OTTAWA, Aug 14, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - The Canadian government announced Friday

it will require all federal workers and most commercial rail, air and ship
passengers to get vaccinated against Covid-19, amid a surge in virus cases
due to the Delta variant.

  "We know that vaccines are the best way to end this pandemic," said Dominic
LeBlanc, a government minister in charge of Canada's federal bureaucracy.

  "We expect federal public servants to want to comply with this mandatory
requirement," he added.

  A deadline for inoculations for some 300,000 public servants will be
announced in the coming weeks.

  The federal government is Canada's largest employer and LeBlanc said the
vaccine mandate is "aimed at helping Canada reach a minimum level of coverage
needed to fully reopen the economy, and keep it open as well as to protect
thousands of workers."

  The vaccination requirement for the transport sector should be applied by
the end of October at the latest, LeBlanc said at a press briefing.

  It includes all commercial air passengers, as well as people traveling by
rail between provinces and on large vessels such as cruise ships, local media
cited Transport Minister Omar Alghabra as saying.

  The country's largest carrier, Air Canada, said mandatory vaccinations was
"a welcome step forward in the evolving measures to protect the health and
safety of airline employees, customers and all Canadians."

  As of Friday, 71 percent of Canada's 38 million population had received at
least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, while nearly 62 percent were fully
vaccinated.

  The announcement comes less than a month before the reopening of Canada's
borders to vaccinated foreign travelers, scheduled for September 7, a year
and a half after their closure due to the pandemic.