Neudorf defence of anti-vaxxers unacceptable

By Letter to the Editor on November 17, 2021.

Editor:
In his Nov. 12 column, UCP Lethbridge-East MLA Nathan Neudorf shamelessly invoked the memory of our country’s war dead as a launching pad for defending anti-vaxxers’ supposed right to inflict risk of illness and death on our community.
I find it beyond the pale to hook an opinion apologizing for the irresponsibility and selfish behaviour of anti-vaxxers onto the coattails of our national day for remembering the selfless sacrifices of our veterans. His decision to devote a 750-word essay defending anti-vaxxers on this, of all days, carries echoes of the anti-vaxxer protesters who took over the Remembrance Day ceremonies in Kelowna on Thursday.
Unfortunately, Mr. Neudorf’s piece was not just tasteless and insensitive. Mr. Neudorf writes that because their elected government has chosen not to “infringe upon a person’s fundamental freedoms with respect to mandating vaccinations of its citizens, then we should not now allow other entities to infringe upon them.”
This is illogical and dangerous.
It means that if you own a business or run a service organization and you want to protect your staff and clients from unnecessary anti-vaxxer spread, Mr. Neudorf would prevent you.
In other words, for Mr. Neudorf and his UCP, the anti-vaxxers’ right to mingle among us trumps our right to choose whether to protect ourselves from the risk they pose.
This is downright foolish. Whatever rights anti-vaxxers have, they certainly do not encompass the right to expose the other 80-plus per cent of us to their irresponsible decision.
We cannot subjugate responsible citizens’ health and safety rights to the unbridled freedoms of a selfish and misinformed few.
Fortunately, we have a strong field of nomination candidates ready to take on Mr. Neudorf and the UCP in the next provincial election as the Lethbridge-East NDP candidate.
I am one of those candidates and I am ready to stand strong to protect the rights of the vast majority of us who have made the right choice to protect themselves from those who haven’t.
Over the last 18 months of my second term on city council, I worked with other councillors to take up the mantle when the UCP abandoned us to the second, third and fourth waves.
I sponsored and strongly defended the City’s face-covering bylaw against the opposition from Mr. Neudorf’s UCP and their allies on City Council.
We can’t let the UCP’s singular defence of anti-vaxxers’ rights threaten our health and local economy in Lethbridge with an unnecessary fifth wave.
If the voters of Lethbridge-East entrust me with the honour of representing them, I will work diligently to set priorities straight and give public health its due respect.
Rob Miyashiro
Former City Councillor, 2013-2021
Lethbridge-East NDP nomination candidate