Cross-border vaccination for teachers

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This article was published 30/04/2021 (1965 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s teachers and educational workers will soon be able to head south of the border for a COVID-19 vaccine.

During a press conference Thursday morning, Premier Brian Pallister said a deal is being worked out with the state of North Dakota and the federal government to allow Manitoba teachers to get vaccinated at sites in the United States.

“Our goal here is obvious: we want to keep our schools open,” Pallister said. “Our children learn best when they’re in a school, but we need that environment and that school to be as safe as possible and as soon as possible we need to get our staff that vaccine. We need to have our teachers confident that they can be in a safe working environment and a safe learning environment.”

According to Pallister, the federal government is prepared to allow an exemption to the cross-border quarantine rule for teachers who enter into the United States for injection and head immediately back into Canada afterward.

“They’re not going shopping in Grand Forks, let’s be really clear about that,” Pallister said.

Full details were not released on Thursday, but the premier said there would likely be a vaccination site across the border at the crossing on Highway 10 for Brandon and Westman teachers to get vaccinated.

“It’s not just at Emerson, which is the fifth or sixth busiest (border crossing) in the country,” he said. “A Highway 10 access point is an ideal place, the Peace Gardens are an ideal spot if we can facilitate that. It’s not in stone yet, but I wanted to let Westman residents know we are thinking of you.”

This announcement comes just over a week since Manitoba and North Dakota announced a program that allows Manitoba truckers to get vaccinated at sites in North Dakota.

Asked if teachers would be given any time off to allow them to travel to the vaccination sites on the other side of the border, Pallister suggested that teachers could book their appointments on weekends to avoid missing time in the classroom.

More information on this plan is supposed to be released early next week.

In a call with the Sun, Manitoba Teachers’ Society president James Bedford had few nice things to say about the proposed plan.

His union has been calling for a vaccination plan for months and recently called for Winnipeg schools to move to code red conditions to stop the spread of COVID-19 among 10- to 19-year-olds.

“It’s an admission that the province doesn’t have a plan and never had a plan,” he said. “You have to have access to a vehicle. If you have children, you have to find someone to look after those children for you.

“Going into another country, you have to have a passport. If you have children with you, they have to have passports … you have to find the vaccination site and anybody who gets vaccinated stays at that site to see if there are any immediate ill effects. If there are ill effects, does that mean hospitalization in the United States? Who pays for that hospital bill? Then, of course, we have the return journey. All of this for people who are working tremendously hard. I think it’s putting teachers into an extraordinarily difficult situation.”

While discussing problems affecting the province’s vaccination effort, the premier complained that the media is using too many images of needles in its coverage of COVID-19, which he thinks could be scaring people away.

“Basically every night now when I do have the opportunity to watch TV broadcasts, I see a needle going in somebody’s arm,” he said. “If you’d like to stop scaring people, stop showing the needle going into everyone’s arm and the blood coming out. It doesn’t really help.”

On the topic of a potential paid sick leave program being introduced in the province, Pallister said he was disappointed in the federal government’s lack of movement on a paid sick leave program during the pandemic but expressed that he didn’t think such a plan should be instituted permanently.

“We shouldn’t use the pandemic to change the fundamental underlying social programs of the country,” he said.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark

 

SIDEBAR: Funding announced for student summer jobs

For the second year in a row, Manitoba will be running a student summer jobs program with the aim of helping the economy recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Premier Brian Pallister and Municipal Relations Minister Derek Johnson announced more than $25 million in funding on Thursday morning that will be used for two programs.

The first, called the Manitoba Youth Jobs Program, is an extension of last year’s summer jobs programming and will provide employers with a 50 per cent subsidy on wages paid to young workers from May to September this year.

Wages will be covered for all youth under the age of 30 up to a maximum of $25,000 per employer.

Unlike last year, employers will be able to apply for an advance payment of up to $750 per employee up to $7,500 in total and be able to claim the benefit for employees hired as early as April 1.

“We know that’s important for many small businesses that are cash strapped as a consequence of the pandemic and the challenges it’s presented to our small businesses,” Pallister said.

Also unlike last year, the wage subsidy applies to all regular, overtime and statutory wages compared to the flat per-hour subsidy last year.

The second program represents a $10-million investment in Green Team grant programs, which allow communities to hire young people aged 15 to 29 for community projects between May 1 and Sept. 30.

Under this program, non-profits are eligible to receive 100 per cent of wage costs and $250 per person in support costs while municipalities can claim up 50 per cent of wage costs and $125 per employee in support costs.

The premier said that combined, the two jobs will support more than 8,000 employment opportunities this summer.

“Manitoba’s youth have been hit particularly hard,” Pallister said. “We’ve seen nationally this is the case with very, very high youth unemployment rates, so to have programs for our young people is particularly important in these times. Youth employment rates in recent months have been nearly double the rest of the population.”

Asked if youth workers participating in the program would be given priority access to COVID-19 vaccines, the premier said it’s something he has looked into but the decision would be up to the province’s vaccine team.

A spokesperson for the Manitoba NDP pointed out to the Sun that figures listed in this year’s provincial budget show the province underspent on last year’s versions of these same programs.

Budget documents indeed show that of the $46 million budgeted for the “Back to Work This Summer Initiative” and the “Summer Students Jobs Recovery Program”, only $16.684 million was actually spent.

Under the line item “Hometown Green Team Program,” only $1.468 million of the $4.194 million budgeted was actually spent.

» The Brandon Sun