I was given my first shot of the vaccine this morning by an excellent pharmacist in one of the best pharmacy shops in my beautiful Windermere community of Edmonton-South West.

While I understand there are Albertans who are hesitant to take the vaccine, I encourage everyone to get their shot. That is how we are going to beat this virus.

This virus and its aftermath have caused so much damage to our health, economic, social, cultural, emotional and psychological well-being that we need to do everything we can now to ensure it does not last a day longer than it should.

That said, I can assure that the Government of Alberta will not under any circumstances mandate vaccines.

I was born and grew up in a region of our world where vaccines saved tens of millions of lives, and millions more from all kinds of physical deformities - from terrible diseases such as polio, measles, chicken-pox, yellow fever, tuberculosis, meningitis, and many more.

Government across the globe working with pharmaceutical companies, health and medical experts have determined that we need the vaccines in order to defeat this virus.

I encourage all Albertans to get theirs. We are nearing the end of the pandemic and restrictions. I want to thank all frontline staff for their sacrifices in getting us through this pandemic.