(LifeSiteNews) — Maxime Bernier, the leader of the People’s Party of Canada (PCC), said Canada’s Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos is a “fascist” for calling for mandatory COVID shots.
“Fascist Liberal minister is preparing the ground for draconian violation of our fundamental rights and bodily autonomy,” tweeted Bernier on Friday, adding, “MY BODY DOES NOT BELONG TO THE STATE.”
Last Friday, Duclos, who was recently appointed to his position by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said that Canada’s provincial governments might soon introduce mandatory vaccination policies.
“The only way that we know to get through COVID-19, this variant and any future variant, is through vaccination,” he said, adding, “I think that discussions need to be had about mandatory vaccinations.”
Duclos said that conversations with provincial governments over making COVID jabs mandatory in order to combat COVID variants will be coming soon. He also claimed that jabs are the only way out of the crisis, but that mandatory vaccine policies would be up to each province.
On Friday, Bernier tweeted, “Governments are not resorting to authoritarian measures because they really want to defeat the virus,” but “because they want to crush any spirit of opposition to tyranny.”
Over the weekend, many Canadians, including some Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) Members of Parliament (MPs) came out against Duclos’ mandatory jab comments.
CPC MP Michael Cooper from Alberta said the federal government under Trudeau was truly entering “authoritarian territory” over talk of mandatory jab mandates.
“This is outrageous! Justin Trudeau’s government is entering into truly dangerous, authoritarian territory. State-imposed, involuntary medical interventions are un-Canadian and have no place in a free and democratic society,” tweeted Cooper Friday.
CPC MP Ryan Williams from Ontario said no to any talk of a mandatory jab. “It’s time to start talking about system capacity,” he tweeted on Saturday.
Two Canadian Premiers, Alberta’s Jason Kenney, and Scott Moe of Saskatchewan said their provinces would not be mandating any vaccines in response to Duclos’s mandatory jab comments.
Bernier took part in a large protest in Montreal, Quebec, on Saturday to resist the province’s COVID curfew and lockdowns, along with jab mandates and the comments by Duclos.
“We are here today because we know enough is enough, and we want our rights and freedoms back,” said Bernier in a video message.
In Canada, vaccines are not mandatory at the federal level. Each province is responsible for its own healthcare delivery. At the provincial level, some provinces such as Ontario and New Brunswick have made certain vaccines (not COVID-19 ones) mandatory via legislation, with a few exceptions, for children to attend public schools.
Lawyers with Canada’s Department of Health wrote in a 1996 Canadian National Report On Immunization that unlike some countries, “immunization is not mandatory in Canada.”
“It cannot be made mandatory because of the Canadian Constitution,” added the lawyers.
The COVID-19 injections approved for emergency use in Canada all have connections to cell lines derived from aborted babies. As a result of this, many Catholics and other Christians refuse to take them.
According to a growing body of data, vaccine mandates and passports are a failed strategy for tackling COVID.
Many consider such mandates a gross assault on individual freedoms that’s unnecessary given COVID-19’s high survivability among most groups, its now-understood minimal risk of asymptomatic spread, and research indicating that post-infection natural immunity is far superior to vaccine-induced immunity which dramatically decreases starting around four months post-vaccination and soon completely disappears.
Many employers in both the private and public sectors have mandated COVID jabs for their employees. This has resulted in thousands of Canadians who do not want to be injected with a novel medical product being forced out of their jobs.