Quebec’s vaccine passport came into effect on Wednesday with those aged 13 and over now required to show they are adequately protected against COVID-19 to access some non-essential services.
While gyms, restaurants and movie theatres are on the government’s list of places requiring proof of vaccination, hair salons and other businesses offering personal and beauty care are not.
That came as a shock to Montreal-area hairdresser Lysa Wierzbicki. She’s been in the business for almost 10 years and runs her own salon.
“The proximity with which we work with our clients is just ridiculously close,” she said. “I am sometimes literally in a client’s face.”
Wierzbicki is now requiring all her clients be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and began scanning QR codes at the door on Wednesday morning.
“I just felt like I had this power now as a small business owner to decide who comes into my business,” she said.
With an immunocompromised husband at home, being able to verify her clients’ vaccination status gives Wierzbicki some peace of mind.
She said most of her clients understand and have reacted favourably.
Hair salons, however, aren’t the only places that don’t require a vaccine passport. The government has also included museums, places of worship, hotels, spas and driving lessons, as well.
Like Wierzbicki, driving instructor Bavithira Sivanantham, who owns Success Driving School in Montreal, is often in close quarters with clients for extended periods of time.
“We see them one-on-one and our session runs for 55 minutes, so we’re in the car with the student for 55 minutes,” she said.
For that reason, Sivanantham feels it would make sense for driving schools to be included in the province’s vaccine passport system.
Another issue is that while the passport allows to check the vaccination status of a customer, clients have no way of knowing whether service providers are themselves vaccinated.
The passport does not apply to employees, even in places where the measure is required.
That doesn’t sit well with Nancy Guerin, a double-vaccinated Montrealer.
“If I’m going to pay for a service, I just want to know if the person providing the service may or may not be vaccinated,” she said.
Guerin recently celebrated her wedding anniversary at BALNEA Spa with her husband.
She recounted how at the end of her massage, the therapist told her he was not vaccinated against COVID-19.
“I just spent an hour in a very small room with my mask on, with someone clearly who wasn’t two feet away from me,” Guérin said.
“I cannot believe that the spa would put people at that kind of risk.”
In an email to Global News the spa says the unfortunate case in no way reflects BALNEA. They claim they fired the man, but say they aren’t allowed to ask workers if they are vaccinated.
However, on Wednesday, Quebec Premier François Legault told reporters that employers can in fact require that their employees be vaccinated.
While Labour Minister Jean Boulet agreed that it is a right of management, he said it has to be exercised in a reasonable manner “taking into account all the fundamental rights that are well entrenched and embedded into our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
He also said it should be done on a case-by-case basis and under exceptional circumstances.
“It’s a right of management and they have to analyze their own situation and it’s not to the government to impose upon the private employers the way they have to go through concerning the vaccination,” Boulet said.