Smith’s bill to protect Alberta’s unvaccinated won’t be introduced in legislature

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is reversing a promise to enshrine human rights protections for the unvaccinated COVID-19 into law this fall.

Instead, Smith said she is calling organizations with vaccine mandates to urge them to change their minds and tie it to state funding if necessary.

Smith is also calling for Albertans to call her government to report those imposing vaccine mandates.

“I’m calling people,” Smith told reporters Monday.

“The Arctic Winter Games wanted $1.2 million from us to support their effort and they discriminated against the athletes and told them they had to be vaccinated.

“So we asked them if they would reconsider their vaccination policy in light of new evidence and they did. And I was happy to see that.”

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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says vaccine mandates are “unacceptable” discrimination

Smith said she heard an Alberta film production had a similar policy for its hairdressers, so she instructed a cabinet minister to call the company to urge it to reconsider.

“I’m quite willing to make those phone calls and have my (cabinet) ministers make those calls if there are other examples,” Smith said.

“If there is still discrimination, I want to know about it … people should contact their MPs.”

Opposition NDP legal critic Irfan Sabir condemned the phone calls as intimidation tactics in the service of an anti-science United Conservative government.

“If you believe in science, if you believe in public health measures, your funding will be cut, you will be discriminated against,” Sabir said.

“This is clear intimidation and harassment.”

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Proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 test must be required at Alberta ski hills

The legislature is scheduled to resume Tuesday for the fall session, but Smith said the agenda will not include her promised bill to amend the provincial Human Rights Act to prohibit restrictions based on someone’s COVID-19 vaccination status.

Smith won the leadership of the United Conservatives largely by harnessing anger within a faction of the party over COVID-19 vaccine mandates and health restrictions they saw as unnecessary and a profound infringement on personal liberties.

On her first day as prime minister last month, Smith called the COVID-19 unvaccinated group the most discriminated group she had seen in her lifetime.

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Alberta’s new premier faces backlash after calling unvaccinated people the ‘most discriminated group’

She said Monday that she has re-examined the human rights issue and believes the issue has become somewhat unclear with most employers not having vaccine rules.

And she said rather than rushing, she wants a more detailed analysis to find more durable, broader long-term solutions and protections later.

“Just making this one change to this one piece of legislation is not going to be enough,” she said.

“(I) didn’t want to do it as a bit of a cowardly measure. I want to make sure that we solve this problem for the future.

“I think my supporters will understand.”

As recently as five weeks ago, Smith said the human rights amendment needed to be passed immediately, characterizing it as a lone symbolic line in the sand amounting to an Alberta declaration of freedom.

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Sovereignty Act, Affordability to Define Fall Legislative Session in Alberta

In an Oct. 20 speech to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, Smith told the audience the bill is coming this fall whether they like it or not.

“I want to give you fair warning: we’re going to make a serious pivot,” Smith told the chamber luncheon.

“We want to send a message to the community, and to the global community, and to the investment markets that this is a place that is open for business, that this is a place that believes in freedom, this is a place that is in believe. free enterprise and it’s a place where we’re not going to make arbitrary decisions that are going to disproportionately impact small and medium businesses.”

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Premier Danielle Smith addresses Edmonton Chamber of Commerce

The first bill in the session is Smith’s long-promised, controversial Alberta Sovereignty Act, which has since been renamed the “Alberta Sovereignty within a United Canada Act.”

Smith promised the legislation would allow the province to reject federal laws deemed to encroach on provincial jurisdiction, but in a constitutionally respectful manner. Smith did not explain how this would be done.

Legal experts said such an act as described would be unconstitutional.

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