Kenney is under a special kind of political pressure, forced to court the anti-vaccination segment of his base and his caucus
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The vaccine passport system turned into a cast-off pumpkin at midnight.
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With a verbal torrent, Premier Jason Kenney trashed the passport scheme he himself adopted, saying it is now basically useless and will never return, no matter what COVID visits upon us.
This made Alberta the first province to drop passports, known as the Restrictions Exemption Program.
Kenney claimed this had nothing to do with the Coutts blockade, or the heated demands from his own caucus for instant abolition, or the pressure on his leadership, building to a vote on April 9.
The premier said it’s all about the waning effectiveness of passports in the face of Omicron; and besides, passport systems are being cancelled from Europe to Quebec and Saskatchewan.
But Kenney is under a special kind of political pressure, forced to court the anti-vaccination segment of his base and his caucus.
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He talked about how offended he is that some diners don’t want to sit near unvaccinated people in a restaurant. Then he suggested they were being treated like AIDS sufferers in the 1980s.
This prompted fury because many people remember his youthful boast about how he organized a petition to cancel visitation rights for gay couples in San Francisco hospitals.
Kenney has since said he regrets his activities and later supported domestic rights regardless of sexual orientation.
But why on earth would he raise that now, while claiming that unvaccinated people are treated like pariahs?
Kenney said there should be public tolerance for them, without once urging tolerance for people who will still wear masks and favour restaurants that require passports.
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In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe preached a healing message as he announced the end of some measures.
He urged people to respect the choices others make for their health after all the rules are lifted. Moe seemed aware that there could be a vengeful spirit on both sides.
“We can disagree without being disagreeable — don’t lose a friend to COVID,” he said.
The QR code system didn’t shut down at midnight. Businesses can use it for customers and employees if they choose — or dare.
It will mean refusing customers suddenly aware there’s no longer a provincial rule. With all the emotion around this, that may not always go well.
The city’s own vaccine passport bylaw became null and void at midnight, because it depended for existence on the provincial Restrictions Exemption Program, now vanished.
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The city’s mask bylaw could endure, however, because it exists separately from provincial rules.
The province intends to drop all masking requirements for children by March 13, and for the province at large on March 1. Only senior care centres will still be required to mask.
There will surely be a lot of pressure on council to drop its own masking rule. And there could be a drop in compliance when mask use is no longer mandated by the province.
Everyone wants these measures to disappear, every last one of them. But even as Kenney was talking, emergency ward doctor Joe Vipond was warning that infection rates are very high and great risk remains.
I thought Kenney had it about right 10 days ago, when his target for lifting restrictions seemed to be mid-March. By then we’d know if Omicron really is burning itself out.
But then along came Coutts, and the trucker takeover of downtown Ottawa, and the abrupt firing of Erin O’Toole by his own caucus.
Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald
Twitter: @DonBraid
Facebook: Don Braid Politics
Braid: Kenney fast-tracks removal of health restrictions, as threat of COVID remains - Calgary Herald
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