BC Vaccine Card and Employee Vaccination Policies
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While there are still some legal risk (including the risks of possible wrongful dismissal claims, human rights complaints and privacy breaches), many BC employers have chosen to accept these risks and move forward with a vaccine mandate.
In making this choice, BC employers have relied on:
- The growing body of scientific evidence regarding the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines, along with the guidance provided by public health officials who have all strongly recommend and endorse vaccination;
- The leadership shown WorkSafeBC which announced a vaccine mandate for its own employees in late September. Under WorkSafeBC’s policy, all WorkSafeBC employees who interact with the public or other employees must be fully vaccinated by November 1/21. Although the WorkSafeBC policy is only applicable to its own employees (rather than the employers and employees that it regulates) this does provide some reassurance and guidance for BC employers;
- In addition to WorkSafe BC, many other governmental bodies, and large corporations have now implemented vaccine mandates. These include:
- the BC Government extending the vaccination requirement for employees in long term care, as well as employees generally employed in the health care and community care sectors;
- the BC Government (along with the Federal Government and the Provincial Governments in Ontario and Manitoba) announcing vaccination requirement for all their public service employees;
- the City of Vancouver, various BC Crown corporations including BC Hydro and BC Ferries, as well as major private corporations such as Telus, London Drugs, Canada Life, Air Canada, Rogers and LNG Canada, all implementing broad vaccine mandates.
- The release of two screening decisions by the BC Human Rights tribunal in September that dismissed on a preliminary basis claims opposed to BC’s vaccine card / vaccine passport.
Therefore while there are still legal risks, for BC employers we can now be more confident in moving forward with the adoption of vaccine mandates. To help protect against potential legal claims we recommend that employers be mindful of the following points in implementing a vaccination policy:
- Consider the safety issues unique to your workplace – and whether the vaccine mandate therefore applies to all employees, or only to those where there is a higher safety risk. For example, the WorkSafeBC Policy requires full vaccination only for those WorkSafeBC employees “whose role requires them to interact in person with employers, workers, and members of the public — or with other WorkSafeBC employees”;
- Provide for a reasonable period of time between introducing the policy and enforcing it, so that any unvaccinated employees have sufficient time to become vaccinated;
- Obtain as little personal health information as possible and keep it confidential. With the introduction of the BC Vaccine Card, asking employees to verify their status through their Vaccine Card may be a good option;
- Let employees know who they should contact if they have specific reasons for not being vaccinated. If an employee has either:
- a legitimate medical condition; or
- a genuine and sincerely held religious belief that prevents them from being vaccinated;
then employers may have to provide that employee with some “reasonable accommodation”. Forms of such accommodation, could include working from home, being required to take frequent COVID-19 tests, or in some cases being put on an unpaid leave of absence; and
- Update the policy as COVID-19 safety protocols and public health orders change.
For more information about this post, or should any employers need assistance answering questions regarding vaccine mandates or drafting vaccine policies, email Employment & Human Rights Lawyer, Georg D. Reuter at greuter@rbs.ca or call at 604.661.9208
