Unvaccinated City of Grande Prairie employees will no longer be required to complete rapid tests every three days to go to work, once the provincial government’s Restrictions Exemption Program has been lifted.
Mayor Jackie Clayton says when the Restrictions Exemption Program went into place in the fall, the city decided to fall under the provincial recommendation, and a majority of staff were on board. She adds, however, now that the province is seemingly set to start at least planning the removal of restrictions, the city is trying to be proactive.
“When REP is lifted from city facilities, the discussion is there would be no need to continue to test our employees,” she says. “Based on those announcements, within 24 hours, we would lift the rapid testing administrative policy from our own employees,” she adds.
Clayton says when it comes to the number of employees who are vaccinated, she believes it’s similar to the averages being recorded across the province.
“There was an early indication that getting vaccinated had a relatively high uptake within the organization,” she adds.
However, Clayton says as Premier Jason Kenney has been openly hinting about having a timeline for restrictions removal in place sometime this week, they had to turn their attention to how the removal of REP would impact staff.
“This just puts everybody at a better corporate culture in regards to moving forward where we can be not in those contentious conflict situations,” she adds.