Friday is the deadline for employees in the core federal public service in Canada to declare their COVID-19 vaccination status.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that public servants, including members and reservists of the RCMP, would have to be double vaccinated in order to keep working.
The order even applies to those who are working from home, as well as contracted personnel who require access to federal government worksites.
By Nov. 15, employees who do not declare their vaccine status or are unvaccinated will be placed on administrative leave without pay.
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But unions say there are still many questions about how requests for accommodations will be handled.
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat says 240,000 employees have filed their attestations of their vaccine status to the government, out of approximately 268,000.
Chris Aylward, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, says there is a big hole in the policy when it comes to deciding if unvaccinated people should be accommodated under the Canadian Human Rights Act.
He says unions are very concerned that it is left up to individual managers to determine if an employee’s religious or conscience convictions about vaccines are valid.
“Employees who are unable to be vaccinated based on a prohibited ground as defined under the Canadian Human Rights Act, such as a medical contraindication, may request accommodation,” the Government of Canada said.
Trudeau has said exemptions will be difficult and onerous to obtain, and simply having a personal conviction that vaccines are “bad” will not be sufficient.
The federal government says making a false statement would constitute a breach of the Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector and may result in an employee being fired.
With files from The Canadian Press