Tens of thousands of Canadians abroad are starting to worry about how they’ll get home, as commercial flights cease in many countries with shuttered borders — and they’re asking the federal government to do more to help repatriate stranded travellers.
The federal government has said Canadians abroad should come home as soon as possible as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads to virtually every country on earth. For an increasing number of people, however, that simply isn’t an option.
CBC News has heard from dozens of Canadians facing hardship abroad — most notably in countries like Ecuador, Morocco, Peru and the Philippines, where virtually all movement, including domestic travel, has come to a standstill as governments work to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Many Canadians have said they’ve had difficulty reaching staff at embassies or consulates charged with helping citizens abroad.
Public health restrictions have made in-person visits all but impossible in some places. Emails to Global Affairs Canada have gone unanswered as bureaucrats deal with a crush of correspondence from an untold number of stranded Canadians.
Sunwing, a leisure charter airline, has suspended southbound flights to holiday destinations to focus on bringing Canadians home. On Tuesday, their aircraft brought over 500 Canadians home from Honduras, Aruba and Panama — countries that have started to close their borders — but many others have been left behind.
The federal government has said it has no plans to repatriate people from other countries, so some travellers inevitably will be stranded for some time.
The federal government said Wednesday it will be working with cell phone providers, like Bell, Rogers and Telus, to send texts to all customers roaming abroad offering further information on consular assistance. Those texts will contain “consular support information and key contact information.”
But stranded travellers and their families said Wednesday they’re looking for more than text messages from their government.
‘Absolutely terrified’
Theresa C. said she is “absolutely terrified” for her son John, a 24-year-old Halifax firefighter now stuck in Peru after travelling there to climb Machu Picchu. On Sunday, President Martin Vizcarra issued a 15-day nationwide state of emergency declaration and immediately ordered the borders closed, with nobody allowed in or out. (Theresa did not want to give her last name for fear of jeopardizing her son’s safe passage.)
John and two of his friends have been confined to a hotel room in Arequipa for days, with soldiers on guard outside the building to enforce martial law in a country that has gone to extreme lengths to slow the spread of COVID-19.
The airports there have been shuttered and car traffic is forbidden. She said nothing less than a rescue flight organized by the Canadian government will get her son home.
“It is a very, very dire situation there. Militias in the streets, total lockdown on movements. There’s no ongoing source of food for them,” Theresa told CBC News.
“It’s a harrowing situation. Canadians are being held captive in an environment where they’re under martial law. I’m viscerally terrified for their welfare.”
Theresa said Canada should follow Israel’s example by sending a plane to rescue the many travellers who visit Peru every year. The situation in Peru is different than in other countries, she said, because the military-enforced lockdown was ordered overnight, leaving foreigners no time to get out.
Peter Swanson, a lawyer from Vancouver, is another Canadian stuck in Peru. He’s in the tourist town of Cusco in the Peruvian Andes.
He said the federal government’s promise to float $5,000 in emergency loans to Canadians stuck overseas simply isn’t helpful at this time. He booked an outbound flight for a weekend departure — but it was abruptly cancelled after martial law was declared.
“Surely the answer isn’t, ‘Here’s $5,000, do what you can.’ That’s not going to solve the problem of closed borders. I don’t understand why the Canadian government isn’t trying to negotiate something with the various governments to allow repatriation flights. I just don’t get it,” Swanson told CBC News.
Peter Swanson, a Vancouver-based lawyer, is stranded in Peru after the country closed the border and imposed martial law. (Supplied by Peter Swanson)
“I’m not looking for a free ride. I was obviously planning to pay for my return. I’m simply looking to get a flight home,” he said, adding there are “rumours” flying around about rescue flights for U.S. and Canadian citizens but there’s been no clear communication from authorities.
He said he’s looking to hear from other Canadians in Peru to get a sense of just how many of them are trapped. “It’d be great if we could get together to tell the government to get a plane down here.”
‘I just want to get home’
Swanson said he’s uneasy. “I just want to get home. I have no clue how long I might be here. I don’t want to be in a hotel in Peru for a month or two,” he said.
The situation is equally troubling in Ecuador, a popular destination in South America where people often go to catch ships to visit the Galapagos Islands.
As of today, Ecuador has prohibited domestic passenger flights and has announced restrictions on virtually all movement throughout the country, with very limited exceptions.
Shane Henry, a superintendent with the Saskatoon Tribal Council, is trying to get his family home to Saskatchewan. His brother Mike, his sister Latasha, his niece Leotina, 5, and nephew Dane, 11, have tried to get out of Ecuador but there just aren’t any flights.
Henry received a call from Global Affairs this morning and was told Ottawa has no plans to bring his family home on a repatriation flight. He said his family feels alone and forgotten by an embassy in Quito that has shuttered its doors to citizens in need. He said there are dozens of Canadians in the same situation.
“They’re worried. It’s obvious, as her brother, that [Latasha is] quite worried about being stuck in a country like Ecuador. There’s violent crime, drug trafficking, the geopolitical situation just isn’t [the] best. They really have so few options to get out. The government has effectively left them to fend for themselves in Ecuador.,” Henry said.
Shane Henry is worried about his family — his brother, his wife, their two kids and a sister — in Ecuador. (Submitted by Shane Henry)
Ying Lu is the head of ophthalmology with the Scarborough Health Network in Toronto. She is stranded in Morocco after airlines abruptly cancelled most flights from Casablanca.
‘We are totally stranded’
She’s part of a tour group of 38 others Canadians, including many seniors in their 60s and 70s with multiple medical conditions. She said some in the group are running out of medication and one diabetic needs medical care that isn’t readily available in a country that is practically shut down.
“We are totally stranded here with everyone trying everything to get out,” Lu said.
Miguel Morales is also trying to get his daughter and five other Canadians from McGill University’s department of earth and planetary sciences out of Morocco. The group has been in Morocco for two weeks as part of a geology project led by Prof. Anthony Williams-Jones.
He said Global Affairs Canada has offered little information about a way forward and the embassy in the capital city, Rabat, is closed. He said other countries, like Belgium, have already arranged flights out of the region.
“I am disappointed [in] the way Canada has handled the repatriation of citizens abroad. Now is when we citizens want to see our government take the lead and show than in these moments, those who are stranded abroad are not forgotten,” Morales told CBC in email.
McGill professor Anthony Williams-Jones and five of his students are stuck in Morocco with no access to consular services. (Supplied by Miguel Morales)
“Nothing has been done so far and that is a sign of weak planning and management from our government in this unusual event.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has warned Canadians that they may be stranded abroad.
“There are three million Canadians at any given moment around the world, living and working, and I think it is just realistic to know that there are some of them who will not be coming home in the coming weeks,” Trudeau told reporters Tuesday from self-isolation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that travellers will no longer be able to cross the border for recreational and tourism purposes. 1:36
“We’re working with airlines to try and make sure that as many Canadians as possible, as many Canadians as want to, can come home. This is something all Canadians are expecting of their government and we’re going to be doing it.”
Henry said the prime minister’s message was “cryptic” and it’s not clear what Ottawa has planned.
“I was waiting to hear how we’re going to get these international travellers home but, based on the message I got from the embassy this morning, my family is just going to hunker down for the time being,” he said.
Nova Scotia RCMP say their investigation into two suspicious deaths earlier this month has concluded that one man died by homicide and the other by suicide.
The bodies of two men, aged 40 and 73, were found in a home in Windsor, N.S., on Sept. 3.
Police say the province’s medical examiner determined the 40-year-old man was killed and the 73-year-old man killed himself.
They say the two men were members of the same family.
No arrests or charges are anticipated, and the names of the deceased will not be released.
RCMP say they will not be releasing any further details out of respect for the family.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from its original location because members were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
Nemaska’s story illustrates the challenges Legault’s government faces as it looks to build new dams to meet the province’s power needs, which are anticipated to double by 2050. Legault has promised that any new projects will be developed in partnership with Indigenous people and have “social acceptability,” but experts say that’s easier said than done.
François Bouffard, an associate professor of electrical engineering at McGill University, said the earlier era of hydro projects were developed without any consideration for the Indigenous inhabitants living nearby.
“We live in a much different world now,” he said. “Any kind of hydro development, no matter where in Quebec, will require true consent and partnership from Indigenous communities.” Those groups likely want to be treated as stakeholders, he added.
Securing wider social acceptability for projects that significantly change the landscape — as hydro dams often do — is also “a big ask,” he said. The government, Bouchard added, will likely focus on boosting capacity in its existing dams, or building installations that run off river flow and don’t require flooding large swaths of land to create reservoirs.
Louis Beaumier, executive director of the Trottier Energy Institute at Polytechnique Montreal, said Legault’s visit to Nemaska represents a desire for reconciliation with Indigenous people who were traumatized by the way earlier projects were carried about.
Any new projects will need the consent of local First Nations, Beaumier said, adding that its easier to get their blessing for wind power projects compared to dams, because they’re less destructive to the environment and easier around which to structure a partnership agreement.
Beaumier added that he believes it will be nearly impossible to get the public — Indigenous or not — to agree to “the destruction of a river” for a new dam, noting that in recent decades people have come to recognize rivers as the “unique, irreplaceable riches” that they are.
Legault’s visit to northern Quebec came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
The book, published in 2022 along with Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Nemaska community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault was in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro complex in honour of former premier Bernard Landry. At the event, Legault said he would follow the example of his late predecessor, who oversaw the signing of the historic “Paix des Braves” agreement between the Quebec government and the Cree in 2002.
He said there is “significant potential” in Eeyou Istchee James Bay, both in increasing the capacity of its large dams and in developing wind power projects.
“Obviously, we will do that with the Cree,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
NEMASKA – For the first time in their history, members of the Cree community of Nemaska received a visit from a sitting Quebec premier on Sunday and were able to share first-hand the story of how they were displaced by a hydroelectric project in the 1970s.
François Legault was greeted in Nemaska by men and women who arrived by canoe to re-enact the founding of their new village in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region, in northern Quebec, 47 years ago. The community was forced in the early 1970s to move from their original location because they were told it would be flooded as part of the Nottaway-Broadback-Rupert hydro project.
The reservoir was ultimately constructed elsewhere, but by then the members of the village had already left for other places, abandoning their homes and many of their belongings in the process.
George Wapachee, co-author of the book “Going Home,” said community members were “relocated for nothing.”
“We didn’t know what the rights were, or who to turn to,” he said in an interview. “That turned us into refugees and we were forced to abandon the life we knew.”
The book, published in 2022 by Wapachee and Susan Marshall, is filled with stories of Cree community members. Leaving behind sewing machines and hunting dogs, they were initially sent to two different villages, 100 and 300 kilometres away, Wapachee said.
In their new homes, several of them were forced to live in “deplorable conditions,” and some were physically and verbally abused, he said. The new village of Nemaska was only built a few years later, in 1977.
“At this time, families were losing their children to prison-schools,” he said, in reference to the residential school system. “Imagine the burden of losing your community as well.”
Legault’s visit came on Sept. 15, when the community gathers every year to remember the founding of the “New Nemaska,” on the shores of Lake Champion in the heart of the boreal forest, some 1,500 kilometres from Montreal. Nemaska Chief Clarence Jolly said the community invited Legault to a traditional feast on Sunday, and planned to present him with Wapachee’s book and tell him their stories.
Thomas Jolly, a former chief, said he was 15 years old when he was forced to leave his village with all his belongings in a single bag.
Meeting Legault was important “because have to recognize what happened and we have to talk about the repercussions that the relocation had on people,” he said, adding that those effects are still felt today.
Earlier Sunday, Legault had been in the Cree community of Eastmain, where he participated in the official renaming of a hydro dam in honour of former premier Bernard Landry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
