Employment Lawyer on Mandatory vaccines for long-term care employees

Interview Summary

While the general consensus across Ontario seems to be that employers are unable to force mandatory vaccines in the workplace, questions have arisen concerning particular work environments. Will those employed in the healthcare sector face different regulations?

Lior Samfiru, an employment lawyer and Co-founding Partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP joins Global News to discuss possible mandatory vaccines for long-term care home employees.

Samfiru states that on the whole, employers cannot demand or pressure employees to be vaccinated. “Doing so could infringe upon human rights legislation and could also infringe upon an individual’s privacy rights,” he explains.

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Employment Lawyer on COVID-19 Vaccines in the workplace

Ultimately the Ontario government must decide whether a workplace is safe if its employees have not been vaccinated.

“When it comes to long-term care homes, the Ontario government has decided that those living in the facilities are vulnerable, and having un-vaccinated employees is too “risky” and is unsafe,” Samfiru says. “That’s why the government in that situation determined that the risk in long-term care facilities of people not being vaccinated is too great, and therefore that they felt that they had to intervene.”