COVID-19 shouldn’t make us forget what this nation is supposed to stand for. COVID-19 shouldn’t make us forget our history. COVID shouldn’t make us forget our fundamental freedoms. If our freedoms aren’t fundamental in difficult times, then they aren’t fundamental at all.

One of my friends sent me a text earlier this week saying:

It’s interesting: in all my 29 years of living in this country, I’ve never once felt that I was a minority—until now.

I feel the same way.

My friend and I are what the Canadian government officially labels as “visible minorities”. But we’ve never accepted that term. We are not minorities. We’ve never felt outnumbered in this country. We’ve never felt like outsiders in our home.

Until now.

We’ve never felt like minorities—until now. We had the same rights as everybody else—until now. We’ve never felt like minorities in a two-tier system—until now. We’ve never felt like second-class citizens—until now. We were not marginalized or segregated—until now.

I wasn’t a minority—until today.

Yesterday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that vaccine passports will be enforced in our province starting September 22nd.

Because of Doug Ford’s provincial vaccine passport and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal vaccine mandate, I will no longer be allowed in restaurants, movie theatres, concerts, gyms, some trains, and planes.

Justin Trudeau recently said:

[unvaccinated people] are putting at risk their own kids, and they’re putting at risk our kids as well. That’s why we’ve been unequivocal: if you want to get on a train or a plane in the coming months, you’re going to have to be fully vaccinated so families with their kids don’t have to worry that someone is going to put them in danger in the seat next to them or across the aisle…those people are putting us all at risk.

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