Provinces announce plans to phase out COVID-19 restrictions, Kenney condemned for HIV comments

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says his government will follow the lead of other Canadian provinces and immediately start phasing out COVID-19 health restrictions.

He calls it a prudent plan to get Albertans’ lives back to normal as COVID-19 hospitalizations decline.

Kenney says the plan’s first step will see vaccine passports to access non-essential businesses, such as restaurants and bars, end Tuesday at midnight.

On Monday, it will also remove a mask requirement for children under 12, including schools.

Saskatchewan announced earlier in the day that it, too, will no longer require that people provide vaccine passports starting Monday. It is also ending its indoor mask mandate at the end of the month.

Premier Scott Moe said the benefits of providing proof of vaccination to enter businesses like restaurants no longer outweigh the cost. Moe says the passport has created deep divisions in the province.

Saskatchewan was the first province in Canada to announce a plan to lift all COVID-19 restrictions.

Québec will loosen specific public health measures across the province by March 14, except for mask mandates and the vaccine passport system.

Last week Ontario’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, said the Ford government would need to reassess the value of the vaccine certificate system in the coming weeks and months.

“We have to decide as a society how many public health measures we want to recommend and/or maintain in a legal fashion to limit the spread of the viruses. I think that discussion should happen soon,” Moore said.

Now that there are safe and effective vaccines and antiviral treatments to prevent hospitalization in high-risk individuals, Moore acknowledged it would soon be time to decide what restrictions are kept in place.

The top doctor admitted that mandatory masking would likely be the last public health measure to go.

In B.C., Premier John Horgan says he will be listening to the advice of public health officials when it comes to a timetable for lifting restrictions.

Earlier in the day, Interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen called for the Liberal government to end all COVID-19-related restrictions and vaccine mandates — the same demand made by protesting truckers.

During Tuesday’s question period in the House of Commons, Bergen said the measures had caused division among Canadians.

Kenney harshly criticized for HIV/AIDS comments

During his press conference on Tuesday, Kenney compared public opinions towards the unvaccinated population to how people treated those with HIV and AIDS in the 1980s.

“The choice not to get vaccinated is not just a personal choice. It does have personal consequences,” Kenney said. “It’s never okay to treat people like that. To stigmatize people in that way, in a way that kind of reminds me of the attitudes that circulated in North America in the mid-1980s of people with HIV/AIDS.”

AIDS was first recognized in the U.S. by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1981. From the time AIDS was identified to 2020, the disease has caused an estimated 36 million deaths worldwide.

Jason Kenney, who proudly kept men from their dying partners during the AIDS crisis, just tried to compare wanting to know that everyone else in the restaurant has also done their part to stop the spread, to discrimination during the AIDS crisis.

I can’t even… #AbLeg

— Kathleen Ganley (@KathleenGanley) February 9, 2022

Kenney, who said those with HIV/AIDS had to be distanced from others, went on to call views on those that remain unvaccinated “terribly divisive attitude.”

“Yes, we encourage people to get vaccinated, but treating people who have made a different decision as though they are unwelcome as members of our society is not acceptable.”

With files from The Canadian Press