Vancouver park board expected to abolish mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for contractors

The Vancouver park board will decide on Monday night whether to drop a policy that bans contractors from doing any park board work if they are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

According to a staff report, in October 2021 the City of Vancouver decided all workers and volunteers at city and park board operated facilities should be vaccinated against COVID-19 — the pandemic-rated virus that appeared in B.C. in January 2020 and led to a variety of social and economic impacts around the world.

This came as the provincial and federal governments, as well as large private employers and Crown corporations, all outlawed workers who had not been vaccinated. Effectively, if these people did not get vaccinated, they lost their jobs.

In December 2021, the City of Vancouver expanded that law to include city contractors, though this did not apply to park board contractors.

On Jan. 7, 2022, the city rule went into effect and the following month the park board voted to expand the policy to cover its contractors.