Conservatives have just lost a vote

With his mind-boggling defence of anti-vaxxers, Doug Ford has thrown away my vote for the rest of his political career.

Effectively, that means I must vote against whoever carries the conservative banner in my local riding. Who knew a Conservative would be against personal responsibility?

Not only is he unwilling to have provincially controlled government offices and contractors be havens for the vaccinated, he's against providing citizens the infrastructure for individuals and businesses to make up our own minds about who we let through the door.

Nobody ever told Ford that implementing a verifiable vaccination-confirmation document would somehow imply a provincial mandate for everyone to have one and display it; he made that absurd leap on his own.

All that's actually needed is for a suitable document to be available and vetted by official sources, and you and I and the owner of the restaurant down the street can decide for ourselves if we want to have our own “passports,” and what voluntary policies we will support regarding when to display or demand them.

The unvaxxed are entirely free to avoid any store or service that demands a vaccine-confirmation for entry.

Businesses would be perfectly free to admit them and risk losing vaccinated customers and staff.

As has been observed, we are already a divided society (vaxxed and unvaxxed), so Ford has either gone completely stupid, or has some devious agenda, and I can't vote for either of those.

Wake up, or get out of the way, Doug.

Kevin McLauchlan, Ottawa