WATERLOO, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — In addition to requiring on-campus students to take a COVID-19 vaccine in order to begin or continue their education, Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada is asking students taking online classes to “help” with government reporting requirements by disclosing their vaccination status.
In a statement published September 29 and updated October 4, Laurier announced that by October 8, all students must either “be vaccinated or have a valid exemption to attend in-person classes and activities on Laurier’s campuses,” meaning they must have already receive their second dose (if applicable) or have had their exemption approved by the deadline.
Exemptions are assessed by Human Resources for employees and the Wellness Centre or Dean of Students’ Office for students. Exemptions based on religious belief or creed must have a sworn attestation from a Commissioner of Oaths such as a lawyer, paralegal, or the clerk, deputy clerk, treasurer, or deputy treasurer of a municipality. Those with an approved exemption must submit to COVID rapid testing every Monday and Thursday.
However, “socially based, or conscientiously held beliefs” against COVID vaccination will not be recognized as grounds for exemption if those beliefs are secular in nature; in order to have an exemption approved, “an individual must demonstrate that they sincerely believe that a certain practice or belief is experientially religious in nature and that belief must have a nexus with a religion.”
The mandate does not apply to the “limited number of students who are enrolled in fully online degree programs (for example Laurier’s online policing or social work program) who are not required to attend a Laurier campus at any time during their degree program and who do not have any plans to visit a Laurier location at any time” (emphasis in the original). But such students are still “asked to upload their vaccination status to the vaccine passport on the SAFEHawk app to help fulfill the university’s reporting requirements to the Ministry of Colleges and Universities.”
In-person students who do not comply will be “unable to attend Laurier’s campuses or locations,” denied “access to MyLearningSpace” (the school’s online course management system), “de-registered from fall in-person courses,” and “unable to take part in winter-term courses.”
Notably, even students who fully vaccinate will still be “expected” to continue “mask-wearing” and “distancing.” A growing body of data indicates that increasing vaccination compliance does not correlate with decreased spread of COVID-19.
True North reports that Laurier’s announcement follows Mount Royal University in Calgary requiring vaccine mandates for online students, then backing down following legal intervention by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF).
“The entirely unnecessary requirement for online students to disclose their vaccination is indicative of the irrational abuse of power public authorities are exercising in the current atmosphere of pandemonium,” said JCCF attorney Mary Moore. “It is essential that people stand up and push back against these abuses of power.”
Across the world, governments and private entities alike have attempted to coerce COVID vaccinations instead of answering concerns about their safety and effectiveness stemming from the fact that they were developed and released far faster than any previous vaccine.
Vaccine defenders note that the one-year development period was not starting from scratch, but rather relied on years of prior research into mRNA technology; and that one of the innovations of the Trump administration’s “Operation Warp Speed” was conducting various aspects of the development process concurrently rather than sequentially, eliminating delays unrelated to safety. However, those factors do not fully account for the condensing of clinical trial phases — each of which can take anywhere from 1–3 years on their own — to just three months apiece.
While cases of severe harm reported to the federal Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) after taking COVID shots represent less than one percent of total doses administered in the United States, a 2010 report submitted to the US Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS) Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) warned that VAERS caught “fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events.”
May reporting from NBC News quotes several mainstream experts acknowledging “gaps” in federal vaccine monitoring, and a Project Veritas investigation released last month shows insiders at a federal medical facility speaking candidly about serious medical complications they’ve seen after COVID vaccination that are not being reported.
Regarding students, data shows that young people face the lowest risk from COVID-19, while even experts otherwise friendly to the COVID vaccines — as acknowledged in July by the left-leaning publication Wired — argue that the potential for vaccine-related myocarditis among young males undermines the public health establishment’s persistent refrain that “the benefits of [COVID-19] vaccination far outweigh any harm.”
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.