When Twitter eventually reopens its offices in both Canada and the United States, the company says employees who choose to return to the workplace must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Safety was the reason,” Twitter Canada spokesperson Cam Gordon said in an email.
Twitter has about 150 employees in Canada, largely based in Toronto. The social networking service is one of several businesses that has introduced a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for employees returning to the workplace.
But other companies are still mulling over the idea, as they try to determine their rights in mandating such a policy.
On Friday, the federal government announced it will soon require its federal employees and those working in some federally regulated sectors, such as airlines and railways, to be fully vaccinated. But private businesses that don’t fall into that category are left to decide for themselves whether they should impose a mandate.
“There are businesses that are interested in mandatory vaccines,” said labor and employment lawyer Peter Straszynski with the Toronto law firm Torkin Manes. “Clients are asking whether it’s legal for them to do it and what the restrictions are on their ability to do it.”
