(Toronto) The Canadian trucking industry wants Ottawa and Washington to exempt their workers from being vaccinated, but health experts say the proposal is problematic.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance argues that if the government sticks to its current plan requiring all truckers entering Canada to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 15, the country’s supply chain issues countries and labor shortages will worsen.
The association wants the government to keep the exemption it granted to truckers when vaccines became available earlier this year until the country resolves its supply chain problems.
However, health experts say the exemption would be unfair as other industries also face labor shortages and do not benefit from an exception.
They explain that it could be dangerous to account for a highly mobile group like unvaccinated truckers, because the virus could spread further and these workers have had enough time to get vaccinated.
“Everyone admires the hard-working truckers who have moved, throughout the pandemic, quantities of food for supermarkets, but the vaccines are available and they have been available for almost a year now,” said Timothy Sly. , epidemiologist and professor emeritus in the School of Public and Professional Health at Ryerson University.
“With the variant coming, there is no excuse now not to be vaccinated,” he added.
Mr Sly believes truckers should not be granted an exemption because they make deliveries throughout North America, often interact with people during pickups and drop-offs, and can easily carry the virus with them in locations. regions where it is not present.
The new Omicron variant makes vaccination even more urgent, he said.
“The variant exists and it hunts for the unvaccinated,” he explained. If you want to reduce your trucker population even further, then suspend the requirement to be vaccinated and you will see a huge number of them get sick with COVID-19. ”
While there are many companies with 90% or more of their truckers vaccinated, association president Stephen Laskowski said there are also companies with significantly fewer drivers vaccinated.
He has heard of companies where vaccination rates are as low as 40 or 50% and said they are trying to convince drivers to get vaccinated through education and even cash incentives.
Fuel Transport, for example, will offer vaccinated workers a bonus of $ 10,000, he announced last week.
If no exceptions are given to truckers, Laskowski predicts that many will be forced to quit their jobs and it will be nearly impossible to find replacements, as the industry has long struggled to attract employees willing to work long hours. hours on the road.
About 332,000 truck drivers worked on Canada’s highways in October, roughly in line with pre-pandemic levels. There were 18,000 vacancies in the past few months as young drivers, women and retired workers left, according to Trucking HR Canada. Some 55,000 positions are expected to be vacant in 2023.
“We already have a significant shortage of drivers,” said Laskowski. To say that if these people choose not to be vaccinated and leave the area, we can go out and replace them, the reality is we cannot. ”
Supply chains already hampered by material shortages, extreme weather conditions in British Columbia and abroad, and COVID-19 outbreaks are also at stake.
“There are many reasons the supply chain is suffering,” said Laskowski. Truckers are one of the centerpieces of the puzzle and this piece of the puzzle as a problem will only get worse with these immunization policies. ”
But granting exemptions and adjusting the rules for some can make it even more difficult to understand policies that are already complicated, said Sara Allin, associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.
People are already confused by the rules requiring vaccination to enter some establishments and not others and by the measures that have forced some workers to be vaccinated, but who have the choice to forgo it.
“Having all these exclusions and different rules is confusing,” she said. I think we need really clear messages and standards around vaccines. ”