After publicly supporting the anti-vaccine mandate activists protesting in Ottawa in recent weeks, interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen said Thursday it’s time for the convoy and other protesters blocking two major border crossings to end their demonstrations and go home.
Bergen, who has called the convoy a “passionate, patriotic and peaceful” group of Canadians concerned about freedom at a time of COVID restrictions, said the protesters have made their point to parliamentarians and the Conservative Party will take up their fight in the House of Commons instead.
The anti-mandate protest that started in Ottawa has spread to Windsor, Ont., and Coutts, Alta., disrupting the flow of goods and crippling Canada-U.S. trade.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau convened a virtual meeting with opposition leaders Thursday night to discuss the ongoing protests.
Late Thursday, Trudeau tweeted that he’d “stressed” to his fellow leaders “how important it is for all Members of Parliament, from every party, to denounce these illegal acts — and to call for an end to these blockades.”
The prime minister also tweeted that he’d been in touch with Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens “about the illegal blockade of the Ambassador Bridge.”
Trudeau said the federal government was “committed” to helping the mayor and the province of Ontario “get the situation under control” at the key border crossing.
Finally, I briefed the leaders of the opposition parties on the current situation and the latest developments. I stressed how important it is for all Members of Parliament, from every party, to denounce these illegal acts – and to call for an end to these blockades.
Earlier Thursday, in a message aimed at protesters, Bergen said “the time has come for you to take down the barricades, stop the disruptive action and come together.
“The economy you want to see reopened is hurting. You protested because you love your country and you want your freedoms back. That message has been heard.”
Bergen said barricades and trucks should be removed for the sake of the economy and because “it’s the right thing to do.”
Protesters blocked the Ambassador Bridge linking Windsor, Ont., to Detroit in Windsor on Feb. 7, 2022, calling for and end to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. (Michael Evans/CBC)
During the weeks-long protest in the nation’s capital, Bergen posed for pictures with some convoy members. Citing internal emails, the Globe and Mail has reported that Bergen was previously reluctant to tell the truckers to go home, and preferred instead to make the issue Trudeau’s problem.
Other prominent Conservatives — including MP Pierre Poilievre, a candidate for the party’s permanent leadership — have closely associated themselves with the convoy and its call for an end to federal COVID-19 restrictions.
A person holds a sign calling for Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre to become prime minister as a protest against COVID-19 restrictions continues into its second week in Ottawa on Feb. 5, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Poilievre has said the convoy represents “the people who want to stand and speak for their freedoms” and “all those that our government and our media have insulted and left behind.”
“Freedom, not fear,” Poilievre said in a recent speech. “Truckers, not Trudeau.”
Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, the party’s transport critic, was a vocal defender of the convoy’s early efforts to force the federal government to abandon the vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers. She has since soured on the movement as the protests have spread to critical border crossings.
Conservative transport critic Melissa Lantsman. (CBC)
“They need to move from the blockades, that’s illegal. Whether it’s on a bridge, whether it’s a pipeline or a highway, we can’t have them blocking critical infrastructure,” Lantsman told reporters. “I think we need a plan from the prime minister on how to end this.”
Speaking in question period, Trudeau said the Conservatives have “supported” and “enabled” blockades across the country.
“The leader of the Conservative Party and her team have been their biggest champions,” he said. “The consequences of these actions are having dire impacts. They’re impacting trade, they’re hurting jobs and they’re obstructing our communities.”
Bergen shot back, saying Trudeau is personally to blame for the chaos for pushing shots on people who don’t want them.
“The prime minister continues to blame others for things that he’s responsible for,” she said.
Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge has been closed to commercial traffic since Monday. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of products have been held back as 50 to 75 vehicles and about 100 anti-mandate protesters camp out on the main road that leads on and off the bridge.
To help bring this protest to a close, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the federal government will deploy more RCMP officers to the region to help local law enforcement. Mendicino said more officers would also be sent to Ottawa and Coutts.
“We’ll continue to send resources as needed,” Mendicino said.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said the federal government’s response has been pitiful.
“Instead of solving problems, we have a prime minister that wants to debate jurisdiction,” he said. “It’s clear, there’s no debate here, there’s federal work to be done to ensure our borders are working.”
Conservative motion calls for a transition to a ‘post-COVID society’
Bergen also tabled a motion in the Commons today that calls on Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet to drop all federal pandemic restrictions and “transition to a post-COVID society as quickly as possible.”
Bergen said Omicron infections are on the decline, Canada is among the world’s most vaccinated countries and promising new therapeutics that significantly reduce the likelihood of severe disease and death are starting to roll out.
She said that gives Ottawa the leeway to do away with years-long limits on travel. Bergen also called for an end to vaccine mandates for the travelling public, federal public servants and workers in federally regulated industries.
Bergen said Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam and other provincial health officials have signalled it’s time to rethink Canada’s approach to COVID-19. Trudeau should heed their call to “re-examine” pandemic measures during the next phase of the health crisis, Bergen said.
“I know they have faith in science and so should this prime minister. Science is not a prop. It can’t be pulled out and then put away only when it serves the prime minister’s political interest,” she said.
Echoing recent recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO), Bergen said the federal government should in turn drop its testing requirements for incoming travellers.
Ottawa requires that all international travellers get a pre-departure molecular test before boarding a flight to Canada or crossing the Canada-U.S. border by land. Last year, the federal government added another layer of testing, requiring that travellers also get a test on arrival. International travellers from non-U.S. destinations have to quarantine at home while they wait for results.
WHO questions value of travel restrictions
The program is meant to keep infected people out of Canada and track new variants. But with Omicron circulating widely here at home, infectious disease experts have questioned the value of this costly regime.
“Using testing as a ‘stick’ to discourage travel is not appropriate,” said Dr. Zain Chagla, an associate professor at McMaster University and an infectious diseases physician.
“Right now, our processes introduce a burden without any meaningful benefit.”
Better ways to look for Omicron than testing travellers, says specialist
10 hours ago
Duration 1:44
Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Zain Chagla makes a case for why Canada’s COVID-19 testing requirements for travellers need to change. 1:44
With the PCR testing regime severely constrained in most provinces, Chagla said it doesn’t make sense to dedicate so much of the country’s limited testing capacity to incoming travellers, many of whom are asymptomatic.
“This does not mean that all travel is safe. But the risk of contracting COVID-19 in Canada and getting it on international soil are starting to even out, and public messaging should convey this clearly to individuals,” he said.
The WHO has urged member countries to lift or ease international travel bans because “they do not provide added value and continue to contribute to the economic and social stress.”
Conservative MP Luc Berthold, the party’s Quebec critic, said the vast majority of Canadians have dutifully followed public health advice and have gotten their COVID-19 shots. He said the federal government should reward a pandemic-weary country by easing restrictions now that cases are on the decline.
“We were promised that life would return to normal but unfortunately that’s not been the case,” Berthold said. “The federal government is the only government in the country that refuses to give Canadians hope.”
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said he understands Canadians’ feelings of pandemic fatigue.
“We are all tired, health care workers are exhausted, businesses have struggled and closed down and our mental health has declined,” he said.
Duclos said that while the restrictions have been tough to endure, it’s prudent to maintain some limits while the pandemic climate is still so tenuous. He said Canada has fared well by listening to public health experts.
Duclos said Ottawa will “assess the latest evidence” before deciding whether to “relax or adjust border measures.” He said the government would “move forward on the transition to a sustainable and responsible management of COVID-19” in the weeks ahead.
Some of the most disruptive restrictions — lockdowns, curfews, limits on social gatherings and vaccine passports for non-essential businesses — have been imposed by provincial governments. Federal actions have been largely limited to the border, domestic travel and policies directed at federal workers.
Some provinces, notably Alberta and Saskatchewan, have signalled they will begin to drop restrictions in the weeks ahead. Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s chief medical officer, said last week Canadians will have to “learn to live with this virus and to be less fearful of it.”
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.
