Opinion: Vaccine passports and respecting the rights of people experiencing homelessness
I am pleased to report that there are presently no known cases of COVID-19 in Montreal’s homeless population.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Old Brewery Mission has been managing the isolation facilities for homeless men, women and transgender people.
Our Red Zone for those who have tested positive is presently empty.
Over the past eight weeks or so, there have been one or two people isolating in our Orange Zone while waiting for test results, or in our Yellow Zone awaiting confirmation of a negative test result, but we are gratefully free of business in the Red Zone.
As Montrealers will recall, at the height of the second wave in December-January, outbreaks across the shelter community filled the Red Zone to the brim.
The Red Cross had to be called in to operate additional isolation facilities.
Subsequently, a vigorous advocacy campaign was conducted to cajole the provincial government into prioritizing homeless people in the vaccination program that had been announced.
At the time, only health care workers and seniors in long term care homes had been given priority.
The Old Brewery Mission and its partners were pleased the provincial government quickly acceded to our recommendation.
The authorities acknowledged that being homeless put individuals at heightened risk of exposure to the virus and the only viable response was to give them early access to available vaccines.
Since late January, hundreds of homeless people have received their first and even second doses of the vaccine. Public health nurses have come into many shelters to offer the service on site.
Our staff has done everything in its power to encourage the men and women using our facilities to get the shot and many have been vaccinated. The result is an empty Red Zone (at least for the time being).
However, many homeless people have not been vaccinated. There are many reasons for refusal, but the two we hear most often are fear of negative interactions with other medications they are taking and distrust of government assurances that the vaccine is truly safe and effective.
Neither of these reactions is illegitimate or unreasonable when one considers the dismal experience many of these individuals have encountered (and continue to encounter) within the Quebec healthcare system.
Shelters represent the social safety net underneath the social safety net, providing services and support to those whom public institutions have either failed to care for or forgotten altogether.
This leads me to the Legault government’s proposal to require a “vaccine passport” for non-essential services in the province.
We take no position either for nor against the proposal, but we do have two major concerns.
The first is the definition of essential versus non-essential services. Presently, the list of essential services does not include housing, whether temporary, transitional or permanent.
All of these categories should be explicitly added to the list of essential services to ensure that homeless people are not denied the right to visit a potential residence or sign a lease because they do not have the passport.
Chronically homeless people also move around a lot: to feel safe, they may go to a shelter, a Metro station, a public park, the doorway of an unused building and a bus terminal all in the same month.
Will any of these spaces be deemed non-essential and thus require a vaccine passport?
It is important to remember that homeless people already face layers of discrimination when it comes to the use of public spaces.
They receive a disproportionate number of tickets for violating opaque municipal bylaws against nuisance, loitering, vagrancy and jaywalking (tickets which they often cannot and will never be able to pay).
It is therefore very important that authorities be very clear and specific in all laws, regulations and bylaws in order to protect the rights of homeless men, women and transgender people to use these spaces.
It would be the height of irony if the vaccine passport ended up becoming a roadblock preventing people experiencing homelessness from exercising legitimate rights.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Police handcuff man trying to enter Drake's Toronto mansion
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
Biden says he will stop sending bombs and artillery shells to Israel if they launch major invasion of Rafah
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
U.S. presidential candidate RFK Jr. had a brain worm, has recovered, campaign says
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
What is whooping cough and should Canadians be concerned as Europe declares outbreak?
There is currently a whooping cough epidemic in Europe, with 10 times as many cases compared to the previous two years. While an outbreak has not been declared nationwide in Canada, whooping cough is regularly detected in the country.
Pfizer agrees to settle more than 10K lawsuits over Zantac cancer risk: Bloomberg News
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec premier defends new museum on Quebecois nation after Indigenous criticism
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
B.C. theatre to pay $55K to neurodivergent actor in discrimination case
British Columbia's human rights tribunal has awarded a neurodigergent actor, who was diagnosed with sensory and learning disorders, more than $55,000 after finding that a Kelowna theatre company discriminated against him because of his disabilities.
Who's responsible for regulating cannabis stores operating under the sovereignty banner?
It's not quite clear who is supposed to be regulating so-called sovereign cannabis stores or even ensure they're benefiting Indigenous communities.