Heavy themes in the Foyer

 

I was listening to the final chapter of the Public Order Emergency Commission hearings yesterday. They took a fifteen-minute afternoon break and I took the time to compose and print a sign-up sheet for the condo Christmas dinner. I took the sheet down to the foyer and posted it on the bulletin board. 

Two residents of the condo were sitting in the foyer and chatting as residents often do, and I thought, “Why aren’t they at home, listening to the Commission proceedings, like I am?” A silly question, of course; a more relevant one might have been, “Why am I spending hours listening to the repetitious, predictable questions and answers when there’s so much more to do?”

In short, we know that people engage in the big questions of democracy in direct proportion to the degree to which they’re directly implicated. “They’re raising the carbon tax,” may come to us as coffee gossip and we take note, but gasoline prices fluctuate wildly, we see ourselves as involved in the grand debates about climate change and economics supporting the tax in the same way that we’re involved in the science of quirks and quarks: it’s all up there and out there and nothing I could do—even if I understood it—could possibly make a difference.  

An independent trucker may take greater note of the tax increase because his/her/their livelihood is directly affected. But if the principle and the need for it isn’t understood and acknowledged, he/she/they may see it primarily as a personal affront and--being unable to affect any influence--might well be reduced to a “f*** Trudeau” rage and to attempt influence in this matter by joining an enraged convoy of truckers to Ottawa. 

When the collective interest and individual interest conflict, protest, even outrage, are to be expected. In a democracy (a politic where each individual has an equal voice in selecting leadership) the tyranny of the majority can’t be resolved by substituting for it a tyranny of the most vocal minority; this conundrum will always need to be addressed, particularly in stressful times.

In the Freedom Convoy case, a vocal minority (according to Trudeau’s testimony) “… didn’t only want to be heard; they wanted to be obeyed.” Could the democratic “will of the people” be broadened to include an exception declaring, “Notwithstanding the border-crossing mandates, truckers will be allowed to cross from the US to Canada without giving evidence of vaccination?” To have the general citizenry debate the principle behind a question like this—a question that goes to the heart of decision making in a democracy—would only be possible if the majority were informed and engaged, which might mean not sitting in the foyer chatting about winter tires or the price of coconuts, but sitting up in one’s apartment, watching, listening and taking notes on the perspectives being expressed there.

And then, going down to the foyer to compare views on these subjects. 

Good luck with that.    

To Jab or not to Jab

 

Danielle Smith has just become premier of Alberta and wants to enshrine non-disclosure of vaccination status as a human right. Meanwhile, hearings are being held to determine if the Government of Canada was justified in invoking the Emergency Measures Act in response to the Freedom Convoy’s occupation of Ottawa. It feels like two chapters of the same book, doesn’t it?  

It’s become apparent that ignorance about the content of the British North America Act, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or the Constitution as it currently divides up federal, provincial and municipal jurisdictions is no deterrent to holding strong but illogical opinions on matters governed by law and tradition in Canada. To hear Premier Smith hold forth on human rights and provincial jurisdiction is a bit like listening to old Uncle Mike arguing the medical merits of WD40 and Windex.  

Democracies generally divide themselves into what is the nation as a whole, what is provincial or state responsibility based on differing regions, and what can be decided municipally. The use of rivers that cross regions can’t be finally left to provinces and states to regulate or Edmonton could dump raw waste into the North Saskatchewan to the detriment of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Same principle applies to airports, international borders and declarations of war. In a pandemic, best bets would be on world government to plan the response, national planning would be second best, provincial third, but only if citizens don’t cross boundaries. Involving Ottawa or Regina in a decision to fill potholes on Second Avenue North in Saskatoon would be absurd; Ontario declaring war on Michigan likewise.  

As regards human rights and the decision not to accept vaccines, nothing new is needed. Going to a place where vaccines are administered and rolling up a sleeve has been an adult’s choice; no one has been compelled. To forfeit a job because it requires that personnel be vaccinated belongs with this choice; all employers are charged with exercising what they deem to be best practice in safeguarding employee and client safety and health. As long as vaccination is scientifically shown to lessen the likelihood of transmitting a virus or bacteria, the right of an employee to overrule standards that include vaccines is no more a valid argument than making smoking in the staffroom a human right, an employee choice.

 

I’m fully aware that the fear of vaccines is a real motivator for many. That there can be adverse reactions (even though they’re rare) and that pharmaceutical companies are maximum-profit oriented are not hollow concerns, and the perception that there might be persons behind the promotion of vaccines who are conspiring to risk the lives of the gullible for profit is not a huge stretch. At the same time, the observation that people like Alex Jones are profiting financially from promoting misinformation and falsehood impales already frightened people on the horns of a dilemma. The agony must be especially acute for parents of young children for whom the care for their health and education represents an onerous responsibility.

 

But this dilemma is a shared burden. While individuals and families struggle with their response to vaccines, masking and distancing, the national government faces difficult choices of what to do, how to do it and how much action is enough and not too much. Canada’s national response has been exemplary, in my view. Guided by communicable disease science, masks, vaccines have been made available to provincial healthcare administrations in a timely manner. Border security could have been enacted quicker and arguably lightened quicker as well, but what was decreed clearly had citizen safety front and centre.

 

But how should a government act and react when citizens refusing the mandates band together to force a policy that removes all consequences of their non-compliant choice? Calling their primary action to date a “Freedom” Convoy gives a clue to the driving sentiment, and this thinking is echoed in Danielle Smith’s contention that no one should be asked about their vaccination status, and that it be enshrined as a human right alongside freedoms of religion, speech, etc. The implication is that a nurse working in a hospital, say, need no longer have the right to know what precautions a colleague is taking to prevent the spreading of a communicable disease. Her rights to a feeling of safety are trumped by my right to make my health choices without consequence or reference to my neighbour's well-being.  

Like I said, it’s a shared dilemma and none of us—no matter what our stand is on vaccines—has the moral right to demand privileges that supersede the rights of a neighbour. Whether better civic education would help us settle our differences on subjects like this is debatable, but we all should at least know that the ballot box is the sacred decision-making right in a democracy, and that the challenge to democratic governance with means that include coercion and force puts democracies at risk.