Adult Quebecers who choose not to get vaccinated against COVID-19 will soon have to pay a fee if they don’t have a medical exemption preventing them from being vaccinated.

Quebec Premier François Legault made the announcement in an early-afternoon press conference joined by the new Interim National Director of Public Health Dr. Luc Boileau (replacing Dr. Horacio Arruda, who resigned last night) and Health Minister Christian Dubé.

This tax or fee, which Legault described as a “health contribution” will be of a “significant” amount (and Legault doesn’t consider something in the $50-$100 range substantial). According to to the premier:

“All Quebec adults who refuse in the coming weeks to at least get a first dose, will be getting a bill.”

The premier didn’t appear to be concerned about possible legal challenges or opposition to the tax when asked by reporters, arguing instead that the roughly 90% of Quebecers who are vaccinated are “tired” of bearing the brunt for the 10% unvaccinated who make up 50% of those in the hospital with the Omicron COVID variant.

It’s official. Quebecers who want to use certain services or take part in certain activities deemed “non-essential” need to present proof of being adequately vaccinated against COVID-19 to do so. Quebec is the first Canadian province to implement a COVID vaccine passport, but with Ontario, BC and Manitoba working on their own systems, it won’t be the last.

People will also need to present ID along with the passport.

Where Do You Need the Quebec Vaccine Passport?

There is a rather extensive list of where vaccine passports are now required on the Quebec Government’s website. Here are just some of the places and activities:

  • Restaurants (including fast food and on terrasses)
  • Bars (including on terrasses)
  • Nightclubs
  • Shopping mall food courts
  • Performance venues
  • Movie theatres
  • Indoor sports
  • Outdoor sports with close contact
  • Outdoor concerts, sporting events, shows and other events with over 50 people in attendance
  • Festivals
  • Indoor weight lifting, swimming and gymnastics (ie. going to the gym)

There are some exemptions, for example, homeless people who want to eat at shopping mall food courts.

How Do You Get the Quebec Vaccine Passport?

Android users (as of yesterday) and iPhone users can download the “VaxiCode” app from either the Google Play Store or the App Store. Make sure to include the quotation marks when searching for it as it is a rather new app.

Once installed on your phone, you can either scan the QR code you were sent after your second vaccine shot or enter information and have the app locate your vax info. You’ll need to enter your name, date of birth, Medicare card number, mother’s maiden name, father’s name, postal code and the date of your first vax shot along with its brand.

Once the info is located and successfully added, you’ll be able to open up the app, click on your name and display the new QR code generated, along with your ID, to staff at the restaurant you wish to sit down at, or wherever else you want to go. You can also forgo using a phone and print a paper copy of your QR code (business card size is recommended, as is getting it laminated).

Jason C. McLean and Special Guest Dawn McSweeney discuss some of the week’s top news stories:

Quebecers can move up their second vax shot and things are re-opening. Is Montreal getting back to normal?

Trudeau appointed Canada’s first Indigenous Governor General. Is this just a deflection? Should he tax the churches?

After Game Four of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Montreal Police teargassed the crowd outside the Bell Centre without warning. What was their excuse and does it hold up?

Follow Dawn McSweeney on Twitter and Instagram @mcmoxy

Follow Jason C. McLean on Twitter and Instagram @jasoncmclean

A News Roundup FTB Fridays with host Jason C. McLean and special guest political emcee and filmmaker Jay Manafest. They discuss:

Quebec’s second vaccine dose, vaccine skeptics and problems with the website

Montreal politics

What Canada Day means following the discoveries of bodies at former Residential Schools

The Habs in the Playoffs

Listen to Jay Manafest on Bandcamp

Follow Jason C. McLean on Twitter: @jasoncmclean

Quebecers now only have to wait eight weeks between their first and second COVID-19 vaccine shot. This is down from the previous 16 week interval.

Christian Dubé, Minister of Health and Social Services, made the announcement at a press conference alongside National Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda and vaccination campaign director Daniel Paré. They also released the schedule of when people, by age group, can reschedule their second dose:

  • June 7: 80 years old and up
  • June 8: 75 years old and up
  • June 9: 70 years old and up
  • June 10: 65 years old and up
  • June 11: 60 years old and up
  • June 14: 55 years old and up
  • June 15: 50 years old and up
  • June 16: 45 years old and up
  • June 17: 40 years old and up
  • June 18: 35 years old and up
  • June 21: 30 years old and up
  • June 22: 25 years old and up
  • June 23: 18 years old and up

To schedule your second shot, visit the Clic Santé website on the appropriate day. The original second appointment date, which was given to everyone after they got their first dose, will be cancelled when the new date has been selected.

Special Guest Samantha Gold talks about getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Quebec, Premier François Legault’s comments on Montreal rental prices and more with host Jason C. McLean

Follow Samantha Gold on Facebook @samiamart & Instagram @samiamartistmtl

Follow Jason C. McLean on Twitter @jasoncmclean

Book your Quebec vaccine appointment through Clic Santé according to the schedule

All adult Quebecers who want the COVID-19 vaccine will be able to sign up for their first shot in the next two weeks. Starting tomorrow, those aged 50-59 can sign up, with a new age group added to the list every two or three days.

Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services Christian Dubé made the announcement at an afternoon press conference joined by National Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda and Daniel Paré, director of the COVID Vaccination Campaign.

The rollout is as follows:

  • April 30: Age 50-59
  • May 3: Age 45-49
  • May 5: Age 40-44
  • May 7: Age 35-39
  • May 10: Age 30-34
  • May 12: Age 25-29
  • May 14: Age 18-24

Most of these people will receive the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine, though some of it could be from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson (which only requires one dose). This is separate from when Quebec made their remaining AstraZeneca vaccine shots available to people aged 45 and up last week. That campaign is still ongoing and clearly identified as separate on the government’s website.

You can make an appointment for your COVID-19 vaccine shot when it becomes available to your age group through the Clic Santé website

Quebec’s COVID-19 vaccination program is in full swing, but today it hit what could end up being a setback. Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services Christian Dubé announced today that the province is temporarily halting its administration of the AstraZeneca vaccine known as Covishield to people under 55 years old.

This decision follows a small number of cases in Europe where the vaccine was linked to blood clotting in women under 55. While no such cases have been reported in Canada, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended the temporary suspension so more studies can be done.

Quebec and Manitoba have adopted this policy, with potentially more provinces to follow suit. PEI is stopping use of the vaccine for people aged 18-29.

Currently, Quebec is only vaccinating members of the general public over 60 years of age. The government won’t say how many of the 111 000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine it has already administered went to people younger than 55 (healthcare workers, etc.).

While admitting that some appointments may have to be cancelled, Dubé said that Quebec is still on track to have everyone who wants a vaccine be able to get one by June 24th. In addition to AstraZeneca, Quebec is also administering doses of the Modern and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.

While all of Quebec remains under curfew, as of tomorrow, it will run from 9:30pm until 5am across the province, even in Red Zones such as Montreal. For over two months, it started at 8pm but people living in Orange Zones got the 90 minute delay as of last Monday.

Quebec Premier François Legault made the announcement late this afternoon in a press conference joined by Christian Dubé, Minister of Health and Social Services and National Public Health Director Dr. Horacio Arruda. The Premier said that while there was an increase in COVID-19 cases following March Break, it was “nothing dramatic” and therefore the change in curfew time was possible.

Legault also stressed that indoor gatherings are still forbidden. Theatres and show venues, though, can re-open as of March 26th.

The Premier also said that he expects everyone over 65 will be vaccinated against the virus by mid-April. He also believes everyone who wants a vaccine, regardless of age, will be able to get it by June 24th.

With variants on the virus still out there, Legault warned that “we have to stay very careful for a few more weeks.”

Last week dealt a major blow to anti-vaxxers everywhere when Alberta’s David and Collet Stephan were convicted of failing to provide the necessaries of life to their 19 month old son Ezekiel. Ezekiel had bacterial meningitis but rather than take him to the emergency room, they treated his illness with naturopathic remedies. By the time the Stephans were forced to acknowledge that their remedies weren’t enough, it was too late.

On March 13, 2012 Ezekiel stopped breathing. He was rushed to the hospital, eventually ending up in Calgary where doctors discovered he had very little brain activity. The baby died a few days later.

During the trial Crown Prosecutor Lisa Weich said the case isn’t about love. It’s about the Stephans’ failure to provide medical attention.

“A reasonably prudent parent would have recognized, would have foreseen that Ezekiel was at risk of danger,” she said.

Like Ms. Weich, this article isn’t disputing that David and Collet Stephan loved their son. But it appears that it was more important for them to confirm their distrust of modern medicine and the healthcare system and they were willing to sacrifice their child to do it.

David Stephan may have loved his son, but he also had a vested interest in the naturopathic remedies being used to treat him. David’s father Anthony Stephan, co-founded Truehope Nutritional Support in 1996, a company that sells nutritional supplements that are supposed to help with various physical and mental illnesses. David Stephan is the company’s current vice president.

David and Collet are also anti vaxxers, which means that they don’t believe in vaccinating children against illness. David Stephan had even said he and his wife wouldn’t vaccinate their kids after hearing various stories – stories, not scientific studies – about vaccinations causing autism.

The symptoms of meningitis are fever, vomiting, a pale blotchy distinctive rash, an inability to stay awake, severe muscle pain, irritability, light sensitivity and a stiff neck. If untreated, it can cause brain damage, hearing loss, learning disabilities, and even death.

Though Ezekiel had been showing the symptoms for more than two weeks and a family friend said he should be brought to the hospital, his parents decided to treat him with hot peppers, garlic, onions, and horseradish. Garlic, onions, hot peppers and horseradish aren’t remedies for meningitis. They’re the basis of a tasty stir fry.

When Ezekiel got worse, Collet Stephan brought him to naturopath Tracy Tannis. By this point the boy was so stiff he couldn’t sit in his car seat and had to be brought to the naturopath’s office on a mattress in the car. Without even examining him, Tannis ordered her secretary to prepare a strong tincture of Echinacea which Collet then treated Ezekiel with.

Tracy Tannis is now under investigation by the College of Naturopathic Doctors of Alberta, an investigation sparked by her role in Ezekiel’s death.

Ezekiel’s parents were charged with failure to provide necessaries of life as per section 215 of the Canadian Criminal Code.

Section 215 states that a parent, guardian, or head of a family is under a legal duty to provide necessaries of life to a child under sixteen years old. If the person fails to do so “without lawful excuse” and that failure permanently endangers their health or their life, they risk a maximum five year prison term. Unlike other offenses which place the burden of proof on the prosecution, section 215 leaves it up to the accused. Once the prosecution proves the accused failed to provide necessaries of life, it’s up to the defense to prove the accused had a lawful excuse not to provide them.

It should go without saying that a distrust of modern medicine is not a lawful excuse. Drugs and medical practices go through a barrage of scientific tests before they ever touch a patient. They are also subjected to government regulation and any time anything proves to be harmful, the practice is ended or the product taken off the market.

There is no study conclusively proving that naturopathic remedies can cure fatal or disabling illnesses. Garlic, onions, and Echinacea were as likely to cure Ezekiel as good old fashioned prayer.

Many have argued that parents should have discretion over the care their child receives and that the Stephans’ conviction somehow takes away that discretion. The problem with this argument is that it denies that parental discretion as per Canadian law is not and has never been absolute. If it were there’d be no convictions for child abuse and parents would be under no obligation to feed and clothe their children if they decided their care didn’t require it.

Laws are always based on notions of reasonability according to what another reasonable person would have done in a similar situation. A reasonable person would have freaked when they saw that their baby was sick. A reasonable parent would have gone straight to the emergency room and demanded a licensed medical doctor take a look at their child.

Naturopathic remedies are fine to try on afflictions that aren’t fatal or crippling. You have a common cold? Feel free to eat a ton of garlic or feed it to your kid. You have a bruise? Rub it with chilies if you think it will help.

But if your child’s illness puts him at risk of dying or being permanently disabled, it’s time to put your pride and prejudices about modern medicine aside.

And if they’re more important to you than your kid’s life, you shouldn’t be parents.