaged her immediately, and she now has heart complications that started right after she took her shot. So when the health board said she needed to take the Covid shot she pleaded her case as her heart couldnt take more damage if it were to have the same effect. They refused to grant her an exception so she retired from nursing instead. Not sure what part of that is ‘stupid’ but there wasnt exactly a lot of understanding - Trudeau made sure the message was that anyone who didnt take the shot was ‘unCanadian’ and most likely misogynists and racists and dont believe in science. Which was actually a pretty asshole thing to say. And why he’s not only no longer PM but he’s completely disappeared off the radar because the Liberal party doesnt want to remind Canadians of his existence.

Your cousin’s case is a legitimate medical reason for an exemption and is why the rest of us need to maintain herd immunity by getting vaccinated. A bunch of guys I work with were refusing to get vaccinated just because they didn’t want to be told what to do. Guys like that are actively endangering the people who CAN’T get vaccinated, like your cousin. Herd immunity is critical in order to limit the spread of diseases and protect the people who can’t get vaccinated or who have other medical complications that put them at high risk.

Legitimate medical exemptions are fine. Deciding that you “just don’t want to” should come with consequences. My partner’s 87 year old mother could be killed by Covid. We have all maintained flu/Covid shots to protect her.

My partner’s 87 year old mother could be killed by Covid. We have all maintained flu/Covid shots to protect her.

You DO know that getting the shot didnt prevent anyone from carrying and transmitting covid, right? And you can still get covid even after vaccination?

The value of FORCING everyone to get the shot and isolating themselves really becomes questionable as we look at the long term effects: Mental health issues are way up. School age KIds lost two years of schooling and a lot of socialization skills. Drug use skyrocketed and we have a drug epidemic. Many seniors were severely emotionally impacted by not being able to see their families. Massive job losses particularly in the hospitality industry. Business closures. The division caused by the PM painting refusers as ‘bad Canadians’. Plus the ridiculous financial cost of the ArriveCan scam, paying for hotel rooms to isolate travellers, millions of vaccines that went unused, respirators that were bought at a premium and sold as scrap, to say nothing of the billions of dollars that were handed out with almost zero oversight MUCH of it completely wasted. Like the millions given to a QC company to build a pharmaceutical plant that never happened. And the rapid rise of inflation caused by injecting billions of dollars into the economy.

The Trudeau approach to forcing compliance cost this country A LOT and we’re going to be dealing with the fallout for many years to come. There was usefulness in the beginning but after two years Trudeau was actually saying that he saw further use for the digital app for allowing entrance into buildings and other access. NO THANKS, we dont need gov control over free movement and medical compliance.

You know what the problem with your definition of forced here is? You think it means having to face any consequences at all. That’s not what forced means. Just having to face consequences doesn’t mean you were forced to do something. Consequences are the result of free will. The result of making your own decisions. It’s naive and childish to think that you should never face consequences for anything you do. Every decision you make has consequences, no one’s forcing you to face them you’re choosing to face them. It’s part of the decision. Don’t want to take the vaccine you lose your job. No one forced you to make that choice you chose to make that choice. Consequences are part of choice.

These people can’t understand there could be differing viewpoints to their own, whether they agree with them or not.

Libertarians are basically Nazis in their eyes as ironic as that sounds.

And since when is losing your means to make a living a valid consequence for refusing a vaccine? The courts have said, in most cases, that it was overreach and shouldnt have happened. Those weren’t reasonable consequences for non compliance, especially when it was accompanied by harassment and derision, some of it by our own PM. Stop drinking the koolaid.

That’s why I’m not interested in convincing them. I’m just interested in forcing them to take their fucking medicine.

Well if that choice is so bad for you then maybe don’t make it. That’s how choices work. I can choose to inject myself with bleach right now, I’d probably die, so I’m not going to make that choice. No one’s forcing me not to make that choice no one can stop me. That’s called consequence. It is beyond childish to think you should never face consequences for your choices. That’s not the same as being forced.

Yes, I understand that it didn’t prevent us from catching it or spreading it. It did however, reduce the length of time we were sick. Which meant that since we were her primary carers, that she wasn’t without us for as long. Since it DID reduce the length of time and severity of our illness.

As far as all of the other gripes you seem to have around Covid, yes, I agree it wasn’t handled perfectly, but since we were dealing with a completely unfamiliar disease, we were working with what information was available at the time.

I don’t deny that in hindsight things could have been done better. But we should be judging the actions based on the context of the information at the time. Can we learn from the past and do better in the future? Absolutely. But I’m not going to hold every single Liberal at fault for the decisions of Trudeau.

On the whole the convoy was fucking embarrassingly bad, but then again so was the whole idea of “vaccine passports.” It was good to see people protesting it, horrifying to see how obnoxiously “conservative” most of them were. Shouts of “freedumb” everywhere, protesters thinking they were being rebellious when the cops were pretty much on their side, nobody around with the guts to call in the RCMP (there was a process for it. They could have done it) and get rid of the fucking trucks, bullshit half-baked misinterpreted pseudoscience on the TV, vilification of the idea of any dissent, carefully stage-managed presentation of the output of bureaucratic panic and confusion from the institutions of government, each side of the often stupid controversies absolutely refusing to listen to the other. Destroyed my faith in democracy, basically.

I agree, we were working with the info at the time. But thats what was so frustrating about the continuation of the mandates when it was clear that we were past the peak of infections and the gov STILL wanted to impose NEW restrictions. I think Canadians were pretty patient for two long years but there was no reason to keep pushing us past the point of reason.

And even if Trudeau’s rationale was that he wanted to push people to get vaccinated, the name calling and the derision for those who didnt want to was completely uncalled for. The FIRST job of a PM is to keep Canadians united and feeling supported not treated like they were bad guys. That was a jerk move on his part.

But yes, lesson learned. Unfortunately the ‘lesson’ here in Alberta seems to be 'you cant make us take a vaccine we dont want which is why we have a crazy high measles outbreak. Yikes. Thats embarrassing.