WARMINGTON: The firefighter feels ‘rejected’ when the dream job turns into a nightmare

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Andrew Mason is living the Canadian dream, or at least he was.

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Now, feeling “rejected,” he is living a nightmare in which he worries about how he will keep a roof over the heads of his wife and four small children.

“I am currently suspended without pay,” the Toronto firefighter said Friday. “I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

One thing he says he won’t do, under threat of being fired, is reveal his vaccination status.

“That’s between me and my doctor,” said 33-year-old Mason. “The true north says strong and free in the national anthem. It is freedom of choice. “

That, however, is not what your district commander told you in a disciplinary letter: “You are insubordinate and have willfully disobeyed an important workplace health and safety rule by refusing to comply with the instructions given. They gave him in the Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy. be fully vaccinated. “

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It’s unclear what “fully vaccinated” really means, and on “principle” Mason told his superiors that his personal medical situation is nobody’s business.

“I am not sick and I have been tested and I have never had COVID,” he said.

It’s okay with regular testing, but not with putting something unknown until this year into people’s arms. He is paying a huge price for it, not only because of losing his job and his income, but also because of the way he was treated by some colleagues and superiors.

“I joined the fire service because you can help people and I quickly discovered that the brotherhood is amazing,” Mason said. “There was a real unity and it has been five fabulous years. But that cohesion is gone. Now there is division. With this line drawn in the sand, it is no longer friendly. “

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Now, feeling rejected, he fears that he will never see his friends again at Fire Station 315 at College and Bathurst Sts.

“I came here when I was 12 from Jamaica not knowing what I was going to find,” Mason said.

He found a career and a beautiful wife and together they are starting a family, but now his future is up in the air.

“Since last year, when they were talking about separated or segregated people or whatever the case may be in the Black Lives Matter affair, for me personally … this is the first time that I felt rejected by society.”

Admit it hurts.

“It’s all for medical reasons, which should be private,” Mason said. “I have never felt so rejected… this is nothing that I have faced before. I have no idea how to deal with it. “

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The irony of this is that when police, firefighters and other first responders are accused of committing a crime, they are suspended with pay until due process is administered. But here, first responders who do not want to disclose their vaccine status face dismissal without severance pay within six weeks.

Mason is not comfortable being “forced” to do something with so many pending questions.

In light of Prime Minister Doug Ford saying that healthcare workers don’t have to be bound by vaccine mandates, I have asked Mason’s supervisors and Mayor John Tory if an “ultimatum to get vaccinated” to put Food on your family’s table is the only approach and whether it is “legal, ethical or moral”.

If Mason had a chance to speak to the mayor, he said, “I would just say give me the freedom to decide what medical treatment I should take.”

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Tory spokesman Don Peat said that “the mayor made the decision to support this policy after hearing from city staff, including our health officials and the city legal department, about the need to ensure that all city ​​workplaces are safe “and although” these are incredibly difficult decisions to make “because they could have” potentially a very serious impact on the people we work with “after careful discussion, occupational health and safety must come first “.

Toronto spokeswoman Beth Waldman recalls that “COVID-19 is a deadly virus that has killed more than 3,600 people in Toronto alone” and “vaccines have been shown to be the most effective protection against the virus.” which notes that “more than 98% of Toronto Fire employees who disclosed their status are fully vaccinated.”

While there are many political cues about the Canadian dream, the one Mason enjoyed is on hold.

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