Not vaccinated for Covid-19? Grocery retailers in New Brunswick, Canada now may ban you from entering.
New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shephard said all businesses, including groceries, may demand shoppers display a vaccine passport before entering the premises.
Canadian provinces are allowed autonomy on decisions about vaccine passports, but grocery stores remained open to all across the country, regardless of vaccination status. With this new provision, people wanting to buy food may need to find someone to do it for them if they are refusing to take part in the vaccination program. 77 percent of Canadian residents eligible for the Covid vaccine are fully vaccinated. Canada is vaccinating people as young as 5 years.
The Canadian federal government has already banned unvaccinated people from domestic or international air or train travel, a rule that went into effect Nov. 30.
Facebook banned news and videos of protests of the development, saying it was misinformation. Those videos showed up on Tik Tok, however.
Protests on Saturday, which shut down the main streets in Moncton, N.B. for several hours. Some participants said it was one of the larger protests they had seen in the town of 85,000.
Politifact, owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, disputes the assertion that people are being prevented from buying groceries in New Brunswick.
But Must Read Alaska’s Fact Check Desk found the New Brunswick government document that allows stores to discriminate against those who haven’t taken the shot. To date, one of the two major grocers in New Brunswick is requiring a vaccination passport.
Repressive measures against the unvaccinated are widespread in Canada. The Retail Council lists the restrictions by province at this link, which has not yet been updated to reflect the new New Brunswick grocery policy.
The New Brunswick government policy is at this link:
https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/corporate/promo/covid-19/alert-system.html#2.4
A quick review of the government mandates can be found in this provincial document:
New Brunswick is on the Eastern Seaboard and shares a border with Maine. It has a population of about 751,000 people. The province is the only in Canada where both English and French are official languages.
