The vaccination topic one of much interest for the media component who used much of their available time to pepper the Premier with questions related to the province's School Districts and how the province has shifted the responsibility of any vaccine mandate to those individual School Districts province wide.
Mr. Horgan observing as to how the Province's School Districts are duly elected and have authority over their staff across the province.
"I'm very cognizant of the nation of sixty separate decisions here, but it's good to see stakeholders critical people like teachers, represented by the BC Teachers' Federation, CUPE workers the largest body of people in the K-12 system their leadership saying that a mandate is the next logical step. And I'm confident that School District's will be agreeable with that ... But, as I said, we are largely in a pandemic of the unvaccinated and that's why mandates are being discussed, not just in this sector but across the Board"
Follow up questions noted of the challenges in vaccination levels in some communities, particularly in the Northern Health Authority region and the deference to the local School District trustees, with reporters citing one example in the Mission area, who state that they may not have the medical knowledge to make a ruling, was putting those local officials in a bad situation related to medical decisions.
The Premier did not quite see it hat way, noting how trustees have options to use.
"That particular trustee and any other trustee can access the expertise of Doctor Henry and her team at the Public Health Office any time. They are duly elected, they have a responsibility to their employees first and foremost and I would suggest that they can educate themselves with a simple phone call to get the details and data they need to make informed decisions"
One question provided a comparison between how the Province picks and chooses where they step in on vaccine mandates, using the example of BC Ferries and Education in the province.
Towards that the Premier noted of the different elements of the two provincial involvement with the two groups,
"With respect to BC Ferries they are federally regulated, all employees on BC Ferries are required to be immunized and also we have to keep in mind it's an essential service if you live in a coastal community, if you live on Vancouver Island. I believe the mask mandate, we had an incident just this week individuals defying the mask mandate onboard and there were consequences for that. Again I'm hopeful that over time we'll have sufficient immunization in the community to get into the 90 95 percent range but we have to makes sure we're bringing people along"
Other notes from the press conference were related to the vaccination card roll out and some of the challenges residents and businesses may have found with the system. The strain on frontline workers and how the province hasn't learned from other jurisdictions through the fourth wave/
Mr. Horgan took issue with that latter observation, citing some of the challenges found elsewhere
"I disagree with your premise, it wasn't an avoidable fourth wave, it's happening around the world. British Columbia is not immune to that. New Zealand who fought courageously to say we will have no COVID here, has conceded to a pandemic ... the difference largely between Ontario and ourselves ion this instance; is that we have moved to keep our economy moving and we have tried to make sure that the immunization access is as available as it possibly can be. But we have pockets of resistance to that good sense and that's where were seeing the increase in cases, that's where we're seeing the hospitalizations and we want to see those numbers come down"
The full presentation can be reviewed below
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