Image Credit: BC Govt. / Flickr / File

By Mel Rothenburger

Armchair Mayor

ROTHENBURGER: ‘After you, Gaston’ game on teacher vaccinations must end

Oct 13, 2021 | 5:39 AM

TWO THINGS SHOULD HAPPEN now that Premier John Horgan says it’s up to school districts to decide whether or not teachers and support staff must get COVID-19 vaccinations.

Horgan insists school boards are the direct employers of teachers and staff, and therefore have the authority to do it. And he says that since the boards are close to their community they’re in the best position to decide.

So, the first step is for school districts, including Kamloops, to call his bluff and declare their own mandatory vaccinations.

A lot of them won’t, of course, especially the ones who need it most — the districts with low uptake on vaccinations and where trustees can expect political consequences. Others fear some teachers will go job shopping. That will create a checkerboard of districts across B.C., some with mandates, some without, and will make the whole thing a bit of a gong show.

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So, the second step will be for the Province to do what it should already have done — make the mandate provincewide, which it can do by virtue of the fact this is a health emergency.

The current position taken by Horgan, Health Minister Adrian Dix and chief medical health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry is really just a way to duck being the bad guys, and to shift the pressure away from themselves.

School unions and most parents support mandatory vaccinations but they want the Horgan government to put them into effect.

Leadership at the top of the government is needed right now, just as it was with vaccine cards.

Those cards took the load off businesses. As is often said, people can get mad at government but they have no right to get mad at a teenage server in a restaurant.

So, when it becomes obvious — and it will — that leaving it to individual districts won’t work, the Province must end the “after you, Gaston” routine and get the job done.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.