[ad_1]
Job losses in Canada’s healthcare sector and confrontations between unions and the government loom as Covid-19 vaccine mandates start being enforced across the North American country amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
The latest flashpoint in Canada is a mandate in Quebec for healthcare workers, with the deadline for compliance this Friday. The Quebec Order of Nurses (OIIQ) announced that those who were not yet vaccinated against Covid-19 would be suspended from practising on October 15.
According to the OIIQ, as reported by the news outlet Global News, out of 80,000 nurses in Quebec, nearly 4,000 are not “properly vaccinated” against Covid-19 and the status of another 5,716 is unclear.
In a Facebook post in French, the nurses’ union, Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), threatened legal action if the decision to make Covid-19 vaccination mandatory caused “disproportionate harm to our members”.
Similar developments are emerging across the country as Covid-19 vaccine mandates gradually come into effect. Layoffs at a hospital in Ontario have already been reported, even as the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing.
A wider government mandate, announced by Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week, will come into effect on October 30, and that is also being criticised and challenged by unions.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), which represents 215,000 government employees, has said while the vast majority of its membership “is fully vaccinated” against Covid-19, it will “continue to represent unvaccinated members who have punitive action taken against them as a result of their vaccination status”.
While it stated that it “fully supports a federal vaccination policy to protect the health and safety of our members and the Canadians they serve”, the union also affirmed that the “government rushed their vaccination policy without meaningful consultation with the unions representing federal public service workers”.
The point of view was echoed by the union representing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), which will also come under the Covid-19 vaccine mandate. Brian Sauvé, the National Police Federation’s (NPF) president, said it was “disappointed at the government’s engagement-by-notification approach to the policy’s release”.
It added that the NPF will “continue to support [its] members’ access to vaccines, and their choice to be vaccinated or not”.
[ad_2]
Source link