BANFF – Banff's municipal politicians have backed away from introducing a new bylaw that would mandate eligible businesses take part in the Alberta government’s COVID-19 vaccine passport program.
A tied 3-3 vote – with Mayor Corrie DiManno and councillors Grant Canning and Chip Olver in favour and councillors Brian Standish, Ted Christensen and Peter Poole opposed – means new legislation that administration had been asked to draft won’t be going ahead after all.
Town Manager Kelly Gibson said he did not believe a bylaw mandating eligible businesses to participate in the provincial vaccine passport program would greatly enhance public health measures.
“Municipal enforcement would be really the only significant benefit of putting this bylaw through,” he told council during a meeting on Monday (Oct. 4).
On Sept. 15, the Alberta government declared a state of public health emergency given the crisis facing the health-care system as the number of active cases ballooned and record numbers of people were being hospitalized with COVID-19.
The government introduced the vaccine passport program – officially called the restrictions exemption program – which allows eligible businesses to operate without capacity and service limits if they seek proof of vaccination or a negative test.
The Town of Banff has opted into that program for the Fenlands recreation centre and the Catharine Robb Whyte building, including the seniors centre and programming in the Pioneer room.
The City of Calgary took it a step further, mandating eligible businesses participate in the program, which prompted Banff town council to direct administration to draft a similar bylaw to Calgary’s and get feedback from businesses.
Of the 125 participants in a survey launched by administration on Sept. 28, 47.2 per cent of businesses said they wanted the Town of Banff to implement the bylaw and 48.8 per cent indicated they did not.
In addition, 39.5 per cent of businesses said it would help if they were able to call municipal enforcement, in addition to RCMP and public health officials as they can now, to deal with COVID compliance issues or conflicts with front-line staff.
Four per cent of businesses indicated their front-line staff often experience conflicts with customers due to the requirement to show proof of vaccination or exemption to enter, and another 15 per cent said it happens sometimes. But 53 per cent said it rarely or never happens.
Coun. Olver acknowledged that the survey showed there was good compliance when it comes to showing proof of vaccination, but there are still occasions when customers can be difficult nonetheless.
“For me, it allows the front-line staff… for them to be able to say, ‘I am not making this up for you, this is a bylaw requirement’. It gives them another way of addressing a difficult circumstance,” she said. “I think it would just make our community stronger in our COVID pandemic response to bring this in.”
Mayor DiManno echoed Coun. Olver’s comments.
“I am very thankful that we have high compliance now, but this gives us the teeth in case we don’t have it down the road and the program is still in place with the province,” she said.
For Coun. Canning, having the added level of enforcement with the municipality’s bylaw department would be very helpful.
“I still do have some concerns around, quite frankly, the vitriol we do see around these programs and the position it does put our front-line staff in,” he said.
“Even if the percentages weren’t that high as it relates to that, I do think that there is still a lot of this that does happen and it will continue to happen when these programs are in place.”
But councillors Poole, Standish and Christensen agreed with the town manager that the bylaw would unlikely be a significant benefit to public health.
“Initially, I was quite interested in this bylaw and now that we have this useful survey, I think this is a layer that isn’t providing us additional public health benefits,” said Coun. Poole.
“Overwhelmingly, customers are complying right now and not causing problems for front-of-house staff… the survey corresponds with what I have heard from our front-of-house staff in our restaurant businesses.”
As of Oct. 4, there were 13 active COVID-19 cases in Banff and Lake Louise.
Province-wide, there were 20,674 active cases. There were 1,079 people in hospital, including 357 in intensive care.
Since the pandemic started, 2,752 people have died from COVID-19 in Alberta.
