TORONTO, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) – A top Canadian civil liberties group has blasted a plan by the provincial government of Quebec to impose a tax on those who have chosen not to get the COVID jabs.
“The government should abandon this divisive and constitutionally vulnerable proposal,” wrote Cara Zwibel, Director of Fundamental Freedoms and acting General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) in a statement sent out last Wednesday.
“Premier Legault is taking the unprecedented step of taxing Quebecers based on their personal medical choices,” she continued. “He is proposing a direct penalty for being unvaccinated – compelling individuals to undergo medical treatment.”
Zwibel blasted the targeting of the vaccine-free, saying it is a “divisive measure that will end up punishing and alienating those who may be most in need of public health supports and services.”
“Our Charter [of Rights and Freedoms] recognizes individual autonomy over our bodies and medical decisions. Allowing the government to levy fines on those who do not agree with the government’s recommended medical treatment is a deeply troubling proposition,” she wrote.
Zwibel said that to justify this kind of “restriction on constitutionally protected rights,” the government must provide “clear and compelling evidence and demonstrate that there were no other reasonable alternatives.”
The civil rights activist also pointed out that people who risk their health and safety in other ways are not punished by fines.
“Quebec’s proposal also raises significant equity concerns. We have universal, public health care in Canada. We do not fine individuals who make poor diet and exercise choices, those who choose higher risk occupations or recreational activities. Some essential services – like basic health care for those who are ill – transcend such individual choices,” noted Zwibel.
Quebec Premier François Legault announced last week that those who do not take the COVID jabs will be subject to monetary fines in the form of a “health contribution” tax.
Legault’s comments were made only a few days after Canada’s Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said provincial governments might soon introduce mandatory vaccination policies.
Canadian constitutional group to sue Quebec government over tax for the un-jabbed
Last Friday, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) released a statement announcing “legal action against the provincial government of Quebec” over the proposed tax on the COVID vaccine-free.
“The proposed Quebec ‘health tax’ is an egregious violation of the Charter rights of Quebecers and an affront to equality which Canada was, in times past, known for,” said JCCF president John Carpay.
“This is a blatant attack on a minority of society. Historically, persecution of a minority through taxation has paved the way for further and worse measures.”
Allison Kindle Pejovic, a lawyer for the JCCF, told LifeSiteNews that Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms “protects all Canadians from laws that would attempt to force medical treatment upon them against their will.”
“Such a suggestion is an affront to democracy and something one would expect in authoritarian regimes such as China, or the former Soviet Union,” said Kindle Pejovic.
Three Canadian premiers, Alberta’s Jason Kenney, Scott Moe of Saskatchewan, and Doug Ford of Ontario, said their provinces would not be mandating any vaccines in response to Duclos’s mandatory jab comments.
Quebec’s tax on the vaccine-free has also been met with strong opposition from Members of Parliament (MPs) from the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), including leader Erin O’Toole, as well as former MP Maxime Bernier, who is now leader of the People’s Party of Canada.
Well-known Canadian columnist Rex Murphy has blasted the idea of taxing un-jabbed Canadians, directly blaming Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for fuelling hatred towards them.
“Justin Trudeau plowed the ground for Legault’s ukase,” wrote Murphy.
“Trudeau’s dive into scapegoating made it easy for Legault to push the pedal to the discrimination floor.”
In September, Trudeau, during a TV interview that has since gone viral, called Canadians who have chosen to not get the experimental COVID-19 jabs “extremists,” “racists,” and “misogynists” who deny science.
Data from Ontario, Alberta, and Quebec also shows that most people in hospitals from COVID are “fully vaccinated.”
The Quebec government recently announced that they will be lifting their COVID curfew starting tonight. However, stores over 1500 square feet will now fall under the province’s vaccine passport scheme starting January 24, and only the COVID jabbed will be permitted to enter. Only grocery stores and pharmacies are exempt from the passport requirement.
According to a growing body of data, vaccine mandates and passports are a failed strategy for tackling COVID.
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.
Many consider jab 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.