Why Aircraft Mechanics Went to Ottawa
The government gave Rich & Dan a choice: take the jab or lose your job.
Part 1: Frozen Ketchup and Brand New BBQs Part 2: Three Men and a Van Part 3: Frozen Bank Accounts Part 4: Why Aircraft Mechanics Went to Ottawa Part 5: Why Aircraft Mechanics Went to Ottawa (Part 2) Part 6: From Hero to Zero
Last week, I told you about Rich and Dan, two Ontario aircraft mechanics. How did they end up in a van in Ottawa as part of the Freedom Convoy? Vaccine coercion.
Rich has worked all his life. Keeping planes flight-worthy has never been a nine-to-five gig so, as experienced as he is, he’s still pulling shiftwork.
In Canada, aviation is federally regulated. On August 13, 2021 the federal government announced that all employees in the air, rail, and marine sectors had to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of October.
Unlike in Europe, this applies to individuals who’ve recovered from COVID and are therefore already immune. Lip service is paid to medical exemptions, but doctors have been under tremendous pressure not to provide such exemptions. It turns out Canadian leaders - whether in politics, medicine, or business - are crude, one-size-fits-all thinkers.
Section 7 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees ‘security of the person.’ This means no one can be forced to take any medical treatment against their will. But millions of people have spent the past year pretending that longstanding, fundamental human right doesn’t exist.
COVID-19 is not the Bubonic Plague. Half of the population was never at risk of dropping dead. Nor was a quarter. Or even a tenth. During the first few months of 2020, when information was scarce, erring on the side of caution made sense. But:
By the latter half of 2021, it had become clear COVID isn’t much more deadly than the flu.
Reputable doctors have been shouting from the rooftops that COVID can be successfully treated. Almost everyone can be kept out of hospital, they say, if inexpensive, safe medicines are taken early.
The rushed-into-production COVID vaccines have no long term safety data. Normally, 10+ years of testing takes place, which results in a 98% failure rate.
More people have died after taking COVID vaccines than after taking all other vaccines combined over the past 30 years, including annual flu shots. The risk profile for COVID vaccines is off-the-charts.
Under these circumstances, forcing people to take these injections cannot be justified logically, legally, or morally. But that’s what happened to Rich:
I remember driving into work on [highway] 403 and listening to CBC news radio, and that’s when they made the announcement. My job was in jeopardy. I’ve never been so mad and angry. I screamed. In the car. By myself. At the radio.
That was probably the worst day of my life. Well, actually, not really. So a few weeks later the emails came out at work: ‘You’re gonna lose your job if you don’t get the jab.’
I held strong. I didn’t get the jab. And basically, I got let go. They call it a leave. Leave without pay.
And then, the very next day, my wife got her notice at work. And now we’re both unemployed.
Next, Rich and his wife were denied unemployment benefits by the federal government, despite having paid into that program their entire working lives.
How is this not brazenly abusive? Do what I say, or you’ll lose your job. Do what I say, or the social safety net that exists to help people when they lose their job won’t apply. Do what I say or the bank will foreclose on your home and repossess your automobiles. Do what I say or you’ll lose everything your honest labour has ever earned you.
If career criminals were hounded in this manner, we’d call it vicious, unwarranted persecution. We’d call it cruel, unusual, excessive, and disproportionate punishment.
Yet productive, law-abiding Canadians were - and still are - subjected to this dreadful pressure.
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