Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Canada doesn’t need a passport to more vaccination confrontation

We are into the pandemic phase in which some of us are partly vaccinated, a few of us are fully vaccinated and most of us aren’t.
kirk_lapointe_new

We are into the pandemic phase in which some of us are partly vaccinated, a few of us are fully vaccinated and most of us aren’t. It’s a phase that breeds relief, envy, resentment, calls to reopen communities, concerns we’re doing so too quickly and caseloads like we haven’t seen.

Far be it to point to the turbulent waters ahead when we are already seasick, but another major dilemma awaits us: the ethically fraught, technically fragile question of the vaccine passport.

British Columbians support the idea, as our poll from Research Co. recently showed. And in principle, it is easy to see how the concept has merit – now, soon and later – if we believe we can restore our psyches to behave like 2019 ever again. In practice, though, the idea is morally laden, legally vague, scientifically sketchy and politically problematic.

It is difficult to see how we get from here to there. It is a flawed assertion that we can divide society into the binary safe and unsafe any time soon. The nice idea is not ready for prime time.

Of course, there are comparable vaccine passports for some international travel for the safety of visitors and the visited, and there appears to be agreement that some sort of vaccine travel proof ought to continue.

But the debates then start beyond that in defining and balancing a right to safety and a right to privacy, much less actual safety and actual privacy.

There are some testy questions: Should we need vaccination proof to return to work, to the arena, even to a restaurant or the shop? In the near term, should there be different levels of access for those who can and cannot get the vaccine? In the long term, should there be social or economic consequences for those who decline the doses?

I took my first AstraZeneca dose last week, and I know that even with a second shot it is neither 100% effective nor even effective at all in 100% of recipients. Science cannot tell me yet if I will transmit the coronavirus, nor how long my vaccine will last, nor if it will falter amid the variants. I am merely more likely to be safe, less likely to get seriously ill – and only optimally in about four months when I’m fully vaccinated. A passport wouldn’t persuade me that I pose no health threat, nor that I am not susceptible, even if it might persuade others. I’m not hanging up my masks any time soon.

Beyond the scientific questions about how sound a passport would be in securing safety, there are three giant policy challenges: where it would be applied, who would apply it, and how. This is not another opportunity for a governmental heavy hand, but it is time for government to ensure  that what doesn’t ensue is discrimination, deeper inequities or stigmatization. A passport has the capacity to amplify all three problems, particularly before everyone has had access to vaccines.

Any distinction based on health status that intersects with our freedoms stands to rupture the population. Any mandated access would play into the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers and intensify division – terrible at a time government credibility is in decline and we most need unifying gestures.

There is also the little, pesky issue of the wider world. Why restrict ourselves if we haven’t restricted others from flying into our airports? If we open our border to the United States, would we admit only vaccinated Americans? Why introduce a restriction when vaccines are making us safer?

There are better approaches at hand, admittedly tentative yet nimble enough to change course.

If the main questions involve our presence in social and recreational settings, it’s important to remember these sectors are largely led anyway by private actors, not by government. The leagues, venues, clubs and others are in the best position to build public support for vaccines if they set their own rules, provided there are government guardrails to avoid unfairness amid these gradations of risk.

The government role in this fray is to warrant that employment opportunities aren’t stifled, health or life insurance denied or privacy made further insecure.

These are tall orders, which is why Canada has done nothing to take the international lead. The result is bound to resemble our belated buying and slow jabbing of the vaccine. We will watch others deliberate and determine for a long time, make a decision far later than needed, learn little from their efficiencies and take ages to get it done.

It would be nice to take a cue from our neighbours – they spell it neighbors there – but this is an issue even America doesn’t want to overly embrace. There are efforts to standardize vaccine proof, but hardly efforts to use that standard to enable or restrict – except with New York State’s Excelsior Pass to venues and large weddings. The Texas and Florida governors have banned passports outright. The White House won’t proceed with one.

Israel has a “green pass” to permit people to visit restaurants, gyms, hotels, even the beach. Australia, Sweden, Poland, Portugal, Iceland Denmark and Cyprus promise passports soon, while the United Kingdom and the European Union are in Canada’s camp – not committing, not ruling out, merely considering.

What with 13 jurisdictions that barely agree on how the sun rises and a cautious system of collating and sharing medical data, by the time we agree how to do it properly, we may not need it. •

Kirk LaPointe is publisher and editor-in-chief of BIV and vice-president, editorial, of Glacier Media.