THORNHILL, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) – The Ontario government says it will not be mandating that students and staff have COVID vaccinations before being allowed to return to class and that schoolchildren will not be segregated based on their vaccine status.
“With the respect to vaccines, our government’s been clear, our premier’s been clear that we will not mandate vaccine requirement for schools and for staff at this point, that’s not a decision point we are going to proceed with,” Ontario’s Education Minister Stephen Lecce told reporters last Wednesday.
“Look, the government has made the decision in the context of mandating vaccines and we’re not going to do that we’ll respect the choices individuals will make.”
Lecce made the comments at a school in Thornhill as part of an announcement of $25 million in funding to install high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters in Ontario’s schools before the start of the school year in September.
He was joined by Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore, who despite suggesting in late July that kids without COVID jabs could face different rules than those with the injection, now said this would not happen.
“I do not anticipate any difference [in] approach whether a child’s vaccinated or unvaccinated on any activities within the school setting,” said Moore.
Moore added that schools would not be “knowledgeable of” a student’s immune status, adding that “there shouldn’t be any barriers or stigmatization of children who have not received a vaccine in any way in normal activities throughout the school year.”
Moore made the remarks after being asked by a reporter about his earlier comments touting a “terrific” advantage of being “two-dose immunized by being able to stay in school and attend sports and participate fully in all of the social activities of the school setting.”
He said that the province has done “remarkably well through a non-mandatory means” of “vaccinating” the Ontario population with COVID-19 jabs, with the “ultimate” goal being a 90 percent total injection rate.
Recently, Ontario’s ministry of education released its COVID-19 school reopening plan, which does not stipulate that school kids would be set apart based on one’s jabs status.
However, Ontario says mask-wearing will be mandatory for all grades, “with reasonable exceptions for medical conditions” given.
Also, “self-screening” for COVID-19 symptoms will be “mandatory” for students and staff “every day.”
Lecce said that the goal is to keep schools open throughout the 2021-22 calendar year with the help of devices such as new class air filters and to encourage as many school kids and staff as possible to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Lawyer: “Any policy” that penalizes students for choosing not to get the COVID jab is “antithetical” to a free society
Canadian civil liberties lawyer James Kitchen told LifeSiteNews that Moore’s apparent “flip flop” emphasizes that decisions regarding “COVID vaccines and other COVID-inspired decisions that violate civil liberties are primarily political decisions,” are not ones “truly rooted in ‘science, ‘health’, or ‘safety.’”
“Government bodies will inevitably try to control the behavior of individuals to the maximum degree that the people will permit. If enough people object and assert their rights, the government will often back down,” Kitchen told LifeSiteNews.
“Although freedom is waning in Canada, our society remains a constitutional democracy, and governments can only effectively take away the rights of the people to the degree that the people allow it.”
Kitchen added that any type of “vaccine passport” is “conceptually flawed insofar as it undermines freedom and constitutes further government overreach.”
Kitchen noted public schools are subject to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and argued that “mandating COVID-19 vaccines represents an assault on some of the most fundamental human rights, such as the right to bodily autonomy.”
“Any policy to penalize students, athletes, or employees for declining the experimental COVID vaccines is antithetical to a free and equal society,” he said.
According to Public Health Ontario, around 46 percent of school kids aged 12 to 17 have been jabbed with two doses of COVID injections, with about 71 percent having at least one shot.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been a strong advocate for COVID-19 injections but has also rejected the idea of vaccine passports. In July he told reporters his government will neither make COVID-19 injections mandatory nor create “a split society” by implementing local vaccine passports.
Vaccines in Canada are not mandatory and each province is in charge of its health matters.
Health Canada has authorized four COVID-19 injections for adults, all with connections to cells derived from aborted babies. All four have also been associated with severe side effects such as blood clots, rashes, miscarriages, and even heart attacks in young healthy men.
Recently, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claimed that there are no more “excuses” to not get the COVID vaccines while attributing new cases of the virus to those who have not been jabbed.
“These vaccines work and they’re safe, and they’re also available, and of course, completely free, so with enough doses for everyone, there’s no more excuses to not get your shot,” said Trudeau.
Canadian doctor Charles Hoffe of Lytton, British Columbia, however, recently stated that he has seen blood clotting in the majority of his patients who have had COVID-19 jabs, and has issued a “grim” opinion that the worst is yet to come, due to potential “permanent” damage caused by the injections.
Hoffe also gave a dire warning, saying that the “mechanism of injury” from the COVID-19 shots is “causing permanent damage” to organs that cannot regenerate and that “the worst is yet to come.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney recently said that his government will neither introduce a provincial “vaccine passport” nor accept one if imposed at the federal level. He has also passed a bill that removed a mandatory vaccination clause in provincial law.
Currently, both Manitoba and Quebec have forms of vaccine proof one can attain in digital form.
Quebec recently said it will go ahead with enforcing vaccine passports come the fall.
Contact information for respectful feedback:
Premier Doug Ford
Room 281
Legislative Building, Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON M7A 1A1
Phone: 416-325-1941
Email: [email protected]
Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament via the Ontario MPP Contact information page
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.