The Thompson-Nicola Regional District will require that all employees, contractors, and volunteers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by February 1, 2022.
CAO Scott Hildebrand says the mandate – which builds on existing health and safety measures within the TNRD – was put in place in order to protect the health, safety and wellbeing of TNRD staff and workplaces, as well as the general public.
“We felt like this was the right thing to do for our organization,” he said. “We certainly did look at Kamloops and the policy that they brought out and we did our own due diligence and talked to staff and talked to contractors and volunteers to determine how we were going to move forward and this is the way we chose to go.”
Hildebrand says bringing in a vaccine mandate was the right thing to do, though he also told NL News that between 90 and 95 per cent of the TNRD’s roughly 175 employees are already vaccinated.
“We’re working with our staff helping them understand them understand why we are moving forward and we did ask them to self declare confidentially so that we can get a better understanding of where we sat and our vaccination rate was very high within the TNRD employee group,” Hildebrand said.
“The deadline for implementing the vaccine policy allows sufficient time for those who have not received a first vaccine dose to be fully vaccinated.”
There are also between 100 and 200 volunteers and contractors at the TNRD, according to Hildebrand, though their vaccine status information was not available.
Hildebrand was also asked Monday evening if the vaccine policy would cover the TNRD’s Board of Directors.
“Yeah, they would be exempt and the board would have to determine what steps they would like to take,” he said. “It was quite overwhelming that they did want to have something for themselves and it will be something that they are going to need to lead and I believe it is something that they will do in the very near future.”
Anyone who chooses not to comply with the vaccine policy will not be eligible to work for or provide services to the regional district.
Hildebrand though notes that the TNRD will be making accommodations for employees, contractors, and volunteers who cannot be vaccinated because of a medical condition or for a reason that is protected by the BC Human Rights Code.
