Mandatory Vaccination for All Windsor Police Employees

Article content

The Windsor Police Services Board adopted a zero tolerance COVID-19 vaccination policy for all civilian and sworn employees of the Windsor Police during a special meeting on Friday.

Article content

Under the new policy, officers and civilian personnel will have until November 26 to get fully vaccinated or provide a medically acceptable reason for the exemption.

Police Services Board Chairman Mayor Drew Dilkens said Chief Pam Mizuno and the administration needed time to devise a policy to suit the needs of the force after the city adopted a corporate policy last month. last.

“The City of Windsor has passed a vaccination policy that requires all of our staff, contractors and others who work in the buildings to be fully vaccinated by November 15, and if you are an employee here and are not vaccinated by that date, you take leave without pay, ”Dilkens said.

“And so the WPS board, because of the legislation covering some of the sworn officers, it took a little longer to develop a policy, get a legal opinion, and go through all that background work. The board asked the boss to develop a policy and she came back with that policy today (Friday), the board considered it and approved it ”.

Article content

But Windsor Police Association President Shawn McCurdy said Friday’s announcement caught him off guard.

“A bit of a surprise because of the discussions we’ve been having with senior management aimed at having a policy that would have the option of rapid tests, and that would be consistent with law enforcement in Ontario, such as the Waterloo region,” McCurdy said. .

“Obviously, we are a bit disappointed with when this happened, being the Friday before a long weekend.”

I think people will have to think a lot about what they want to do.

Dilkens said 92 percent of the Windsor police workforce of more than 650 have been fully vaccinated, and eight percent, or about 50 people, have yet to receive the vaccine.

“I think they would have preferred to have a ‘vax or test’ policy, but that has largely proven to be ineffective,” Dilkens said.

Article content

“A test can be administered all at once and be negative and one hour later be positive. From a workplace perspective, we want to make sure that everyone who calls the police service knows that the officers in attendance are fully vaccinated and that, as an employer, they are doing well according to the health and safety standards of our staff.

“But we also wanted to make sure we didn’t have two separate classifications of city employees. At the end of the day, police officers are city employees. “

McCurdy said he had just received documentation on the policy Friday afternoon and was still working on it.

“Our understanding was that this would come back next week after the long weekend,” McCurdy said.

“I am a bit discouraged and I am suspicious of when this happened. Although the number of unvaccinated members is not large, there are enough that will have an impact on service delivery. “

Article content

Dilkens said the bottom line is that for the pandemic to end, more people need to get vaccinated.

“We all want to overcome this pandemic and the way to overcome it is to be fully vaccinated,” Dilkens said.

“You have about 10 percent of the population that is adamant against this, but you see what happened in the hospital when the threat of dismissal came into play and you end up with less than two percent unvaccinated.

“We are not going to fire people, but you know they are not going to pay you.

“And I think people will have to think a lot about what they want to do.”

[email protected]