Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre introduced a bill that would end the current federal vaccine mandate and prevent mandates from ever happening again.

It’s titled Bill C-278: An Act to prevent the imposition by the federal government of vaccination mandates for employment and travel. 

“Mr. Speaker, this bill would ban the government from imposing vaccine mandates as a condition of travel or employment,” Poilievre said in the House of Commons.

“If the bill passes, the government will no longer be able to require federal workers to get vaccinated in order to keep their paychecks and jobs. It will also ban the federal government from requiring vaccines in order for people to travel.”

“In other words, it would allow all Canadians, regardless of their personal medical decisions, to continue to work in the federal sector or travel on planes, trains, and other federally regulated modes of transportation, regardless of whether they are vaccinated.”

With the CPC membership deadline closing within 24 hours for those who’ll be eligible to vote for the next leader, the timing of Poilievre’s proposal is unlikely a coincidence.

After all, the NDP-Liberal coalition will almost indefinitely vote down this bill, just as they voted down the last (less severe) one, proposed by MP Melissa Lantsman.

In fact, Poilievre didn’t vote in favour of Lantsman’s bill but later cited technical problems for his abstention.

Nonetheless, this is the first time Poilievre has proposed to end the current vaccine mandates and prevent any future vaccine mandates from ever taking place.

Of course, Trudeau has maintained the opposite position. Yesterday, he said that because future variants might develop, hypothetically, we must keep our current vaccine mandate in place.

“We are still at risk, particularly at risk, as Fall approaches, of new variants,” he said.