The owner of the "Slow to Write" blog offers two persuasive reasons why it's not a good idea to get vaccinated. He also posed a question for those supporting vaccine passports or mandatory vaccinations.
Samuel Sey, a Ghanaian Canadian blogger who lives in Brampton, Toronto, said that, since many of them have not been persuaded by their government to receive the COVID vaccine, they are now trying to force it.
Sey wrote on his blog on August 7 that "vaccine passports are the latest form of authoritarian approaches" imposed by their government.
However, he was puzzled by the fact that the majority of Canadians favor mandatory vaccinations.
"Canadian provinces are openly and unashamedly segregating people over the vaccine, and most Canadians support that," he said.
As an example, he mentioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who has not only voiced support for Quebec's vaccine passports but is also contemplating making COVID-19 vaccines obligatory for employees in federally regulated sectors.
"If that happens, some of my relatives and friends would be forced between violating their conscience so they could provide for their families and losing their livelihoods so they could maintain their conscience," Sey wrote.
In Sey's assessment, these vaccination passports threaten "freedom of conscience," which is one of the basic freedoms recognized in the Charter of Freedoms and Rights of Canada.
He also observed that when governments violate people's rights without the intervention of a significant or organized force, they become more confident in violating more of their citizens' rights and freedoms.
"That is partly why I am not getting the vaccine. The more our governments and culture attempt to force me to get the vaccine, the more unwilling I am to get it," he said.
He went on to explain that if he compromised his conscience over vaccination due to societal pressure, he would undoubtedly be susceptible to breaching his conscience on other matters as well.
"I do not want to legitimize authoritarianism," he continued. "Most of the people I know who've gotten the vaccine tell me they did so because they wanted the government to end the restrictions."
In response, he said that following repressive regimes is not the way to eliminate tyranny. In the same way, he argued that allowing authoritarian leaders to gain even more power is also not a formula for liberty.
"Authoritarians do not relinquish their power after they've attained it. There is no such thing as a temporary or circumstantial authoritarian government," he pointed out.
Apart from his "rejection of coercion," Sey said that another reason for his refusal to get vaccinated is that he's not persuaded that the vaccine is his and other people's healthiest solution.
"COVID-19 isn't a threat to the overwhelming majority of people," he maintained. "Essentially 99% of people are unlikely to die from the virus. Why then should it be necessary for 100% of people to get the vaccine?"
Black Canadians like him, according to Sey, are the most adamant about not getting the COVID vaccination in Canada. He criticized governments for their duplicity in presumably mourning the segregation of black people in the past while threatening to disproportionately separate them in the future through vaccination passports.
"Since critical race theorists have convinced our governments that racial disparities prove racial discrimination, shouldn't they believe vaccine passports are systemically racist?" he proposes.
I am not against the vaccine. The vaccine is helpful for many people.
However, if you're strictly getting the vaccine so your government will stop their oppressive restrictions,
you're merely making them more oppressive.
Vaccines should be for your health, not your freedom.
"” Samuel Sey (@SlowToWrite) July 21, 2021
