'Disgusting and despicable': Alberta NDP calls for apology after Premier Kenney compares unvaccinated to AIDS patients

The Opposition wants the premier to apologize after comments at Tuesday’s COVID-19 update comparing the potential stigma of being unvaccinated to the discrimination people with HIV/AIDS faced in the 80s.

Jason Kenney was speaking about attitudes he said he’d observed online, where people expressed they wouldn’t feel safe dining in restaurants alongside someone who was unvaccinated.

“That sentiment deeply concerns me,” said Kenney. “Treating fellow people as though they are somehow unclean.”

“To stigmatize people in that way, it kind of reminds me of the attitudes that circulated in North America in the mid-1980s about people with HIV/AIDS. This notion that they had to be kind of distanced for health reasons…this is a terribly divisive attitude.”

The premier said it is unacceptable to treat those who have made a different decision as unwelcome in society.

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“Frankly…that was a disgusting and despicable comment from a premier we know campaigned to keep the loved ones of AIDS patients in California from being able to be with them when they were dying,” said NDP health critic David Shepherd.

Shepherd was referring to Kenney’s days as a student at the University of San Francisco, where Kenney fought to overturn a law granting hospital visitation rights to same-sex couples.

“For him to evoke the memory of those who faced very real discrimination because of a disease they could not control – to compare that to individuals who choose not to get vaccinated, frankly it’s unconscionable and the premier should apologize.”

The premier made the comments while announcing a plan to ease restrictions in Alberta, including the Restriction Exemptions Program, which required Albertans to show proof of vaccination at many businesses.