Most Toronto police employees are vaccinated; one in five missed deadline to disclose, force says

Thestar.com
Sept. 17, 2021
Wendy Gillis

The majority of Toronto police employees are vaccinated against COVID-19 -- but three days after the force’s deadline for disclosure, 20 per cent of staff have still not said if they’ve gotten the jab.

Of the 80 per cent of Toronto police employees who have disclosed their vaccine status, 92 per cent are fully vaccinated, while five per cent have received their first shot, according to police spokesperson Allison Sparkes.

The new figures mean approximately 78 per cent of roughly 7,500 police employees have told the service they are fully or partially vaccinated.

That number, which is in line with the provincewide average for adults under age 70, is expected to increase as more employees have continued to provide updates after the original Sept. 13 deadline, Sparkes said; the force has enabled employees to continue to update their vaccination status through a portal throughout the week, and said some employees may not have provided information due to being leave or vacation.

“We continue to educate and encourage members to be vaccinated and the vast majority are, according to our disclosures to date,” Sparkes said.

Dr. Naheed Dosani, a Toronto-based palliative care physician and health justice activist, said it’s “highly concerning” that as many as one in five Toronto police employees may not be vaccinated.

Because people typically don’t have a choice about interacting with police, members of the public will now be forced to be in close quarters with potentially unvaccinated officers “during a pandemic that is only getting worse in our communities,” he said.

He added: “This puts the health of the general public at risk.”

Employees who have not provided their vaccination status won’t face any disciplinary action -- an arrangement negotiated by the Toronto Police Association, which has come out against a mandatory vaccination policy due to what it called missing “critical” details.

Toronto police also currently have no plan to transfer officers who refuse to disclose their vaccination status, including front-line officers regularly interacting with members of the public. All officers will “continue to respect and follow public health directives” including using personal protective equipment (PPE) during all public interactions, Sparkes said.

Employees who have not disclosed their vaccination status will be considered by Toronto police to be unvaccinated, which means “an increase in workplace limitations can be expected,” as well as increased education and awareness efforts, Sparkes said. The policy is still under development and TPA and other police services and stakeholders are being consulted.

Next week, unvaccinated officers will no longer be eligible for one aspect of the job, which applies only to off-duty work and comes in conjunction with the provincial proof-of-vaccination requirement.

As of Sept. 22 unvaccinated officers will not be allowed to perform paid duty work -- assignments where off-duty officers are hired, typically as security -- including at any City of Toronto jobs, and at Blue Jays Games, where paid duty officers were already required this week to provide proof of double vaccination.

Dosani said ensuring that all officers wear PPE during interactions with the public is “simply not enough.”

“The only way to keep the public safe is to ensure that unvaccinated officers are not interacting with them,” Dosani said.