In a meeting on Monday, Mar. 6, 2023, Kitimat council debated putting forward the following motion to the North Central Local Government Association.
WHEREAS the COVID-19 Provincial vaccine mandate for healthcare workers continues; AND WHEREAS British Columbia’s healthcare system is under severe stress; THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the North Central Local Government Association and the Union of British Columbia Municipalities lobby the Provincial Government to end the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers. And further, that the provincial government be asked to provide the criteria that must be in place for removing the mandate in the event that the province is unwilling to remove the vaccine mandate for health care workers at this time.”
Councillor Mario Feldhoff presented the motion and Councillor Graham Pitzel seconded.
“I appreciate this motion from counsellor Feldhoff,” Pitzel said. “Again, just like the electric vehicles and personal decisions, I believe in the freedom of choice, and obviously, people generally make the right decisions with whether getting a vaccine is correct for them or not, so making somebody do something doesn’t seem like the right thing to do anymore, and I agree that the vaccine mandate for health care workers should be ended.”
The mayor also spoke in favour of ending the vaccine mandate.
Councillor Terry Marleau, Michelle Martins and Gerry Leibel voted against the motion.
Marleau spoke about his scientific background as an educator and experiences of having family members working in the health-care system.
“We’ve saved a lot of lives by doing what we’ve done in terms of protecting some of the people who are the most vulnerable. And those are people in our hospitals and our health-care facilities and our long-term facilities. As we speak there are several people in our community who are pretty ill with COVID. There are people that we know in other places that are ill with COVID. This has not left us. Whether we want to continue to call it endemic or not, it is still killing many people in our world.”
Marleau went on to talk about the sound scientific work of many people that went into the vaccines and went on to say that “in a health-care setting, it is a concern that people would be willing to come into work who do not believe in health-care science.”
He expressed his doubt that the intent of resolution would actually result in an increase of qualified health-care workers.
Martins said that she would be more comfortable lobbying the provincial government to ease restrictions if local health-care authorities had been consulted on whether or not such a motion would be helpful to them, or if the pandemic was officially declared as endemic.
Councillor Leibel, who attended the meeting via phone due to illness, initially supported Feldhoff’s motion but was swayed by Marleau’s discussion.
Councilor Feldhoff noted that he is a strong advocate for vaccines, but wanted clearer guidelines from the province. He asked for motion to be divided into two separate motions. The first part, to lobby the government to end the vaccine mandate failed with Marleau, Martins and Leibel voting against. The second part, to ask the provincial government to provide criteria passed unanimously.
Councillor Edwin Empanado declared a conflict of interest and left the room while debate and voting took place.
@HunterWilld
hunter.wild@northernsentinel.com
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