Quebec is planning to impose a ‘health tax’ on Canadians who are not vaccinated against covid.
On Tuesday, Quebec premier Francois Legault announced that it would be the first in the nation to financially penalise the unjabbed.
Legault said authorities were working on a plan to impose a health tax health on adults who refuse to get a covid vaccination for non-medical reasons.
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The Mail Online reports: He said that even though the province has about 10 per cent unvaccinated people, they account for about 50 per cent of those in intensive care units.
‘The 10 per cent of the population can’t burden the 90 per cent,’ Legault declared. ‘It is not on all Quebecois to pay for that.’
With a population of roughly 8 million, the figures suggest that around 800,000 people in Quebec remain unvaccinated, but there are only 2,742 people with Covid currently hospitalized in the province.
The Quebecois premier promised the tax would represent a ‘significant amount not less than C$100 (equivalent to $79.50 / £58.50).’
It comes as cities worldwide saw protests this past weekend contesting continued Covid restrictions such as divisive vaccine passports, travel restrictions and vaccine mandates.
Provinces across Canada are tackling an exponential rise in Covid cases that has forced tens of thousands of people into isolation and burdened the healthcare sector.
Though several governments around the world have imposed travel restrictions on the unvaccinated and introduced hotly contested ‘vaccine passports’ for access to public venues, a sweeping tax on all unvaccinated adults would constitute a rare and controversial move.
Legault said that authorities are still finalizing the amount to be charged and are working on the legal details of imposing such a levy, but also said those who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons would be exempt from the charge.
Eric Duhaime, the head of Quebec’s Conservative opposition party, decried the provincial government’s anti-Covid strategy, tweeting that the new fee would only ‘divide’ Quebecois.
