COVID-19 vaccination requirement for supplier personnel

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As of November 15, 2021, all supplier personnel must be fully vaccinated to access federal government workplaces. Suppliers will be required to provide a certification to their contracting authority.

On this page

• Vaccination requirement for supplier personnel
• Existing contracts and contractors
• Meeting the vaccination requirement
• Certification Process
• Special circumstances and exemptions
• Monitoring
• Failure to meet requirement

Vaccination requirement for supplier personnel

As of November 15, 2021, supplier personnel who access federal workplaces must be fully vaccinated. Federal government workplaces include all places of work under the responsibility of the Government of Canada where federal government employees are present.

The vaccination requirement does not apply to:

• contracts that are solely for the provision of goods
• contracts where services are solely performed in non-federal government workplaces
• situations where federal employees must enter contractor facilities (for example: to conduct compliance audits or security verifications)
• contracted personnel who will only access common areas of buildings that are open to the public (such as the lobby)

Existing contracts and contractors

Contractor personnel who access Government of Canada workplaces to perform work pursuant to existing contracts are subject to the vaccine requirement.

Meeting the vaccination requirement

You are considered fully vaccinated if you have received:

• the full series of an accepted COVID-19 vaccine or a combination of accepted vaccines including:
  • 2 doses of any combination of Moderna Spikevax, Pfizer-BioNTech Comirnaty or AstraZeneca Vaxzevria (including CoviShield)
  • 1 dose of Janssen (Johnson & Johnson)

For more information on accepted COVID-19 vaccines, you can consult the Vaccines for COVID-19 page.

Certification Process

Suppliers must submit a certification form by October 29, 2021, certifying that their personnel who access Government of Canada workplaces will be fully vaccinated as of November 15, 2021.

The Government of Canada will provide further information and instructions regarding the implementation of the vaccination requirement for contracted personnel shortly.

Existing contracts

Contractors who currently have a contract with the Government of Canada will be contacted by the contracting officer with a certification form that they must complete and return, certifying that their personnel that access federal workplaces will be fully vaccinated as of November 15, 2021. Contractors who do not submit the certification may be subject to further measures, up to and including termination.

Future contracts

As of October 15, 2021, bidders for contracts that will require supplier personnel to access federal government workplaces must submit a certification proving they meet the vaccine requirement as a condition of the bid. Bids that do not include the certification will not be considered. The certification form will be included with implicated Requests for Proposals.

Special circumstances and exemptions

Some contracted personnel may not be able to get fully vaccinated due to:

• a certified medical contraindication
• religious grounds
• other prohibited grounds of discrimination as defined in applicable human rights legislation

In such cases, contractors are expected to inform the responsible contracting authority as soon as possible of:

• the number of such personnel
• the impacted work locations
• the steps the contractor proposes to undertake to mitigate any associated risks (such as regular rapid testing)

Exemptions and any mitigation measures are subject to approval by the contracting and technical authorities.

Contractors should not share any personal information with the contracting authority, such as any specifics about:

• medical contraindications
• disability
• religious grounds

Monitoring

Client organizations will be responsible for monitoring contractors’ adherence the vaccination requirement. Additional information will be communicated to implicated contractors by the client organization or contracting authority as required.

Failure to meet requirement

Suppliers who do not provide the required certifications or who are subsequently discovered to have provided an untrue certification, may be subject to measures up to and including contract termination.Date modified:2021-10-12