COVID-19: Calgary Awaits Provincial Details Before Implementing Vaccine Passport for City Facilities – Calgary | Globalnews.ca

An evening meeting of the Calgary city council did not shed any new action on the city’s response to COVID-19.

But the council left options open for additional city council action.

“We remain in a local state of emergency, and we thought it was important, because we are in a local state of emergency, for me to have the power to call the council or a council committee if necessary,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. Wednesday night.

That power was made clearer through a council vote to suspend part of the rules of procedure to allow a response to the public health emergency.

Earlier in the evening, Prime Minister Jason Kenney, Health Minister Tyler Shandro, Medical Director of Health Dr. Deena Hinshaw, and Alberta Health Services President and CEO Dr. Verna Yiu declared the status of public health emergency and introduced a new collection of measures designed to slow the spread of COVID-19, increase vaccines and maximize health care capacity.

Nenshi said the province’s response to the pandemic was once again disappointing and frustrating.

“I have had six prime ministers, two prime ministers. I have worked with dozens of mayors of large cities, some of whom were embroiled in scandals and many problems. And I have never seen such an incompetent government. “

Nenshi hoped the province would make its vaccine passport program mandatory.

“The most disappointing thing for me tonight was hearing the prime minister repeatedly characterize Alberta as a divided place,” the mayor said. “That division, Prime Minister, exists in your mind and perhaps in your caucus, it does not exist on the streets of Alberta.”

After the council meeting, the Calgary mask charter remains intact.

The city intends to use the province’s restriction waiver program for access to some city facilities once the province publishes details that can be reviewed by city officials.

“We know the broad lines of the province,” community standards strategist Matt Zabloski told the council. “The (city) administration needs to be able to review the health order in order to respond with a city system that is feasible and effective.”

The city legal department and senior management have nearly completed the vaccine mandate policy for city employees.

City Manager David Duckworth said he had been in contact with his counterparts across Canada, as well as local unions.

Duckworth said his thought process went from a stricter mandate to a more voluntary policy that could include weekly testing.

“I’m reluctant to share anything else until it’s really finished because I don’t want to create a policy on the fly,” said the city manager.

Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra asked if it is time for the Mayor and CEMA Head Sue Henry to provide daily COVID-19 updates for the city, as they did before in the pandemic.

“Yeah, maybe. Leave it to me and the boss (Henry) and we’ll find out what cadence makes sense,” Nenshi said.

Nenshi also said that he will ask Justice Minister Kaycee Madu to restore the powers of law enforcement officers to enforce public health orders.

“Police officers, ordinance officers and traffic law enforcement officers have the ability to enforce the (Calgary) mask statute,” Nenshi said. “They don’t have the ability to enforce anything else that the province announced today: collection limits, vaccine requirements, and so on.

“So it would make more sense if not just Alberta Police and Health Services inspectors had that general enforcement power.”

On Wednesday morning, Calgary Chamber President and CEO Deborah Yedlin supported vaccine certification, saying that city businesses have been “grappling with the uncertainty caused by the fourth wave of the pandemic and the accompanying restrictions “.

In a statement, Yedlin pledged to continue to ask the province to require vaccination testing for non-essential businesses, seeking the justification behind the restrictions, as well as a way to remove them, and obtaining more details on the criteria for the restrictions.