While several Alberta colleges and universities have announced that they will require proof of immunization on campus, the NDP opposition says those schools shouldn’t have had to make that decision by themselves.
Advanced Education Critic David Eggen was on the Trending 55 Hot Seat, he says the province should’ve shown more leadership on that front.
“We’ve seen Jason Kenney and the UCP absolutely silent during what is becoming an even worse COVID outbreak. University and college campuses, they don’t exist in isolation, they are a part of their communities. The best way by which we can protect not just people in college or university but the whole population of any town or city is to use vaccine passports.”
The University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge, NAIT, SAIT, MacEwen University and Mount Royal University are among the post-secondary schools that have put in this mandate.
Eggen says he hopes the move that those schools have done already leads to the province quote “doing the right thing.”
“We haven’t had in person classroom experiences for colleges and universities here for a long time and when people are coming back, they’re hesitant and a little bit nervous. What better way to make sure that people are feeling more confident and safe than to have these COVID vaccine passports available. That’s the gateway to creating a more normal situation.”
We talked to Eggen on the Trending 55 Hot Seat, you can listen to the full interview below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
