Ontario’s vaccine passport program will be gone in just over two weeks.
Premier Doug Ford announced he’d be scrapping Ontario’s requirement that customers provide proof of vaccination to access many types of businesses, including restaurants and theatres.
“Given how well Ontario has done in the Omicron wave we are able to fast track our reopening plan,” Ford said.
Ontario follows Alberta, Saskatchewan, Prince Edward Island and Manitoba in putting forward a concrete date to get rid of vaccine passports since the freedom convoy began.
Ford did not indicate when Ontario’s mask mandate would be lifted, telling people they’d have to wait “just a little bit longer.”
Ford insisted the move was not a response to the trucker convoy, which has been calling for an end to all vaccine mandates and vaccine passports at the federal and provincial levels.
In his remarks, Ford defended the vaccine program but conceded it had been “divisive.”
“I know that this period has been one of the most divisive times in our history,” Ford said. “One of the hardest things about this pandemic is the way it’s fractured us as a society. Differing views about government policies, the limits of personal freedoms, different views about vaccines, public health measures, and what steps are necessary. All of it has polarized us in a way that we could have never imagined.”
Before implementing Ontario’s vaccine passport regime, Ford claimed to be against the policy, which he said would create a “split society.”
