I’ve written on the Freedom Convoy several times now–I wrote a report from the ground in Ottawa as well as a follow-up essay explaining why so many Christians supported it. In that essay, I noted that most politicians seemed incapable of admitting the amount of collateral damage that accompanied some COVD-19 restrictions. Now, I’d like to direct your attention to another perspective–one that most of us haven’t heard publicly.
MPP Sam Oosterhoff and MPP Will Bouma, both Reformed Christians, went on the podcast Real Talk to discuss the Ontario government’s COVID record, answer the hard questions, explain how decisions were made, and lay out their own views. It is a very important discussion, I think. Both men were very honest and should provide any reasonable listener some food for thought. Please do give this a listen–and please don’t bother commenting if you haven’t actually listened to the episode. The cruelty directed at fellow Christians over COVID-19 disagreements is a stain on the witness of Canadian Christian communities, and the perspectives of those in the rooms where tough decisions were debated should be considered.
3 thoughts on “MPPs Will Bouma and Sam Oosterhoff on COVID restrictions and government”
Matthew Hallick says:
Apparently, Mr. Bouma has never heard the adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s amazing to hear him concede that 80% of his work is in overturning the dunderheaded government intervention, yet he blithely waves his hand over all of it and advocates for the government to use the bluntest and extraordinary measures in stopping COVID.
He needs a class in Christian ethics. Good intentions, do not override wrong actions done based on improper standards. Christian ethics is tri-perspectival (normative, situational, and existential). The existential doesn’t magically override the others. Mr. Douma and Mr. Oosterhoff have promoted many government actions which, from a Christian perspective, were obscene and foolish. For them to even think about defending a segregated society with vaccine mandates and Q.R. Codes is totally and utterly ridiculous, especially in light of the data.
Also, Mr. Oosterhoff, for talking about being principled, functionally, all his arguments devolved to pragmatism and were void of biblical principles. Not only does he totally misapply the confession by making a categorical fallacy between active and passive (the difference between actively murdering someone or passively transmitting an aerosolized virus), to suggest the civil government has a biblical responsibility to dictate public health which is totally and utterly unbiblical.
A good discussion. They skipped pretty quickly over the issue of vaccine mandates, especially as they ended people’s work and livelihood. The Bible speaks about not removing a man’s millstone, Deuteronomy 24:6 says, “Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security.” But the mandates for this, for jobs, it appears that each level of government deferred the decision to another level so as to wash their hands of it. But this has greatly affected people whose income was cut off due to a health decision. For our family personally as two of my sisters (one is a single mom) and a niece have lost their jobs. I conclude that this kind of decision is over reach of Federal, Provincial and ministry of health officials. Also one of my sisters (who is losing her job) is a social worker and has observed a far greater increase of mental health and abuse. I agree with Will Bouma that churches who closed worship to members who choose not to vaccinate are out of line.
The Government issued projections repeatedly about how many “cases” and how many deaths were about to occur….always wildly exaggerated…then proudly proclaiming “we saved 40000 lives is arrogant and leaves out our Sovereign God who was referenced several times.As one who was extremely ill with Covid and spent time in ICU I’m very aware that God uses means such as the wonderful health care providers and treatments I recieved but ultimately He decided not to take out of this life..in answer to much prayer …we may never take credit for things that we don’t ultimately control.
Apparently, Mr. Bouma has never heard the adage “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” It’s amazing to hear him concede that 80% of his work is in overturning the dunderheaded government intervention, yet he blithely waves his hand over all of it and advocates for the government to use the bluntest and extraordinary measures in stopping COVID.
He needs a class in Christian ethics. Good intentions, do not override wrong actions done based on improper standards. Christian ethics is tri-perspectival (normative, situational, and existential). The existential doesn’t magically override the others. Mr. Douma and Mr. Oosterhoff have promoted many government actions which, from a Christian perspective, were obscene and foolish. For them to even think about defending a segregated society with vaccine mandates and Q.R. Codes is totally and utterly ridiculous, especially in light of the data.
Also, Mr. Oosterhoff, for talking about being principled, functionally, all his arguments devolved to pragmatism and were void of biblical principles. Not only does he totally misapply the confession by making a categorical fallacy between active and passive (the difference between actively murdering someone or passively transmitting an aerosolized virus), to suggest the civil government has a biblical responsibility to dictate public health which is totally and utterly unbiblical.
Both these men have advocated for the government to take unprecedented control over every area of their citizens’ lives. To prevent their citizens from engaging in both work and worship, and to what end? While they spent a lot of time selectively picking data, the reality is that there is virtually no correlation between masks, lockdowns and other extreme government measures (https://mises.org/wire/why-there-no-correlation-between-masks-lockdowns-and-covid-suppression; https://www.aier.org/article/new-study-indicates-lockdowns-didnt-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19/)
Ironically, as those in the Dutch Reformed tradition, these men should read more Kuyper.
A good discussion. They skipped pretty quickly over the issue of vaccine mandates, especially as they ended people’s work and livelihood. The Bible speaks about not removing a man’s millstone, Deuteronomy 24:6 says, “Do not take a pair of millstones—not even the upper one—as security for a debt, because that would be taking a person’s livelihood as security.” But the mandates for this, for jobs, it appears that each level of government deferred the decision to another level so as to wash their hands of it. But this has greatly affected people whose income was cut off due to a health decision. For our family personally as two of my sisters (one is a single mom) and a niece have lost their jobs. I conclude that this kind of decision is over reach of Federal, Provincial and ministry of health officials. Also one of my sisters (who is losing her job) is a social worker and has observed a far greater increase of mental health and abuse. I agree with Will Bouma that churches who closed worship to members who choose not to vaccinate are out of line.
The Government issued projections repeatedly about how many “cases” and how many deaths were about to occur….always wildly exaggerated…then proudly proclaiming “we saved 40000 lives is arrogant and leaves out our Sovereign God who was referenced several times.As one who was extremely ill with Covid and spent time in ICU I’m very aware that God uses means such as the wonderful health care providers and treatments I recieved but ultimately He decided not to take out of this life..in answer to much prayer …we may never take credit for things that we don’t ultimately control.