`DANGEROUS' PASSPORT?
Vaccine passes stir debate
Like the shoeless and shirtless, the unvaccinated could soon find themselves being denied service at some establishments across Canada.
Vaccination certificates, immunity passes, green passes, health passes — the case for and against can be as polarizing as lockdowns.
From the pandemic's outset, some have warned COVID-19 immunity or vaccination certificates would lead to a two-tier society, where some get to live normal lives and others don't.
“Passport, please,” raises privacy considerations and questions over data ownership. Others argue that concerns over privacy and liberty rights are being overplayed.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau indicated Tuesday he has no plans for a national domestic vaccine passport program and would leave any such system up to the provinces.
But while provinces grapple with whether or not to afford more freedom to the fully vaccinated, some private businesses are making up their own rules.
Quebec was the first province to dip its toes into a domestic COVID-19 vaccine passport scheme, announcing last week that it would permit the “fully protected” access to gyms, bars, restaurants, festivals, sporting events and other non-essential services and activities in the event of a fourth wave or fall surge in cases. Due to take effect Sept. 1, the program would be mandated in COVID hot zones only and won't apply to essential services. The “fully protected” would include those who have already been infected with COVID.
In Manitoba, digital and physical immunization cards for the fully vaxxed enable holders to skip self-isolation after inter-provincial travel. The fully vaccinated (two weeks from the time of their second dose) can also dine indoors at restaurants and bars with other fully vaxxed friends and family from outside their household.
Restaurant operators can use an app to scan immunization cards, which show only the person's name and a QR code confirming he or she is fully vaccinated.
“That said, we hear that QR codes are being shared between people,” said Olivier Bourbeau, vice president, federal and Quebec affairs at Restaurants Canada. “So it is extremely difficult to be 100% sure the person in front of you is presenting a proper QR code (his/her own),” he said in an email.
Other provinces seem less enamoured with any concept of vaccine hall passes. Ontario isn't currently contemplating a vaccine passport system for non-essential business activity, according to the province's chief doctor, though the pro-passport Toronto Region Board of Trade is reportedly in discussions with the premier's office for just such a regime, arguing it would facilitate a safer reopening.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has said he has no plans to “facilitate or accept vaccine passports” and neighbouring Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has also dismissed the notion, leaving private businesses like Regina's Bodhi Tree Yoga studio to make their own call.
Bodhi Tree began inviting “our fully vaccinated friends” back to in-person classes this week, upon proof of vaccination. “As a community and as individuals we have healing to do. And to heal we need to feel safe and supported,” the studio posted on Facebook.
Others see it as more splintering than healing.
“There are discrimination concerns, there are equality concerns and fundamentally it undermines the idea that (vaccination) is a choice that people make for themselves,” said lawyer Cara Zwibel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Throughout the pandemic, governments and public health authorities have based decisions on the population as a whole, she said.
“We could have done things differently right from the outset. We might have said everyone over 65 has to stay home, and the rest of you can go on and live your lives. Because at least at the very beginning — I know now variants have changed things — at least at the very beginning it was really those people that were most seriously at risk from COVID. But we didn't do that,” Zwibel said.
Governments saw the pandemic as a population issue, “and we closed and opened things based on how the population was doing,” she said.
“So I don't think now we're justified in saying, `Well, if you've been vaccinated, you get access to X, Y and Z and if you haven't, then you don't get access to those things.'”
There is obviously no constitutional right to go to a restaurant, she said. “I wouldn't bring it to that level. But, socially, I think it's a dangerous idea.”
In the absence of government guidelines, can private businesses just go it alone? That depends, Zwibel said. Generally, a private business doesn't have to serve you.
“They can refuse service, as long as they don't refuse service based on a prohibited ground of discrimination under our human rights laws,” for example, such as religion or creed.
But businesses have to think about what they're taking on, in terms of privacy and the obligations to maintain the personal health information they're provided with, Zwibel said.
The activities being targeted by Quebec's vaccination passports aren't essential services, but any intrusion on fundamental rights, like the right to privacy, integrity and freedom, should be minimal, said Yann Joly, research director of the Centre of Genomics and Policy at Montreal's Mcgill University. For example, it could be argued that denying the unvaccinated entry to gyms is not such a big intrusion.
“The fact that you're not allowed at your local gym doesn't prevent you from just running outdoors, or (exercising) at home,” Joly said. “That's less important, less intrusive than not being allowed to work, or prevented from going into some public services establishment, like to renew your driver's licence. That would be a much bigger problem.”
Any passport system should also be based on scientific evidence, he said: Is it the best solution to prevent a fourth wave, or to stop one? The process itself has to be rigorous, he added, so there are no breaches of confidential information.
Quebec would likely rely on QR codes the province issues upon full vaccination. “When you scan all that information, where is it going to go?” Joly asked. “Are you going to delete it?” (Alberta's privacy commissioner has said proof of vaccination information should be securely destroyed ”once its business purpose has been achieved.”)
“And what do you do when the scan shows somebody has not been vaccinated twice?” Joly said. “How can you notify them they can't enter this or that activity, without other people noticing, without signalling them out? These are the kinds of questions that they should be able to answer in order for the process to be resistant to any challenge.”
Quebec's passports won't make vaccination a condition of employment. A person's vaccine status will be neither a cause for dismissal nor a bar to their being hired, Quebec Labour Minister Jean Boulet said last week.
Canada's privacy guardians have cautioned that privacy “must be front and centre” as governments and businesses mull proof of vaccination. But fully vaccinated people have a dramatically decreased risk of infection and likely have a decreased risk of spreading the infection to others, an expert panel on COVID convened by Canada's chief science adviser reported in the spring.
How long immunity lasts remains an open question, any passport scheme must ensure authenticity and minimize fraud and, if vaccination certificates become more common, groups or communities that have suffered historic biases and profiling must not face increased scrutiny, the panel said.