Quebec is to establish vaccine passports throughout their province in the coming year.
By Dami Igbinyemi
Québec has reported 305 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, August 5, 2021, bringing their total
number of confirmed cases to 378,462. 60 new people were hospitalized with 16 of them in the
ICU. There were no reported deaths yesterday leaving the total fatality count at 11,240. As of
today, 84%, of all eligible people in Quebec have received one dose of the vaccine and 68.2% of
all eligible people are fully vaccinated.
With the recent rise in covid cases in Quebec and the threat of a fourth wave looming over
the provincial government, new ways to encourage people to get vaccinated were required.
On August 5, 2021, Premier François Legault announced a vaccine passport that will give
vaccinated people access to non-essential services. These vaccine passports will allow non-
essential businesses to stay open but will only be open to vaccinated people. An outline of how
the system will work and when it begins will be announced by the government in the coming
days.
“We’ll put in place the passport so that people who made an effort to be vaccinated will be able
to return to a normal life,” Legault said. “It means some non-essential services will be available
only to vaccinated people.”
This announcement convinced people for more than 11,500 people to sign up for their first dose
that same day. However, across the province, there is still pushback with this new process. Many
are concerned about data security and how the system will be enforced. Questions of how the
system would be enforced and the punishments for failing to comply have yet to be established.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he fully supports Quebec’s decision to implement the system.
“Canadians have understood that to get through this pandemic, they need to be vaccinated,”
Trudeau said. “It’s not just a question of individual choice, it’s a question of protecting the
community and our children who haven’t had the opportunity to be vaccinated.”
Québec Debout, a group that has been organizing protests against the province’s public health measures, is planning another one in Montreal this weekend. This is to protest the vaccine passports. “We must say no together,” the group says. Thousand of people have responded to the group’s Facebook event calling the system “highly discriminatory.”
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