Sarnia's mayor appears to be at odds with the mayor of Warwick Township on the topic of vaccine passports.
In a tweet Monday, Warwick Mayor Jackie Rombouts said she would “refuse the Ontario vaccine passport and will not patron any business or organization that will not welcome all my fellow Ontarians equally.”
Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley responded to Rombouts social media post on CHOK (103.9FM/1070AM) Wednesday morning.
"Personally, I think she's a minority, and it's easy to appeal to that anti-vaccine, anti-masker group, because they get it on emails and they'll praise you for anything you do that is antigovernment, right? I think we have a responsibility because we are elected, and particularly to the mayor of Watford-Warwick who chairs the public health committee -- what's the message?"
Bradley said public leaders are in a different position and that the message they send to the community is very important.
"[Acting Lambton Medical Officer of Health] Dr. Christopher Greensmith, last Wednesday, very strongly -- and I was quite pleased with his comments to Lambton County Council -- saying 'the county needs to show leadership, the county needs to do the vaccination policy for their employees, and has to look at its own situation as it relates to vaccinations,' and that to me is what we're here to do. People will disagree and people have a right to their opinion, but we are in a different situation as leaders."
Bradley said fully vaccinated people, whether they wanted the vaccine or not, made a judgement that getting vaccinated was in their best interest and in their community's best interest.
"The message we send can feed that anti-stuff, which then in turn makes the efforts to get people to vaccinate harder to do. If we can get to that magic 80, 85 per cent [vaccinated], then we are in a much better situation as a community and as a country."
Warwick Township released a statement Tuesday afternoon saying it was aware of Rombouts' comments.
The township said it will “continue to follow and implement COVID-19 policies and procedures based on recommendations of Lambton Public Health and the provincial government.”
-With files from Sue Storr