Recently, a friend of mine said he wished Canada was more like Germany in opening up its economy. Soon after that,  Germany became the centre of Covid in Europe if not the world. Chancellor Angela Merkel widely hailed as the best leader in Europe in the last half century or longer, said she favored imposing mandatory vaccines on the unvaccinated in Germany. Promptly thereafter the incoming Chancellor echoed her comments. Austria has already imposed vaccine mandates. I have not heard the details, but they are treating the issue seriously. I don’t think my friend will advocate we follow Germany and Austria down that path.

The German Minister of Health made an astonishing remark. He said, “before the end of the winter everyone in Germany will be vaccinated, recovered, or dead!’ Pretty strong views.

Dr. Hans Kluge, the Regional Director of the World Health Organization for Europe said that Europe had to take matters relating to Covid seriously because it was now having more than half of the new Covid cases in Europe.

Meanwhile, in places like Austria where the government is trying to impose a vaccine mandate tens of thousands of people have taken to the street in protest.  The debate there make is likely to be very heated.

Dr. Kluge asked a very pertinent questions” Does anyone have the right to make someone sick avoidably?” Many people say no and want to impose vaccines on people who don’t want to take.  Others think that is too extreme.

I say all of this by way of introduction to the issue I want to discuss.  Recently a friend asked “is it legally permissible to impose a vaccine mandate on people who don’t want to take the vaccine?”   I answered immediately without thinking, “no.!”  It took me about 15 seconds to say, “I change my mind, it is legally permissible to impose vaccines.” That was one of my fastest flip flops ever.  But was my second view correct? What about our constitutional rights? Is it morally permissible in Canada to compel people to take vaccines? Even if it is moral and legal to impose vaccines, is it wise?  I think these are very interesting and very important questions and I would like to tackle them. This will take a number of posts for there are many issues to meander through.

I hope you join me on this journey.