A COVID-19 vaccine mandate for truckers crossing into Canada from the United States came into effect on Saturday, causing “limited delays” at some border crossings and raising worries about future disruptions to the supply chain as the pandemic drags on.
As of Saturday, Canadian truckers must be vaccinated if they want to avoid quarantine and a pre-arrival molecular test, while unvaccinated American big-riggers are to be turned back at the border.
Trucking industry groups accused the federal government of sparking confusion after the Canada Border Services Agency suggested earlier this week that Ottawa was backtracking on the rules, only to have that information refuted the next day.
The president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance says the application of the mandate could potentially cause some slowdowns at the border in the coming days if unvaccinated truckers have to turn their big rigs around.
Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, says the application of the mandate could potentially cause some slowdowns at the border in the coming days if unvaccinated truckers have to turn their big rigs around. (CBC )
But Stephen Laskowski says the bigger concern is over wider impacts on the supply chain caused by driver shortages, which are likely to be felt cumulatively in the coming weeks and months.
Mike Millian, the president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada, said in an interview that as of midday Saturday, the borders appeared to be flowing smoothly.
But he said some Canadian truckers who were dispatched during the 16-hour window in which Ottawa’s erroneous announcement spread through the sector will have to face consequences upon their return.
“There’s going to be drivers returning in the next two, three, four days who were expecting not to quarantine who will have to quarantine,” he said in a phone interview with The Canadian Press.
A spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) said in an email that traveller processing times in the commercial stream had increased at some ports of entry, resulting in “some limited delays” in the hours following the new rules.
As of Saturday, Canadian truckers must be vaccinated if they want to avoid quarantine and a pre-arrival molecular test, while unvaccinated American big-riggers are to be turned back at the border. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)
Rebecca Purdy added that there is normally a transition period when new measures are introduced, and said the CBSA would adjust its resources and staffing levels in the coming days if needed.
Up to 26,000 of 160,000 truckers who make regular cross-border trips will be sidelined, adding further bottlenecks and potential price hikes to the flow of goods into the country, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
Laskowski said Canadian trucking companies have been working to adjust to the mandate by reassigning unvaccinated truckers to domestic duties.
A truck enters Canada from the U.S. at the Thousand Islands border in Lansdowne, Ont., in November 2021. (Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press)
Public health experts have suggested in recent days that Canada could be nearing the peak of infections from the pandemic’s current, Omicron-driven wave. But hospitalizations and deaths, which tend to lag behind, showed no sign of easing on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Federal Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair announced late Friday that Canadian Forces Rangers were being deployed to the remote northern First Nation of Attawapiskat, which has been struggling with a growing outbreak.
The Weeneebayko Area Health Authority, which serves the James Bay region of Ontario, reported nine new cases in Attawapiskat on Friday, bringing the total number of infected in the community to 40.
What’s happening across Canada
With lab-based testing capacity deeply strained and increasingly restricted, experts say true case counts are likely far higher than reported. Hospitalization data at the regional level is also evolving, with several provinces saying they will report figures that separate the number of people in hospital because of COVID-19 from those in hospital for another medical issue who also test positive for COVID-19.
For more information on what is happening in your community — including details on outbreaks, testing capacity and local restrictions — click through to the regional coverage below.
1/4 <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#COVID19</a> key concerns ???????? : the latest modelling forecast gave us some challenging news, but staying steady as we go through the next few weeks, there are early signs we could be at or near peak disease activity in parts of the country. <a href=”https://t.co/yUKMfrhhpB”>https://t.co/yUKMfrhhpB</a>
In Ontario, nurses are calling for pay parity with police officers and firefighters amid a pandemic staffing crunch.
In Quebec, the health agency representing hospitals in the east end of Montreal confirmed on Saturday that it will soon be reducing more services as hospitals struggle to balance the care of COVID-19 patients alongside others.
A person arrives at a COVID-19 test site in Montreal on Saturday. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
In the Atlantic provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador confirmed the province’s 25th death related to the virus; Nova Scotia announced it will not be following up with some people who tested positive for the virus due to high cases and testing demand; New Brunswickentered Level 3 of its lockdown measures — the province’s most restrictive level — on Saturday; and in Prince Edward Island, where the pandemic only made limited inroads in previous waves, officials recorded 309 new cases on Saturday.
In the North, Nunavut reported five new cases in the territory on Saturday, plus one presumptive case in the village of Naujaat, while the Yukon government is imposing stronger public health measures starting on Tuesday.
What’s happening around the world
As of Saturday, roughly 324.19 million cases had been reported worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracker. The reported global death toll stood at more than 5.5 million.
In Europe, the Czech government will allow asymptomatic essential health-care workers and social service personnel who test positive for COVID-19 to keep working, the Health Ministry said.
WATCH | Half of Europe could be infected with Omicron within weeks, WHO says:
Half of Europe could be infected with Omicron within weeks, WHO says
3 days ago
Duration 3:22
The World Health Organization says more than 200 million people in Europe could be infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus in the next six to eight weeks. 3:22
In the Americas, Uruguay has opened its borders to citizens and residents even if they are infected with COVID-19, a rare move amid surging cases worldwide. Passengers would need to travel in private vehicles across the border and be in a family “bubble.”
In Asia, Bhutan has reported its first 14 cases of the Omicron variant, a health official said, amid a surge of the pandemic in the Himalayan kingdom that has so far been relatively successful at keeping the disease at bay.
In Africa, the continent’s top public health body said it was in talks with Pfizer about securing supplies of Paxlovid, the drugmaker’s antiviral COVID-19 pills.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
