High River is going to stick with the Province's Restriction Exemption Program.

Also remaining in place are vaccine mandates for employees.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says it's the right way to go.

"It's a program that is in place because we had two options to choose from that the provincial government gave up to operate our facilities," he explained. "The REP program is still in place and it's not going anywhere until the provincial government relaxes the restrictions so that's what we're watching and we'll review it when the time comes."

CAO Chris Prosser told council well over 90 per cent of town staff are vaccinated and the rest, with one exception, decided to get tested regularly.

Councillor Jenny Jones was concerned whether that was fair to force the employees to make a choice.

Snodgrass says council needs to look out for everyone.

"Any kind of vaccine mandate is going to be contentious, it's just the way it is but we have to, as you see with businesses and other larger organizations, the Town has to operate its organization as we see fit and we supported our CAO and senior leadership team in the mandate with staff, and with the REP program we've got a lot of the public coming into that facility (Rec-Plex) and they need to be assured that the staff they're engaging with are following the same rules that they have to, that's basically the way it is."

The Town will continue to monitor the situation and make changes when able to do so.

 

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