I don't think anyone even thought there were so many anti-vaxxers out there. Even around here, there were chuckles and jokes about that guy driving a 30 year old Winnebago around downtown evangelizing anti-vaxxing from his motorhome -- he was dismissed as a kook.
Whe the vaccines finally hit, most of the country did a fist pump then waited for a vaccine. If you recall, JT bungled the rollout, as time went buy the US politicized antivaxxing and some of the same sentiments started spilling over the border. I firmly believe if the Feds had managed our allocations better and rolled out faster, the anti-vax movement would not have had the time to grow.
Today 80+% are double dosed. Considering 6% of the population is too young to be vaxed, that would put the number of eligibles at closer to 90% today. That small percentage of 'unvaxed' are taking up the lions share of hospital beds which is simply making a bad situation last a lot longer. In 2021, 90% of all Covid hospitalizations and deaths in Canada were unvaccinated persons.
The unvaccinated overloaded the healthcare system and placed a heavy burden on health care workers, largely nurses. Not just Covid treatments, the whole system. As family docs moved to virtual healthcare, thousands of people were channeled to hospitals for routine things that would be handled at walk-ins and by GPs - further taxing the system.
As for strong arming... sometimes that's necessary. I don't see it as a slippery slope thing, I see it as a practical consequence (not punishment) for the few who inflicted so much pain on the plenty.