The fact that only around a third of Canadians found the pandemic measures excessive is troubling. One must assume that the other two thirds were either okay with the measures or felt they were insufficient.
Thirty-six per cent of Canadians agree with the notion that government reactions to the pandemic were exaggerated, according to the poll by Leger for the Association for Canadian Studies (ACS).
People in the Prairies and Alberta were more likely to have a negative perception of the decisions taken by government. Forty-seven per cent of Albertans and 45 per cent of Manitoba and Saskatchewan respondents agreed the COVID response was exaggerated.
But the “much too much, almost zealotry, related to being vaccinated” also came back to haunt public health officials, said Bowman, who has spoken out about how the unvaccinated were demonized as right-wing radicals. The vaccine passports and mandates had a politically polarizing impact, creating an “us-vs-them” mentality, he said.

