Comparing vaccine passports to ‘disgusting’ residential schools: BC chiefs
OTTAWA – The British Columbia Assembly of First Nations says it is “hurtful and disgusting” for a People’s Party of Canada candidate to compare vaccine passports to residential schools.
Vancouver-Quadra PPC candidate Renate Siekmann sent a pamphlet to her constituents this week with ‘no vaccination passport’ and ‘discrimination is a mistake’ written on a photo of Indigenous children at residential school in 1880 .
“Today my campaign sent this literature to approximately 52,000 homes in Vancouver Quadra,” Siekmann wrote on Twitter Wednesday.
“British Columbia’s history hasn’t always been great, we need to learn from the past and improve. This analogy may make some uncomfortable or angry, but it is a difficult and important conversation to have.
In a subsequent tweet, she said “now that I have your attention” and published an article in the Canadian Encyclopedia online about the “laissez-passer system” put in place by the federal government in 1885, which required Aboriginal people on reserves to obtain a pass from an Indian. Agent when they wanted to leave their community.
“History is an important lesson,” she wrote. “Don’t let history repeat itself.
However, BCAFN regional chief Terry Teegee said Siekmann’s attempt to say that a public health measure such as vaccine passports is equivalent to the genocidal and violent practices inflicted on indigenous peoples shows “immense depth of ‘ignorance and lack of judgment’.
“As First Nations, entire generations of our people have been stolen from their families and communities,” Teegee said in a statement.
“They were tortured, physically and sexually abused, and murdered. They lost their language and their culture, and thousands of our precious children never made it home. To claim that a public health measure, such as a vaccination passport, is in some way comparable or equivalent to violent and genocidal practices is harmful and repugnant.
Teegee went on to say that “an embarrassing disruption in your social life to save lives during a deadly pandemic is not discrimination.”
He asks for an apology and said PPC leader Maxime Bernier should fire Siekmann as a candidate.
The PPC did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
Siekmann said on Twitter that she was “pro-vaccine” but that vaccine passports are a violation of human rights.
She also shared a tweet from Rebel News editor Ezra Levant on Thursday comparing the Alberta government’s decision to ban unvaccinated people from attending private gatherings inside to Nazis on the doorstep. -to-door in search of “unclean citizens”.
“If you can’t see the writing on the wall, go read the history books again. Everyone, ”Siekmann wrote on his retweet, with the hashtag #VoteforHumanRights.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 16, 2021.