BANFF – As the Town of Banff lets go of a handful of employees who failed to get vaccinated in the fight against COVID-19 by last week’s deadline, the Town of Canmore is investigating mandating vaccines for its staff.
The Town of Banff’s roughly 300 employees had until Sept. 23 to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. There are exemptions to the administrative policy, including for religious or medical reasons.
“Out of all full- and part-time employees, only a few people – you can count on one hand – chose not to be vaccinated and we had to part ways,” said Jason Darrah, the Town of Banff’s director of communications.
“It is unfortunate to lose any employees, but this was a choice not to comply with an employee policy in place to protect the safety of all staff, their families and the people we serve.”
The Town of Banff is believed to be one of the first Alberta municipalities to mandate vaccinations for all of its employees. The City of Calgary followed suit, mandating all municipal employees must be fully vaccinated or provide a valid reason for exemption by Oct. 18.
In Canmore, administration is investigating whether it will make vaccines mandatory for all staff. The first step is requiring all employees to report their vaccination status – which will remain confidential – to the human resources department by an Oct. 1 deadline.
“Once we have that data we will be able to review it and make further decisions regarding possible mandatory vaccinations for staff,” said Lisa de Soto, chief administrative officer for the Town of Canmore, during a recent committee of the whole meeting.
The Town of Canmore has 312 employees, including 171 full-time employees and the balance made up of part-time, casual, seasonal/temporary workers, and paid-response firefighters.
As an employer, de Soto said the Town of Canmore has an obligation to provide a safe and healthy workplace.
“Part of that obligation requires us to identify hazards and take steps to mitigate and/or reduce the hazards,” she said.
“Alberta Health and Safety has identified COVID-19 as a legitimate workplace hazard so we are looking at, of course, all of our mitigation methods for reducing that hazard.”
de Soto said there are added complexities when looking at mandating vaccines because public health information and decisions regarding personal public health have legitimate considerations on privacy and protection grounds.
“We wouldn’t take these actions lightly,” she said, adding the municipality must first question whether mandating vaccines is a reasonable and necessary mitigation of a workplace hazard.
Once employee vaccination status is known, de Soto said the next step would involve assessing the working environment where unvaccinated employees or groups of unvaccinated employees are working.
From there, she said the municipality would look at whether mitigations such as physical distancing or masking, or other barriers like plexiglass, are sufficient to control the potential spread or whether mandatory vaccinations are required to further reduce the COVID risk.
“Once we know the extent of vaccine uptake within our staff, we can certainly plan accordingly,” she said.
Like the Town of Banff, the Town of Canmore views mandatory vaccinations of employees as an administrative decision, not a political one.
“It’s an employer’s obligation to ensure a safe and healthy workplace,” said de Soto.
Meanwhile, Banff’s mayor and councillors are taking a symbolic stand on COVID-19 vaccinations.
While not legally binding, council unanimously passed a motion directing mayor and council to abide by the same COVID-19 policy mandating all Town of Banff employees be vaccinated against the virus.
“This is a statement of intent and leadership. I realize that it is not enforceable,” said Councillor Chip Olver who is vaccinated.
“This is saying that to the extent that this is legally possible, council and mayor will follow the same policies that we’re asking our Town employees to.”
Town of Banff administrators say the motion can’t lead to a councillor being dismissed if not vaccinated, nor does it prevent anyone from running for council in the upcoming Oct. 18 municipal election.
“There’s no way this could disqualify someone from being a councillor nor is there any way to enforce this,” said Libbey McDougall, the Town of Banff’s municipal clerk.
“This is simply a motion whereby council is saying that it is important to them to be held to the same accountability as the employees of the Town of Banff are being held to.”
Mayor Corrie DiManno and councillors Chip Olver, Ted Christensen, Grant Canning, Brian Standish, Peter Poole, all say they are vaccinated.
Council candidates in the Oct. 18 election who confirmed they are vaccinated include Jessia Arsenio, Allan Buckingham, Stephanie Ferracuti, Dana Humbert, Barb Pelham, Hugh Pettigrew, Kaylee Ram, Shawn Rapley, Kerry-lee Schultheis, Mark Walker and Lesley Young.
Mayoral hopeful Garry Gilmour previously told the Outlook he is unvaccinated.
