‘The enemy we face is COVID-19, not each other’
Sean Fraser calls for respect and civility amidst anti-mandate tensions
There have been times in the past Central Nova MP Sean Fraser has purchased donuts and coffee for protestors outside his office and invited them in for productive conversations.
Thursday, Feb. 10, was not one of those days.
Instead Fraser ended up sending staff home early out of concern for their safety and posted a message on Facebook calling for civility after a group of about 20 protestors showed up at his office.
Fraser, who was not present at his office at the time, was told that protestors pulled at the doors of the constituency office in New Glasgow in an attempt to enter despite not wearing masks as required.
Fraser said he believes that disagreement is healthy in a democracy and under normal circumstances he would welcome protestors. But Thursday’s protest was different, he said.
He pointed out a post from one of the promoters of the event which stated: “Remember the Nuremberg Code. I was just following orders will not cut it.”
While Fraser acknowledged there is room for debate about vaccine mandates and the extent to which restrictions should continue, he said comparing it to war crimes during the Second World War is inappropriate.
“There are reasonable ways that people can disagree on controversial issues like vaccine mandates, like public health restrictions that are designed to prevent the spread of COVID 19 in our communities, but this is not one of them,” Fraser said in an interview with the SaltWire Network Friday.
He said he made the decision to have his staff work from home Thursday afternoon because he did not want them to be harassed, disrespected or put at risk of contracting COVID.
Speaking to the SaltWire Network on Friday, Fraser said he was glad to see the majority of the comments he received on his post showed that most people don’t agree with the actions and comparisons being made by some.
He believes it’s important for elected officials not to be intimidated into making decisions.
“I won’t be deterred from doing the job I was elected to do because some people are upset or angry.”
To do so, he said, would be a disservice to every voter who put the current government into place.
While he believes that those with the most extreme opinions are few, Fraser encourages others marching alongside them to consider what they’re doing.
“I don’t want to say that everyone who has a different opinion from me or our government is necessarily a bad person, but when I see the organizers of an event try to launch these kinds of tirades, when I see organizers of the event threatening violence or threatening to take the lives of elected officials, when I see people at the protest who are carrying swastikas and Confederate flags; I start to ask questions about how a person can believe it’s acceptable to march among them without protesting the fact that their neighbour is carrying a confederate flag.”
Two years into the pandemic, Fraser said everyone is frustrated and tired of the impacts it has had on daily life. Everyone wants it to be over.
“We have missed weddings, graduations, school concerts, and too many important moments with our loved ones,” he acknowledged in his post.
But as the public health situation evolves, he said the measures will also change.
“We must appreciate that governments will, on occasion, implement ideas that some of us do not support, because they were democratically elected by the Canadian public on commitments to do so,” he stated. “Let’s be respectful in our disagreements and remember that through all of this, the enemy we face is COVID-19, not each other.”