Vaccine passport protesters gather outside Laval gym

LAVAL, Que. -

Dozens of protesters gathered outside a gym in Laval Tuesday afternoon to make a public show of their criticisms about the province imposing a vaccine passport.

The Econofitness gym is one of a handful of Quebec businesses taking part in a pilot project this week ahead of the province’s plan to impose a COVID-19 vaccine passport on Sept. 1 at certain locations, including public events, training facilities, bars and restaurants.

The policy is seen by many medical professionals as a potential way to incentivise those who are hesitant, boost immunization rates, and ideally help steer the country out of the COVID-19 pandemic faster. It's also become a hot-button campaign issue in the federal election.

• READ: Vaccine mandates: Where the parties stand on the campaign wedge issue

Some, like Richard Girgis of a group called Fearless Canada / Courage Canada, a group which questions and criticizes some of the government's public health measures, disagree.

"We are not seeing the number of hospitalizations that could possibly justify discriminatory and divisive measures such as this. I question the legality of the measure. I think this that this measure is going to be hotly contested in court. But in the meantime it’s being rolled out regardless of whether or not it passes muster in terms of legality. In the meantime, everyday citizens have to stand up against this type of discrimination and I think that what they’re doing today is exactly that," he said. 

Laval police were on site at the demonstration to manage the crowd. Const. Stephanie Beshara said the crowd is mostly calm and there have been no arrests. Police said about 70 people took part in the demonstration.

The demonstration has delayed journalists from entering the gym to record the testing of equipment that will be used to verify vaccine passports when they start being used in two weeks.

This latest protest comes three days after thousands gathered in Montreal to demonstrate against the new measure.

- With files from Max Harrold and Rachel Aiello of CTV News.