Jon Pinkus on mandatory vaccines in Canada

As COVID-19 vaccination distribution continues and some companies in the U.S, like Google, are imposing mandatory vaccinations for all their staff, Canadian businesses are wondering if this can happen in Canada as well. Can employers take initiative and force employees to be vaccinated on their own or is this illegal?

Jon Pinkus, a Toronto employment lawyer and Partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP tells Global News, “things could get tricky if an office terminates an employee over a refusal to get vaccinated.”

Pinkus goes on to explain that mandatory vaccinations for employers will be difficult to impose. “I think that employers should assume that that for the most part, they will not be able to require vaccines as a term of employment. And if they introduce a vaccine requirement, an employee refuses, then if they decide to terminate that employee, they’re going to owe that employee severance,” Pinkus explains. “In certain circumstances, they may actually have a human rights violation on their hands as well.”

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Can an employer ask for proof of vaccination?

Employers will have to bear in mind their employee’s privacy rights regarding vaccination status. “You want to do it confidentially, so you don’t want to make their colleagues aware of or other people or members of the public aware of their vaccination status,” Pinkus says. “You want to make sure that you’re not retaining the information somewhere unnecessarily.”

What about the concerns of vaccinated employees in the workplace?

All employees have the right to a healthy and safe work environment. Pinkus explains that employees who feel their workplace is unsafe due to a lack of vaccine policy can file a complaint to the Ministry of Labour.