Elections Canada won’t require poll workers in the federal election to be vaccinated against COVID-19, despite the ongoing pandemic, the agency confirmed in a statement to Global News.
“Vaccination will not be a requirement for election workers, although we anticipate that most will be, given current vaccination levels,” the statement reads, though it adds that Elections Canada strongly urges all workers to get vaccinated.
Just before the election was called, the federal government said that it would require that all federal workers be vaccinated — but that this won’t come into force until sometime in the fall, no later than October.
Other safety measures, like wearing masks and following distancing guidelines, will be required for poll workers and campaign workers at the polls, Elections Canada said. It still expects the majority of ballots to be cast in person, rather than by mail.
Sue Phillips, from Calgary, worked on the election in 2019, and hopes to do so again this year.
“I’m very excited about it, actually, because I think we so have to protect our democratic process and we can’t let something like even a pandemic stop that. It’s just too important,” she said.
She herself is fully vaccinated and she expects that most people visiting the polling station to vote will be too, but she questions Elections Canada’s decision to not mandate vaccines.
“I think they should rethink that policy,” she said. “We need to protect the people that are going to vote. And it’s just not right that they should have to be in front of someone who hasn’t been vaccinated.”
Making sure poll workers are vaccinated would help make polling stations safer for everyone, agrees Dr. Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics at Sinai Health and the University Health Network in Toronto.
“We think that the one of the greatest groups that is going to be coming into contact with millions and millions of Canadian voters are going to be those who are working and volunteering at our front line polling stations,” he said.
“And so I think mandating or supporting these individuals in particular to get vaccinated is one of the best ways that they can be protected and they can protect the rest of those of us who want to vote.”
Although they’re a mixed group, many Elections Canada poll workers are seniors, said Nelson Wiseman, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto.
While this means that they’re more likely to be vaccinated already, Sinha said, it could put them at greater risk should they contract COVID-19. Because of this, and concerns about possible waning immunity, he thinks it makes sense to make sure that not only is an individual worker vaccinated, but their co-workers are too.
“That’s going to be our best defence,” he said.
He’s especially concerned about poll workers who go into long-term care homes and interact with vulnerable people, he said.
Elections Canada said that while it’s not required that staff be vaccinated, “Where possible, returning officers will prioritize fully vaccinated election officers to serve vulnerable populations, such as those living in long-term care facilities or First Nations communities, in collaboration with measures in place in those communities.”
Wiseman worries that the election date, Sept. 20, could coincide with a peak of the current fourth wave of COVID-19. A similar situation happened in Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial election in the spring, he noted.
“All kinds of poll workers who had committed to doing it dropped out and you couldn’t blame them. They hadn’t been vaccinated,” he said.
Still, Wiseman isn’t sure how many people will come into contact with workers at the polls anyway.
“I expect lower voter turnout,” he said. “I think a lot of people are going to sit at home upset that they’re being called on to vote again less than two years since the last election.”
— with files from Jamie Mauracher, Global News