Companies ditch mandatory vaccination as Canada relaxes COVID-19 rules

A growing swath of Canadian companies are no longer requiring employees to be vaccinated to come to work, as corporate policies ease in step with public health guidelines.

Governments have been loosening COVID-19 restrictions, with Ottawa allowing airline and railway workers as well as passengers to climb on board without being jabbed starting Monday.

Canada’s big banks and four largest accounting firms have all rolled back their corporate vaccine mandates for employees as they return to the office.

The two biggest railways are doing likewise, as is Air Canada, the country’s largest airline.

Not all big employers are on board, however. Sun Life Financial Inc. says its vaccination requirement for tens of thousands of in-office workers in Canada remains in place for now.

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Kathleen Chevalier, an employment and labour lawyer at Stikeman Elliott, says the trend toward dropping vaccine mandates marks a response to shifts in provincial and federal rules as well as growing comfort with shared indoor spaces.