The Tyee – Erin O’Toole, leader of the Conservative Party, disagrees with Canada’s vaccination effort that includes a plan to immunize high-risk prisoners in federal prisons — people who are old or sick. The initial wave of vaccinations will reach 600 inmates, about four per cent of the prison population. His comment: “Not one criminal should be vaccinated ahead of any vulnerable Canadian or frontline health worker.” Given that 30%+ of the prison population are Indigenous (42% for Indigenous women), O’Toole’s comments gloss over the fact that a disproportionate number of Indigenous people who only represent 5% of the population in Canada are vastly overrepresented in Canadian prisons.

This comes less than three weeks after O’Toole backed away from — but didn’t apologize for — bizarre comments on the good intentions behind residential schools. But the people behind the plan to take generations of Indigenous children from their families, hold them in horrible conditions and erase their culture had good intentions, O’Toole said. “It was meant to try and provide education,” he told the campus club.

Only after his comments were publicized and calls for his resignation started trending on social media did O’Toole retract his statement.