Cramahe Township is the first out of the gate of the seven municipalities in Northumberland County to issue a vaccine mandate for council members and township employees.
Cramahe Mayor and Northumberland County Deputy Warden Mandy Martin said Cramahe Council members voted to adopt a COVID-19 vaccine mandate policy for the Township by a 4-1 margin at its Committee of the Whole meeting last Tuesday.
The final vote to officially adopt the nuts and bolts of a Township policy will occur at Tuesday’s council meeting.
Martin said, simply, the affirmation of a vaccine mandate for the Township was the right thing to do.
“We are a public service corporation and we are responsible for and to our taxpayers. We deal with the public, that’s what we do as a service agency, so it’s important that we honour that responsibility. This is a pandemic turning into an endemic, which means it’s going to go on for another year or two and we feel that it’s important that everyone is protected,” said Martin.
Martin said the details of the actual policy Township Council will consider on Tuesday will include such items as accommodation, deadline for vaccines, consequences for non-compliance, etc.
Martin expressed anger at having Cramahe go it alone on a vaccine mandate. She is adamant public health is a provincial responsibility that’s being downloaded to the individual municipalities to make a decision as to a vaccine mandate policy.
“So 364 municipalities across this province are wrestling with this and this ticks me right off. It either is (provincial jurisdiction) or it isn’t in my mind and I’m sorry to be so black and white about it. But, either we’re in this together or we’re not.”
Martin also noted Northumberland County Council has approved a policy for a vaccine mandate for council members and county employees, but it has fallen to the seven individual municipalities within the County to approve their own mandates.
Further, she said she’s heard at least one municipality within Northumberland County is disinclined to move ahead with a vaccine mandate governing councillors and municipal employees.
“I can’t say (which municipality it is) because all I know is hearsay. It’s not my place and I don’t have first-hand knowledge. Their business is their business,” she said.
