WINNIPEG, Manitoba (LifeSiteNews) – Manitoba has become the third Canadian province to announce its plans to end all COVID-19 restrictions amid nationwide protests.
Manitoba Premier Heather Stefanson announced Friday morning that all COVID-19 restrictions will be axed by mid-March, with the controversial vaccine passport system to be eliminated by the end of February.
Stefanson’s reversal on the use of heavy-handed government policies in the name of COVID follows shortly after two other Western premiers, Alberta’s Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, also announced they were ending vaccine passports and mask mandates in their provinces earlier this week.
Many pro-freedom advocates remain deeply skeptical of the local and state/provincial governments that are finally rolling back the draconian measures they instituted nearly two years ago. Those restrictions evolved from March 2020’s “stay at home” orders and the shutting down of businesses and restaurants to eight-hour mask mandates for toddlers in daycare, forced vaccinations to remain employed, and segregation based on mRNA jab status.
“Today we offer hope to those who have been waiting for a long time to see that light at the end of the tunnel,” Stefanson stated.
“The restrictions have placed many burdens on Manitobans, and now that we see the pressure of our hospital systems starting to ease, it’s our responsibility of government to ease those restrictions on Manitobans.”
According to Stefanson, starting next week “capacity limits” will be lifted on restaurants, bars, and other businesses, with the vaccine apartheid system being thrown out by March 1. Masking is set to remain until mid-March.
While maintaining that people should still get vaccinated with the experimental COVID-19 injections, Stefanson did state that “the choice to get vaccinated is yours.”
“We need to end the divisiveness between families, between communities,” he said. “It’s time for a new normal to begin in Manitoba.’
“We need to move forward. It’s time to bring Manitobans back together again.”
The almost overnight reversal in the approach to the pandemic by Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba seems to be a symptom of the immense pressure governments are feeling since the onset of the nationwide “Freedom Convoy” movement currently protesting COVID measures in the nation’s capital of Ottawa.
Since the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa two weeks ago, the federal Conservative Party booted their pro-mandate leader and has since taken a strong stance in support of the removal of all COVID restrictions. Meanwhile, the authoritarian province of Quebec has walked back on its plans to tax the vaccine-free, and even three of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Members of Parliament have distanced themselves from his pro-mandate stance, in favor of a relaxation of COVID measures.
While the movement to end restrictions has been described as “fringe” by Trudeau, according to a recent poll over half of Canadians support the removal of all measures.
Many consider such mandates a gross assault on individual freedoms that’s unnecessary given COVID-19’s high survivability among most groups, its now-understood minimal risk of asymptomatic spread, and research indicating that post-infection natural immunity is far superior to vaccine-induced immunity.
Moreover, according to a growing body of data, vaccine mandates and passports have been a failed strategy for tackling COVID.
In October 2021, Daily Caller editor Vince Coglianese predicted that elites would eventually lift restrictions and argue, “your freedom is a result of our good decision making” (even though those freedom-crushing decisions had disastrous results), with Democrats trying to use that type of rhetoric to win 2022 midterm elections in the U.S.