TORONTO, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) – The local union serving transit workers in the Toronto area has blasted a move by the city’s transit commission which mandates COVID-19 vaccines for all workers by early September.
“I want all members to know that I am very concerned about the TTC [Toronto Transit Commission] announcement today regarding mandatory vaccination,” said Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113 president Carlos Santos in a statement Thursday.
“Local 113 supports the right of every member of Local 113 to make their own informed decisions about their personal health matters, including vaccination. We oppose mandatory vaccination of Local 113 members.”
On Thursday, Toronto mayor John Tory said all City of Toronto workers including TTC staff must get COVID-19 jabbed within the next two months.
“This is about protecting our entire broader workforce of approximately 37,660 employees, and ensuring that the city government is best prepared to weather a fourth wave and the Delta variant,” said Tory.
Shortly after Tory’s announcement, TCC Chief Executive Officer Richard J. Leary said that all TTC staff would be required to get COVID-19 jabs.
“As of Sept. 13, COVID-19 vaccinations will be mandatory for all TTC employees, contractors and students. This is in response to the increase in evidence around the transmissibility of the Delta variant and based on the recent actions taken by the City of Toronto,” said Leary.
Leary noted that “individuals will be required to provide proof of full-vaccination against COVID-19 or a medical reason for not being vaccinated against COVID-19.”
ATU Local 113 has served as the union for TTC workers in Toronto for 119 years.
Union head Santos said in his Thursday statement that Leary and the TTC “made this announcement without having crafted a policy.”
“The TTC has clearly not finalized how any potential policy will work, or made clear what alternatives to vaccination (if any) will be offered. The TTC has also not made clear what consequences (if any) will flow from a member’s refusal to be vaccinated,” said Santos.
Santos concluded his letter that ATU Local 113 will “aggressively oppose any action of the TTC which violates the rights of any member, whether it be unreasonable exercise of management’s rights, an express violation of the Collective Agreement, or a violation of the law, including the Human Rights Code.”
Last Tuesday, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) said in a press release it is “unacceptable” that Canada’s federal government would use “discipline” to mandate its new requirement that all civil servants receive COVID-19 vaccines by October.
Canadian civil liberties lawyer James Kitchen told LifeSiteNews last week that “any student of history with both eyes open could have seen then that mandatory vaccinations were coming.”
“But few listened and governments emphatically said they would never coerce people to be jabbed and anyone who said otherwise were called ‘conspiracy theorists.’ The Charter was put in place to prevent precisely this type of tyranny and oppression – the type where the state will not let you work or travel unless you sacrifice your bodily autonomy and expose yourself to unnecessary risk of harm,” said Kitchen.
The announcement by Tory and Leary comes at the same time COVID-19 jab mandates have been popping up all over the country.
Ontario’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Kieran Moore said last week that anyone working public service jobs in the province should get COVID-19 jabs or face “regular” antigen testing along with Orwellian-sounding vaccine “educational sessions.”
A week ago, the Canadian federal government under Liberal Party Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said starting in October, it will be mandating COVID-19 jabs as a requirement for all civil servants.
The government also said COVID-19 vaccines are required in order to travel domestically by air, train, or boat.
Trudeau then said this week that all federal workers and civil servants must get the COVID-19 jab or face “consequences.”
Dr. Steven Pelech, a Canadian medical doctor who works in the Division of Neurology in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, recently said the fear regarding the Delta variant is “misinformation.”
“It is clear that this virus is much less dangerous than the Alpha variant, which was the predominant variant in the BC population up until a few weeks ago. Now about 95% of the cases in BC are Delta,” Pelech was reported as saying according to a Western Standard report.
Health Canada has authorized four different COVID-19 vaccines for adults. They all have connections to cells derived from aborted babies, and have also been associated with severe side effects such as blood clots, rashes, miscarriages, and even heart attacks in young healthy men.
LifeSiteNews has produced an extensive COVID-19 vaccines resources page. View it here.