Just leave the kids alone

It’s hard to believe that hard-core anti-vaxxers could fall any lower than besieging hospitals and harassing health-care workers.

But some of them have indeed found an even uglier tactic in their campaign to scare people away from getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Last weekend anti-vaccine demonstrators gathered outside a clinic in North Bay called One Kids Place and tried to intimidate a mother taking her 7-year-old son to get his first shot.

Abby Blaszczyk says she had to endure a torrent of abuse as she escorted her son Nolan, who had just become eligible for a COVID vaccine.

“They told me I … was murdering my son, I was committing genocide, stuff like that,” she told CBC News. “And then, just misinformation about the vaccine itself.”

Blaszczyk says other parents faced similar harassment. And they’re not alone: in Windsor last week anti-vaxxers picketed another clinic that was offering vaccines to kids between 5 and 11. They carried signs with slogans like, “It’s not a vaccine. It’s a bioweapon.”

We need as many kids as possible to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, and clinics offering shots should be welcoming spaces for them and their parents. Intimidating children in the name of pushing an anti-vax agenda is both infuriating and contemptible.

Police are now investigating the North Bay incident, and they should redouble their efforts to prevent this kind of activity. Vaccine clinics, along with other institutions, such as hospitals and schools, should be off-limits for such protests.

If anti-vaxxers want to exercise their freedom to demonstrate, they should go to places like Queen’s Park. In North Bay, Mayor Al McDonald told them to go to city hall. “But there’s no need to harass or shout obscenities at grandparents or parents or the families that are there just trying to do what’s best for their kids,” he added.

The Ontario government could go a step further, and formally declare hospitals, schools and similar places out of bounds for anti-vaccine harassment.

Both the provincial New Democrats and Liberals have called on the Ford government to pass legislation that would create socalled safety zones around schools and hospitals to protect health workers and patients from abuse.

“Health-care workers shouldn’t be worried about walking a gauntlet of hate and vitriol on their way into work,” NDP Leader Andrea Horwath said in October, and the same principle applies to parents and kids at vaccine clinics.

The British Columbia government has introduced just such legislation in that province. And last week the federal government introduced Bill C-3, which would create new criminal sanctions for anyone who tries to intimidate health care workers or patients trying to access some medical services, including COVID vaccinations.

The Ford government says such legislation isn’t necessary; it argues there are already laws on the books forbidding harassment directed at health-care workers and now at kids and parents.

A new law, however, would send a strong signal that such behaviour is unacceptable. Just as important would be more active enforcement of those existing laws against anyone who uses intimidation as a weapon in their campaign against vaccines.

In North Bay, Abby Blaszczyk said there was no security or police presence when she and her son were at the One Kids Place clinic. But police there now say they’ll ramp up their presence, “and if the protest escalates to criminal behaviour, we will not hesitate to take enforcement action.”

That’s good to hear, but it’s tragic that such a statement is needed at all. For heaven’s sake, leave the kids alone.

Clinics offering shots should be welcoming spaces for kids and their parents. Intimidating children in the name of pushing an anti-vax agenda is both infuriating and contemptible