St. Catharines MPP upset that the nearest educators-specific vaccine clinic is in Mississauga

St. Catharines MPP Jennie Stevens is calling on the government to set up vaccine clinic for Niagara Region teachers and childcare staffers.

While the government has set up several education-specific clinics, the closest one is in Mississauga. For educators in the Fort Erie area – the furthest Niagara municipality from Mississauga – that’s a trek of over 130 kilometres to get their booster. For teachers in St Catharines, it would be 95 kilometres.

In a letter to Education Minister Stephen Lecce, Steven is calling for education worker clinics to be set up in St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.

“While we appreciate the effort being made to set up accelerated booster appointments for education workers in the GTA, it is not reasonable to expect working teachers and education staff to get on the highway to drive long distances to get their booster,” Stevens said to Lecce.

“We have as many as 6,000 teachers and education workers in Niagara’s two school boards doing their absolute best to support our community – they provide an essential service and deserve to have a local and accessible clinic for boosters.”

Stevens herself is joining Niagara school boards to set up small pop-up booster clinics for later this month, she says further clinics are needed by January 17, when the Province said schools would reopen.

Steven is joined in her fight by NDP benchmates Niagara Centre MPP Jeff Burch and Niagara Falls MPP Wayne Gates, as well as Niagara West candidate Dave Augustyn.

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The NDP is also saying the government needs to increase access to rapid tests for students and teachers, as well as smaller class sizes, in-school vaccination clinics and mandatory vaccination for all teachers and education staff.