Canadian Politician Apologizes for Comparing the Unvaccinated to AIDS Patients in the 1980s
Jason Kenney, the premier of Alberta, has apologized for comments in which he compared the treatment of unvaccinated Canadians to those who suffered from HIV/AIDS during the 1980s.
Kenney, who has held his office since 2019, discussed Covid-19 vaccines on Tuesday with reporters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported:
While answering a reporter’s question Tuesday, Kenney said the debate around immunizations and COVID-19 mandates is causing deep divisions among Albertans.
Unvaccinated people are being treated like they are ‘somehow unclean,’ he said.
“Everybody should avail themselves of the protection of safe and effective vaccines, and that the choice not to get vaccinated is not just a personal choice — it does have social consequences.
Kenney then equated a stigma against the unvaccinated to a stigma against people with HIV and/or AIDS during the early days of the epidemic.
“But it’s never OK to treat people like that, to stigmatize people in that way,” Kenney said. “In a way, it kind of reminds me of the attitudes that circulated in North America in the mid-1980s about people with HIV/AIDS — that there’s this notion that they had to be kind of distanced, for health reasons.”
The comment drew an immediate backlash online.
Don’t you dare bring up AIDS in your COVID comments, @jkenney, and pretend you’re some sort of human rights defender. We know your record on that. You fought to keep gay people from visiting their dying partners in hospital. Stop.
— Janis Irwin (@JanisIrwin) February 9, 2022
The same @jkenney who has a long and sordid history of homophobia and discrimination against the queer community compared the demonization of nonvaccinated Albertans with those demonized during the AIDS crisis.
This is not a leader, Alberta.
2023 can’t come soon enough.#ableg https://t.co/hARZJjAFaP
— Janis Irwin (@JanisIrwin) February 9, 2022
Here’s what Jason Kenney said in the year 2000 about his record of stopping a gay-rights law that would’ve allowed hospital visits for partners of dying AIDS patients in the 1980s
and
What Kenney said today, comparing treatment of unvaxxed people to AIDS patients in the 1980s pic.twitter.com/Mckt7giBQm
— Robson Fletcher (@CBCFletch) February 9, 2022
Kenney issued an apology on Twitter on Wednesday.
“In my new conference yesterday I made an inappropriate analogy to the stigmatization of people with AIDS,” he wrote. “I was wrong to do so and apologize without reservation.”
In my new conference yesterday I made an inappropriate analogy to the stigmatization of people with AIDS. I was wrong to do so and apologize without reservation.
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) February 9, 2022
Kenney has been a vocal opponent of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Covid mandates and travel restrictions.
I’m calling on @JustinTrudeau to get rid of federal travel restrictions, including:
📌 72-hour pre-departure testing
📌 arrivals testing and isolation; and
📌 quarantining for kids under 5.
These ineffective mandates have to go.
📽 WATCH ⬇ pic.twitter.com/RegP1pH9gt
— Jason Kenney (@jkenney) February 9, 2022
Thousands of truckers in the country are of course protesting government restrictions are part of the so-called “Freedom Convoy.”
