Dear Dr. Bonnie Henry,
I am writing to you from the small rural farming community of Dunster BC in the heart of the Robson Valley. Our nearest villages are McBride and Valemount respectively.
I want to begin by thanking you for your tireless efforts to protect British Columbians throughout the early part of the pandemic with your calm, courteous, and rational approach to implementing public health measures to slow the spread of Covid-19. As an employer in the forest sector, I appreciated and diligently followed your Provincial Health Orders and Safety Protocols to keep my employees safe throughout the course of the pandemic.
I also very much appreciated and applauded your stance against mandating vaccines in British Columbia and your unwillingness to implement a vaccine passport as you felt this would create unnecessary bias and segregation in our society.
At the time of your public broadcast on this issue back in June of this year, I thought to myself: At least we have someone with common sense and a strong sense of ethics in charge here in BC!
Be calm, be kind, be safe.. These were your words Dr. Henry. So let me ask you: when did this mantra cease to represent your policies and the policies of the government you work for? When did you stop trying to protect people and start blindly accepting a political narrative which has created the deepest and most harmful divisions our society has seen in my lifetime, perhaps in history?
If you are to clearly look around you at what is happening in communities, in families, in society today as a result of the absurd vaccine mandates and coercive, unlawful and unconstitutional tactics being employed by your government and others in this country being used to institute them, you must see that there is nothing calm, kind or safe about them!
I want to draw particular attention to the recent deplorable, divisive and dangerous mandate that was implemented for Health Care Workers in BC which unlawfully and immediately terminated the employment and service of thousands of desperately needed and valued doctors, nurses, and paramedics. Our society cannot function without them! Our health care system was already overwhelmed long before this illegal and absurd mandate was put in place!
This has drastically and disproportionately damaged our health care system in rural areas.
At this time we only have two doctors on call between the villages of McBride and Valemount to serve close to 3000 residents and an additional 2000 pipeline workers. I personally have been trying to see a doctor for over a month!
Unfortunately my doctor (Dr. Stephen Du Toit) has been a casualty of this recent illegal mandate and has been stripped of his license to practice medicine after 12 years of faithfully and diligently serving his community.
As a result of this mandate hundreds of thousands of residents of British Columbia will suffer.
Many illnesses will go undiagnosed.
Many people will die without enough medically trained personnel to diagnose and treat these illnesses (including Covid-19.)
I implore you, Dr. Henry, to please do the right thing! Step back into your role as a leader during this crisis and reverse the ridiculous and unlawful mandates that are depriving our society of essential services and threatening the livelihoods of thousands of dedicated public servants.
(This letter has been shortened by the author from its original version)
Seth Macdonald
Dunster, BC
