O’Toole says minister to be vaccinated

OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said Tuesday he would appoint a health minister who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 if his party forms government, despite not requiring his candidates to be vaccinated.

O’Toole is an outlier among major leaders in that he isn’t requiring those running under the party’s banner to have both doses of a vaccine to hit the doorsteps.

In spite of that, he promises a Conservative government would boost the country’s vaccination rates to more than 90% within two months. Throughout the campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has criticized O’Toole for not requiring his candidates to be vaccinated and accused the Tory leader of siding with anti-vaxxers, driving a wedge between the two parties over the policy of mandatory vaccinations.

O’Toole hasn’t specified how many of his 337 candidates are immunized, but has instructed those who are not to take daily rapid tests, along with campaign workers who are unvaccinated.

“I’ve been advocating for vaccines for over a year,” he said from the empty stage of his party’s broadcast studio in Ottawa, Tuesday.

“It’s been very, very disappointing to see every week in this campaign Mr. Trudeau misleading people, and saying whatever he wants to say to try and get re-elected.”

The Liberals have hurled the same attack at the Conservative leader over his change in stance on issues, including whether doctors should be required to refer patients for services such as abortions if they object to performing those procedures themselves, and most recently, gun policies.

O’Toole spent the past several days dogged by questions about his policy on prohibited firearms after a French-language debate last week where he said a Conservative government would maintain the federal ban on assault weapons.

Questions and confusion emerged because O’Toole’s election platform states he would repeal the Liberal government’s prohibition of what it called “assault-style weapons,” introduced last May after the mass shooting in Nova Scotia.

O’Toole later clarified he would keep that prohibition in place, inking a footnote in his platform to say, “All firearms that are currently banned will remain banned,” and promised to conduct a review.