Quebec doesn't mandate vaccination; it taxes the unvaccinated!

Chief Justice Roberts could not be reached for comment.

Quebec has proposed a new law to tax unvaccinated people. No, there is no mandate. Still, Canadian Civil Libertarians worry that the tax would in fact operate as a mandate:

Cara Zwibel, acting general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said it might however violate Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms if viewed as "a way of compelling people to get vaccinated".

It was not clear if the tax's goal is to convince more people to get vaccinated or to finance health care, she said.

The Canadian Supreme Court could follow the lead of the NFIB saving construction.

Comments

[santamonica811]

Not sure what Josh is whining about this time. Hey, here in California, it’s the law that you wear a seat belt. But, actually, you don’t *have* to wear one. You can go without, and merely get ticket after ticket, and pay those fines. No cop will ever draw her gun and try to force me to use my seat belt. The state will instead use the threat (and actual action) of taking money away from me, to get me to do a desirable action.

Is this not an incredibly common thing for cities/states to do? What is Josh’s beef here?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Good grief. Has your hatred and jealousy of a South Texas law professor robbed you of your sense of humor?

Get a grip, man.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf — I know there have been some folks on the political right who have displayed humor, and even a capacity to recognize humor from others. Usually, however, when I see admonishments about humor from right wingers, they seem by context, apparent tendentiousness, and other anti-humorous flaws to suggest the right wingers themselves are humor-challenged. In this case the, “saving construction,” trope is so leaden, and so burdened with animus, that humor’s rapier is nowhere in sight.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

OK, you think you’ve done right wingers, or at least a figment of your imagination. Now do me.

[Krychek_2]

How do you know you’re his type?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

He likes to respond to me. He wouldn’t do that if he weren’t interested.

I CAN TELL!!!!

[Armchair Lawyer]

There’s a difference between a tax and a fine for breaking the law.

The basic issue is one of good governance.
1. Taxes are designed in principle to raise revenue. Taxes are applied on legal activities…activities everyone is expected to engage in. Governments have broad flexibility in how they can be applied, with little limitation. For example, income tax or sales tax. And individual items in income or individual items in sales taxes can be differentiatially taxed.

2. Laws (in terms on mandates) are designed to regulate behavior primarily, and not to raise revenue. They are designed to make certain behavior illegal. People are not expected to break the law. For example, laws against murder, or for wearing seat belts. But often government is subject to far more in the way of Constitutional limitations with the laws it can impose.

3. The issue comes when taxation policy is designed not to raise revenue but influence behavior. This is for a number of reasons.
a. It can evade constitutional protections against government overreach.
b. It effectively acts as a system where the rich can evade laws legally, while the poor cannot. A society where there are effectively two sets of laws for the rich or poor is a bad idea
c. It greys the zone between legal and illegal behavior, which can be problematic, especially in the long term, and detrimental to the rule of law.

Let’s give you an example you can appreciate. Texas passes the “taxation on abortion law”. Abortion is still perfectly legal, but simply has a $695 tax on the procedure, to be paid by for the person getting the procedure. Or 2.5% of their annual income. Whichever is higher. It’s not prohibiting anything

What’s wrong with such a law? Could Texas increase the tax level to $1500 or 5% of annual income?

[Sarcastr0]

Taxes are designed in principle to raise revenue
This isn’t the law. Hasn’t been since US v. Butler in 1936.

Taxing can run afoul of the Bill of Rights just as any other exercise of Congressional authority, an undue burden on abortion due to taxes is still an undue burden.

[Krayt]

Sin taxes are to reduce behavior. Except government loves the revenue and is more interested in that.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I mentioned how taxes are designed in principle. And why they are designed that way. Not what the “law” is.

But you didn’t answer the question. Would such a Texas law run afoul of the Bill of Rights? Why or why not?

[California Dreamer]

It’s an interesting question, and I hope that someone comes up with a good answer. But I don’t think that a tax on the unvaccinated is comparable to a tax on abortion. With respect to the former, the Legislature can reasonably conclude that people who don’t get vaccinated are more likely to spread the disease, and as a result there will be more COVID patients in the hospital who are unable to pay for treatment, and who must be treated at the state’s expense. Thus, the Legislature can reasonably conclude that it’s appropriate to ask those who don’t get vaccinated to pay some of that cost. Abortion, by contrast, actually saves the state money, at least with respect to poor people who are unable to pay for medical services if they give birth. Thus, the legality of the former has little bearing on the legality of the latter.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Fun fact….those taxes ($695 or 2.5% of income)…are the ones authorized by the original Obamacare bill for failure to get health insurance.

Now, legally speaking, why couldn’t Texas do the same tax on Abortion?

[California Dreamer]

As I said, it’s an interesting question. Courts might question whether it was a backhanded way of preventing people from engaging in a constitutionally-protected activity. An argument could perhaps be made that there’s an equal protection problem with charging a tax for such a procedure while not doing so for other medical procedures. It’s hard for me to come up with anything comparable. Can you? The closest I can think of is the poll tax, prior to the poll tax amendment. I don’t think the Obamacare tax is comparable for the same reason that the anti-vaccination tax isn’t comparable. With respect to Obamacare, there’s a danger that people will refuse to buy insurance, gambling that they won’t get seriously ill or get seriously hurt in an accident, and relying on the state to pick up the tab if they do. Thus, it’s reasonable for the state to protect itself from having to pay that cost by taxing them. By contrast, as previously explained, abortion saves the state money.

[WPHDM]

REPOSTE FROM THE SWIVEL CHAIR

Oscar Stilley has a better private-sector idea: Get agreed SB8 judgments en masse through a clearing house (to be set up by him) for the nominal statutory minimum of $10,000 on the face of the judgment, to be immediately sold to insurers that pay for abortions at a steep discount, with a formal release of the judgment for the full amount as protection for secondary claims involving the same dispatched fetus. The effective amount of the fine/tax/indulgence could be a lot less than 10K, especially with high volume and robo-litigation software like used by debt collection firms. – Could it work? Would it be legal? – Not sure, but it’s creative profit-oriented thinking outside the box, not to mention the echo chambers.

Along those unorthodox lines or rather curvatures of the cerebrum … Why has no one yet suggested treating the abortionists as state actors that are denying the storied constitutional right to abortion to their no longer would-be patients? They have been the ones in the biz, after all, but no longer available for womb-evacuation service rendition because of the governing state laws. So, how are they not the enforcement agents of the state denying abortions under color of state law, whether in white, blue, or green coats or scrubs? Not the baby savers. How wouldn’t the abortionists be appropriate defendants in conventional civil rights suits against state agents alleged to be denying or infringing Fourteenth Amendment persons’ rights? And the prospective instanter relief would take the form of court-ordered abortions on pregnant people’s demand/complaint. Federal district courts could become part and parcel of the abortion-on-demand procurement and unwanted fetus elimination machinery.

[Bubba Jones]

Does California claim there isn’t a seatbelt mandate?

[Ed Grinberg]

So, how far would you take this? If the unvaccinated can be punitively taxed, can their property be seized? Can they be arrested and placed in special camps? Can they be executed?

[Krychek_2]

On Covid, no, because the stakes aren’t that high. There still has to be some sense of proportionality.

Now, if Covid were killing a million people a day, and would be stopped if everyone vaccinated, then at that point the stakes are higher so a harsher response to the unvaccinated would be appropriate. Probably wouldn’t extend to executing them, but at that point I’d support quarantining them.

It’s not an either/or, in which the only possibilities are doing nothing versus executing someone. You have to look at how high the stakes are and whether there are lesser means to achieve the same result.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

If it were that bad, killing a million people a day, the few who refused the vaccine would die off pretty quickly. Neither carrot nor stick would be necessary.

[Krychek_2]

But how many millions would they take with them?

[Armchair Lawyer]

None, because the other were vaccinated.

[Don Nico]

Australia thinks that special camps for which they charge the internees are just fine.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I get that right wingers think journalistic standards are so low that they cannot be abused, but the headline on the OP sucks.

[John F. Carr]

It will be spent on health care just like the tobacco settlement money was.

[Longtobefree]

It’s not a tax, it’s a penalty – – – – – – – –

[Ben of Houston]

At this point, I would prefer that they issue a mandate. Straight and honest. Sit Congress down and hash out a law. Sign it.

All these workarounds and loopholes to issue “not-mandates” to avoid either saying that its a mandate or just avoid elected officials having to actually do something. It serves no purpose

[JimM47]

Wasn’t it just a few months ago that Blackmun was making the claim that everyone is misreading Jacobson v. Massachusetts when they say it stands for the proposition that states can mandate vaccines because the law reviewed in that case imposed only a tax on the unvaccinated? If so, what does he think is worth snarking about now?

[sverlook]

Framing it as a tax (or, more precisely, a “contribution”) without a punitive element is a bit more logical when the government pays for all of your healthcare, and so may have to pay more if you become sick avoidably. I’m sure given the well-known competence of Quebec bureaucrats, they’ll make it perfectly actuarially fair.

Any discussion of court cases could be moot, since Premier Legault is likely to invoke the notwithstanding clause.