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The Globe and Mail, Canada’s self-proclaimed beacon of journalistic integrity, has exposed its rank hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy by enforcing a draconian COVID-19 vaccine mandate for job applicants in 2025, long after the world has moved on from the pandemic’s grip. This appalling policy, unearthed in their own job postings, reveals a disgusting contradiction between their sanctimonious public commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion and their willingness to trample on individual rights with a heavy-handed, outdated requirement that reeks of authoritarian control. The organization’s leadership, including Publisher and CEO Andrew Saunders, Editor-in-Chief David Walmsley, and Deputy Editor-in-Chief Sinclair Stewart, must be held accountable for this vile exclusionary practice that spits in the face of fairness while cloaking itself in the veneer of workplace safety.
The evidence is damning and undeniable. The Globe and Mail’s 2025 Summer Jobs Program, posted in October 2024, explicitly demands that candidates be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, with proof submitted to HR like some dystopian loyalty test. The language is clear: “All offers of employment with The Globe and Mail are conditional upon the candidate being Fully Vaccinated,” defined as having received the full series of Health Canada-approved vaccines at least 14 days before starting. The New York Correspondent role, posted January 8, 2025, parrots this same requirement, proving this is no one-off but a deliberate, ongoing policy. Exemptions are grudgingly allowed under the Human Rights Code, but only subject to approval, leaving unvaccinated applicants at the mercy of bureaucratic whim, with job offers revoked for non-compliance. This is not just a hiring policy; it’s a calculated purge of those who dare exercise personal medical choice, a grotesque overreach for a media outlet that claims to champion free thought.
The Globe and Mail’s leadership has the audacity to parade their commitment to equity while enforcing a policy that inherently discriminates. Their careers page boasts partnerships with Indigenous Works, Pride at Work, and the BlackNorth Initiative, crowing about “fostering diversity and inclusivity by reflecting all Canadians.” Yet, in the same breath, they slam the door on unvaccinated candidates, effectively branding them as second-class citizens unfit for employment. This is not inclusion; it’s exclusion dressed up in corporate jargon, a sickening betrayal of the very principles they claim to uphold. Andrew Saunders, who as CEO oversees strategic direction, bears direct responsibility for allowing this policy to persist, tarnishing the organization’s reputation with his spineless acquiescence. David Walmsley, as Editor-in-Chief, should be ashamed for letting this contradiction fester under his watch, undermining the journalistic credibility he’s supposed to safeguard. Sinclair Stewart, as Deputy Editor-in-Chief, is equally complicit, failing to challenge a policy that alienates a portion of the workforce in a country where over 80% were vaccinated by 2023, rendering such mandates obsolete and punitive.
The timing of this policy is particularly egregious. By July 2025, Canada has long since relaxed most COVID-19 restrictions, with federal mandates for public servants and travelers lifted as early as 2022, as reported by The Globe and Mail itself on September 20, 2022. The article noted that 90% of eligible Canadians were vaccinated, and public health measures had shifted away from blanket requirements. Yet, The Globe and Mail clings to a mandate that even the Canadian Armed Forces softened in 2022, as they reported on October 14, 2022, when General Wayne Eyre adjusted military vaccine rules to focus on specific roles rather than universal compliance. The Globe’s stubborn insistence on vaccination for all hires, regardless of role or remote work status, is not just outdated—it’s a deliberate middle finger to individual autonomy, reflecting a perverse obsession with control that has no place in a supposedly progressive institution.
This mandate’s stench grows fouler when viewed against the broader context of 2025. The Globe and Mail itself reported on January 24, 2025, about an Alberta task force questioning the efficacy of continued COVID-19 vaccine promotion, highlighting public and scientific debates over boosters and natural immunity. Yet, Saunders, Walmsley, and Stewart ignore these evolving discussions, choosing instead to enforce a policy that assumes unvaccinated individuals are inherently dangerous, despite evidence of high vaccination rates and declining severe outcomes. This is not science; it’s dogma, a cowardly capitulation to fearmongering that betrays their role as journalists tasked with questioning authority, not blindly enforcing it.
The legal and ethical implications are a slap in the face to fairness. Canadian law allows private employers to mandate vaccinations, but only with reasonable accommodations for medical or religious exemptions, as noted in a 2023 Reuters article on employer mandates. The Globe’s policy, with its vague “subject to approval” clause, risks violating the spirit of these protections, placing undue burden on applicants to justify their personal choices. This is not the behavior of an organization committed to equity but of one wielding power to coerce compliance, a tactic more befitting a totalitarian regime than a newsroom. The Globe’s own reporting on November 3, 2021, criticized Ontario and Quebec for backing down on health worker mandates, arguing that unvaccinated workers were unfit for such roles. Yet, in 2025, they apply this same logic to journalists, as if a reporter’s vaccination status impacts their ability to write or edit from a desk. The hypocrisy is nauseating, and Saunders, Walmsley, and Stewart should be excoriated for letting this intellectual dishonesty fester.
Public sentiment, as seen on social media platforms like X, further exposes the Globe’s moral failure. Posts from July 18 and 19, 2025, describe the mandate as “insane” and question the outlet’s impartiality, reflecting a growing public disgust with policies that linger like a bad smell from the pandemic’s peak. One user, on July 19, 2025, called it “insane” for 2025, a sentiment that captures the absurdity of a media giant enforcing a rule most Canadians have moved beyond. The Globe’s silence in response to this backlash, with no public statement from Saunders or Walmsley as of July 19, 2025, speaks volumes about their cowardice and inability to defend their own policy.
The Globe and Mail’s vaccine mandate is a shameful stain on its legacy, a policy that betrays its readers, its staff, and its own stated values. Andrew Saunders, David Walmsley, and Sinclair Stewart have overseen a disgusting capitulation to control and conformity, prioritizing a hollow sense of safety over the principles of fairness and freedom they claim to uphold. This is not journalism; it’s oppression dressed in newsprint. Their refusal to evolve with the times, clinging to a mandate that alienates talent in a post-pandemic world, reveals a leadership team more interested in power than truth. They deserve every ounce of scorn for this gutless, hypocritical policy, and their names should be synonymous with this failure until they dismantle this abhorrent requirement and beg forgiveness from those they’ve unjustly excluded.[](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-military-eases-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-presses-ahead-with-releasing/)[](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-alberta-releases-secret-report-into-the-provinces-covid-response/)[](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-to-drop-covid-19-vaccine-requirement-for-entering-country-on/)
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