Employees with the City of North Bay will need to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19, effective November 29th.
Those with medical or religious exemptions will need to regularly provide proof of negative testing.
Council unanimously supported the move on Tuesday night.
Prior to the vote, Councillor George Maroosis pointed out the staff report didn’t answer all of the questions he had.
“But I didn’t see anything in that report unless I missed it, and perhaps the mover and the seconder would like to clarify for the people of this city as to what happens to employees who don’t comply with the policy, which of course hasn’t been written yet,” he says.
Tanya Vrebosch, Deputy Mayor, says that will be included in the policy developed by the CAO.
She also echoed statements from other councillors that suggested higher levels of government should’ve been developing a blanket policy.
“Provincial and federal governments don’t like to get into the kitchens of municipalities but this is something that is bigger than all of us at this point and this is something where they need to be giving direction. It’s unfortunate that we aren’t there yet, it’s unfortunate that we don’t have the QR codes to be supporting small businesses to deal with vaccination passports,” she says.
Mayor Al McDonald says the policy developed by staff will come back to council.
