Large crowd marches in Montreal to protest against Quebec's vaccination passport

A large group of people gathered in downtown Montreal on Saturday to protest against Quebec's vaccination passport, just a few weeks before the system is expected to be in place.

The crowd, which stretched at least four to five blocks on Ren-Lvesque Boulevard West, began marching toward Place des Festivals at 2 p.m. ET, with people chanting"No to vaccinepassports," in French.

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dub confirmed earlier this week that a vaccination passport system will be implemented as of Sept. 1in an effort to combat a growing COVID-19 caseload and what he described as an"inevitable" fourth wave.

Details about the vaccination passport are still being worked out, but it is expected to only allow those who are fully vaccinated access to festivals, bars, restaurants and physical training facilities.

Limits on other venues and activities will becontingent onfurther spread of the delta variant, which is gaining a foothold in the province,Dub said.

According to the Facebook page of Qubec Debout, the online group behind Saturday's protest whose name means"Quebec Stand Up,"the vaccination passport system is "an unprecedented prejudice for the population that is strongly discriminatory."

CBC News approached several protesters on Saturday, most of whom declined to be interviewed. Those who were willing to speak were shouted down by the crowd and decided not to.

Montreal police are on scene and are monitoring the situation closely, according to a spokesperson for theService de Police de la Ville de Montral (SPVM). The protestis scheduled to end at 6 p.m. ET.

More than 10,000 people have indicated online they would participate in the protest. Police wouldn't say how many people were at the protest.

Critics call for public debate, but Legault opposed

Civil liberties groups haveraised concernsabout data security, and opposition parties have called for a public debate regarding the rollout of vaccination passports.

Quebec Premier Franois Legault, however,is refusing to hold a debate in the legislature on vaccine passports partly because he said he fears Quebecers would be exposed to conspiracy theories.

More than a hundred people protested Thursday in front of La Cage, a sports bar and restaurant in Quebec City the first business to test the vaccination passport system as part of the province's pilot project.

"People are allowed to express their concerns and to protest," saidMarjorie Larouche, a spokesperson from Quebec's Health Department,adding that the protests are troubling to see.

Dubsaid on Friday more people havesignedup to get their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine since Legault announced plans for a vaccination passport last week.

Dub said in a tweetthat a steadily increasing number of people got their first doses for a total of 26,000 between Tuesday and Thursday.

As of Friday, the vast majority of new infections in Canadians have been among the unvaccinated, even though they make up an increasingly smaller segment of the population.Of the 11 COVID-19 patients that were in intensive care in Montreal and Laval as of Friday,none were fullyvaccinated.

Mutation of virusa key concern, virologist says

Benoit Barbeau, a virologist in the department of biological sciences at the Universit du Qubec Montral, said getting the maximum number of people vaccinated isthe only way tostop the spread and mutation of the virus.

"It's obvious that you need to have this vaccine coverage so that at least, first of all, the goal will be to minimize the impact on the health of individuals who are infected, especially the older people... but also to minimize or to reduce the likelihood of transmission," he said.

Barbeau said one ofhis biggest fears is that thevirus will evolveand mutate withinthe unvaccinated populationand reach a point where even those who are vaccinated could be affected by new and more highly transmissible variants.

"The more it's transmitted, the more it infects people, the more it changes," he said. "That's the way it mutates."

Dr Donald Vinh, an infectious diseases expert at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre, saidincentivizing people to get the jab is one way to reach maximal vaccine coverage.

"The vaccine passport helps to achieve a much higher level of vaccination in the city and in the province," he said. "And what that does in turn is that it protects the people and then that allows a return to more normalcy while preserving our health-care system's capacity."

Vihn said it's both doable and necessary for Quebec to have 85 per cent of its eligible populationfully vaccinated in order to preventfurther spread of the delta variant in upcoming weeks.

According to the Friday'supdate from the Quebec government, 85per cent of the province's eligible population has received a first dose of vaccine slightly higher than theCanada-wide average of 82 per cent of eligible people vaccinatedand 73per cent have received both.