The President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 588 says the push from Regina City Hall to make masks mandatory on busses is a good thing.

However Kevin Lucier says enforcement can not be placed in the hands of bus operators.

“We would be looking for hard shields in that case,” Lucier said. “It looks like the mayor, when he went to the press last week, he had mentioned — his words were that he didn’t want us as the main enforcers — we just need to be clear that we see having operators confront riders about not wearing a mask is putting us in unnecessary danger.”

Lucier says while the union supports a mandatory mask policy on buses and the push for it is moving at a steady pace, there are many examples of why driver enforcement is not the best course of action.

“It’s probably progressing at about the speed that I expected,” Lucier said. “The issue is that we just don’t want to be the first line in the enforcement.”

In Regina, there have been two assaults including one sexual assault on operators over the past few months, something Lucier says could have been avoided if hard shields were in place.