Thousands of city workers have until end of week to disclose vaccination status

City of Toronto workers have until the end of the week to disclose their immunization status ahead of a new mandatory vaccination policy taking effect later this month.

Under the policy, all employees who are either unvaccinated or refuse to disclose their vaccination status will be required to participate in an informational session about the benefits of vaccinations.

Employees will then have until Sept. 30 to have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine and until Oct. 30 to be fully vaccinated.

The city initially set today as the deadline to disclose but Brad Ross, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto, said that has now been pushed back.

"The city has extended the deadline for its staff to disclose vaccine status to this Friday (Sept. 17), as some staff who do not have regular access to computers need additional time to complete the mandatory disclosure," he said in an email to CP24.

Ross said the decision to offer employees more time to complete the disclosure form has no impact on the other deadlines set out by the city.

"We are really hoping that employees do get vaccinated and understand the benefits of vaccines not just to protect themselves, but to protect their coworkers, to protect the community," he said.

At this point it remains unclear what the city will do with employees who remain unvaccinated, though the city has said they will be subject to discipline, including possible dismissal.

“We hope that it is not necessary to go down that road and that people will after a period of reflection, persuasion and maybe some reassurance from the rest of us that have been vaccinated get vaccinated themselves,” Tory said following an unrelated press conference about the city’s film industry on Monday morning. “But we have to be really firm about this. There are times when people’s rights to make choices come up against the rights of other people and that is the case here.”

For those who attend the education seminar and still choose not to be immunized, Ross said the city will deal with those people on a “case by case basis.”

"Our policy is clear… compliance of policies is a requirement to remain employed with us. It will be a requirement to be hired by the city," he said.

"The city has the option of progressive discipline up to and including dismissal. We don’t want to go there though. I want to be really clear on that. The city as an employer wants to have all of its employees who can be vaccinated, vaccinated. It is the right thing to do. We are the largest employer in Toronto. We interact a lot with the public."

Tory said that a “solid majority” of the city’s roughly 37,000 workers have already declared their vaccination status and about 93 per cent of those people are fully vaccinated. About 97 per cent, meanwhile, have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Tory said that he has been “heartened” by the numbers so far but he conceded that the city still has work to do in convincing those employees who remain unvaccinated to do their part.

“I am optimistic that if we keep working on this in a cooperative manner we will convince people to get vaccinated which is what we have to do for the collective wellbeing of the City of Toronto’s population,” he said.

Members of the Toronto Police Service also have until the end of the day to disclose their vaccination status. A similar policy at the TTC goes into effect today but workers will have until Sept. 20 to disclose their status.