The issue arose after the father requested for extension of his allotted visitation time (Representational)
Quebec:
A Canadian father, unconvinced against COVID and “opposed to health measures,” lost the right to visit his 12-year-old after a Quebec judge ruled that his visit was not in the child’s “best interest.”
The decision, initially reported by Quebec newspaper Le Devoire and consulted by AFP, was granted on 23 December and suspended the father’s visitation rights until February, until he decides to vaccinate.
“If the child has not been vaccinated and is in conflict with health measures in the context of the current epidemiology, it would not be in their best interest to have contact with their father,” the judge said in his ruling. Omicron Edition.
The issue arose when the father requested for extension of his allotted visitation time around the holidays.
The mother opposed his request. She told the court that she had recently learned that she had not been vaccinated and showed her opposition to the health measures in her previous social media posts.
The judge said that when a child is vaccinated, their protection “is reduced against the Omicron variant that is currently circulating in Quebec.”
The mother also lives with her partner and two other children aged seven months and four years – too young for vaccines, which Canada has authorized from age five.
“Under these circumstances, it is not in the interest of any of the three children” for the 12-year-old to meet his father, the judge ruled.
Although more than 90 percent of adults in Quebec have been vaccinated against COVID-19, the province has reported a massive increase in cases and hospitalizations in recent weeks due to the rapidly spreading Omicron variant.
In an effort to stem the new wave, Quebec announced the withdrawal of some restrictions on December 30, including a 10 p.m. curfew and a ban on private gatherings.
The French-speaking province will also impose a new health tax on unvaccinated people in the coming weeks, and has already banned them from non-essential shops.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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