It’s been a dismal few days for Canada-U.S. relations. Specifically, for people in relationships with someone on the other side of the border, dealing with depressing news about their life-altering limbo.
CBC News has spoken with numerous people struggling to deal with restrictions on Canada-U.S. travel intended to slow the spread of COVID-19.
That includes two different mothers whose newborns have never seen their fathers in person; a woman completing her pregnancy alone; two other couples with children; and a couple who had their last date at the border, where it was cut short by border agents.
“Defeated,” is how a new Ontario mother, Megan Scott, described her state of mind this week.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Haylie Lynn Gadsby, who has a new baby in Windsor, Ont., while the baby’s belongings are in Michigan — with her fiancé.
“I’m absolutely miserable,” said Lori Bartell, nursing a baby in Prince Edward Island, stranded from her husband in Maine.
“I am quite mad,” said Steven Husak, who has two children near Detroit and is trying to start a new life with them in Ontario with his fiancée, whom they view as a mother. They were hoping to go camping this summer.
Eric Bartell, left, lives in Maine, and met his newborn via a video chat. His wife, Lori, who lives in Prince Edward Island, says he can’t get to Canada under the current rules. (Lori Bartell)
This week’s letdown
Two bits of news this week extended the heartache across the 49th parallel.
First, as reported by CBC News and other media, government officials expect a ban on non-essential land travel across the border to be renewed beyond June 21.
Another blow came in the fine print of an announcement from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced some relaxation of the border rules this week. Some families say they won’t help the majority of people who’ve been separated from loved ones. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)
He announced a relaxation of rules for travelling to Canada — but they only apply to people under specific conditions, which many stranded partners say they cannot meet.
They require a 15-day minimum stay in Canada, with 14 days in quarantine, and are only for people who meet the legal definition of being immediate family to Canadian citizens.
A new community of people has popped up to share its frustrations in private Facebook chat groups, which count hundreds of members.
They come from different places, and different walks of life, but one thing they tend to have in common is they’re at transitional moments in their lives.
Those with pending immigration applications, for example, have seen them slowed by the pandemic.
Parents, babies, separated by a border
One online chat group was started by a physician in Windsor, Ont., Ashley Cook, who is expecting a baby this summer with her Michigan husband.
“How are we treating people this way?” Cook said. “This is hurting so many people.”
She said many people can’t quarantine for 14 days.
Ashley Cook, a Windsor, Ont., physician, started a Facebook group for people affected by the border shutdown. She’s expecting a baby this summer with her husband, Tom Cook, who is in Michigan. (Submitted by Ashley Cook)
For example, Bartell’s husband is in Maine, her future home, and can’t leave for too long, as he’s running a farm with animals and a construction company.
He hasn’t been allowed to visit their two-month-old baby, and now Bartell fears he still won’t be able to under the new rules.
“I put on a pretty good front,” she said, “but I’m an emotional wreck.”
She said she leaves the phone next to her head at night because the sound of her husband breathing helps her fall asleep.
Scott, the new mother who lives near London, Ont., said her husband can’t self-quarantine in Canada for that long either, as he’s an active-duty member of the U.S. military stationed in Virginia. Her husband has been away for nearly half the life of their eight-month-old daughter.
[We’ve missed] so many milestones. First tooth, first word — which was ‘Dada,'” she said.
“[That’s] time that we will never be able to get back as a family.”
Anger over confusing, inconsistent rules
Separated couples are also fuming about what they see as double-standards — with different rules in different countries for different modes of transportation.
Take air travel. An official at U.S Customs and Border Protection confirmed Wednesday that the U.S. allows Canadian travellers in by plane.
That means someone living in a Canadian border town could visit a nearby U.S. town — provided they can get a plane ticket and fly there.
“It boggles my mind,” said April Umbenhower, Husak’s fiancée, who lives in Kingsville, Ont.
Ontario resident April Umbenhower, left, and her Michigan fiancé, Steven Husak. Husak organized couples like theirs to make a video titled, Love Is Essential. (Submitted by April Umbenhower)
Montrealer Béatrice Beuillé said she can’t understand why, in the name of public health, she’s barred from driving alone to Vermont — but it’s fine if she manages to find a short-haul flight.
“I don’t get the logic,” she said.
The Canadian government, meanwhile, said it treats land and air passengers the same way.Unlike the U.S., it has just relaxed rules for immediate family.
That can get murky, too.
A spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency said she could not give a definitive answer whether, for instance, unmarried parents of a Canadian newborn are considered each other’s immediate family.
The official suggested they likely would be, but it’s at the discretion of a border services officer. In any case, the visitor would need to quarantine and stay in Canada for the minimum 15 days.
Megan Scott, left, says her husband, Adam Scott, is active-duty U.S. military and can’t isolate from work for 14 days. As a result, he’s been away from her and their baby for months. (Submitted by Megan Scott)
Husak said people were hoping for broader exemptions this week, and many are struggling emotionally.
“This news really hurt,” he said.
Husak got to know a number of affected families when he gathered testimonials for a video about their stories.
The title of his video, Love Is Essential, is a riff on the idea that only essential workers are allowed to cross the border as a result of the agreement between Canada and the U.S.
WATCH | Husak’s Love is Essential video:
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Some of those cut off by the border closure expressed frustration that other activities are resuming, including businesses reopening and huge protests across major cities.
One Facebook group moderator urged people to stop posting about unrelated political issues — notably, the large Black Lives Matter protests.
Coping mechanisms
Ethan Gilson has a unique perspective on the longing for love.
He’s not only a fiancé stuck in limbo, he’s a mental-health counsellor in Vermont.
When asked about the effects of isolation, he mentioned studies involving rats, in which lonelier rats opted for drugs over water.
He suggested several coping mechanisms — meditation, yoga and counselling.
Gilson is also growing an increasingly unruly beard, the pandemic equivalent of a playoff beard. He’ll shave his off when he reunites with his partner, Béatrice Beuillé from Montreal.
One love story
He and Beuillé were in love before they had their first date. They met online, while she was visiting family in France, and he had her laughing so hard that she left the house to avoid waking her parents.
They finally met in person in Montreal.
“At the end of the [first] date, I told her I was going to marry her someday. She said, ‘I hope you do,'” Gilson said.
He proposed after six months, during a hike in Vermont. That was in early March.
Then the pandemic hit. “Which really sucked,” Gilson said.
Our biology is meant to be social. We’re always trying to connect.– Ethan Gilson
They managed to organize a date at a tiny border checkpoint on a hilly, country road. They set up lawn chairs on either side and talked for hours.
The next week, when they went back, they were scolded by border guards from both countries.
“They told us, ‘No, that was a mistake. We don’t want to be managing this. The law isn’t clear.’ So we continued via FaceTime,” said Beuillé, who works for a cargo company.
What’s next
She’s found this period isolating, living away from her family and Gilson, and not having even shaken a human hand in three months.
She’s tried calling government offices for information, but she got bounced from one to another.
The Canadian border is pictured at the Peace Arch Canada-U.S. border crossing in Surrey, B.C., on March 20. The closure of the border to non-essential travel has split up some families for months. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)
As month after month goes by, what most frustrates her is the lack of evidence of a long-term plan. It’s unclear, for example, what metrics governments are using to decide when to reopen the border, she said.
She and Gilson are starting to plan their wedding. He’s having a house built in Vermont. They hope to have the ceremony on the property and move in on the wedding day.
The mental-health counsellor offers a word to others struggling through this moment.
“Our biology is meant to be social. We’re always trying to connect,” Gilson said.
“This [isolation] is all going to end. This is not permanent.”
Premier David Eby is proposing an all-party committee investigate mistakes made during the British Columbia election vote tally, including an uncounted ballot box and unreported votes in three-quarters of the province’s 93 ridings.
The proposal comes after B.C.’s chief electoral officer blamed extreme weather, long working hours and a new voting system for human errors behind the mistakes in last month’s count, though none were large enough to change the initial results.
Anton Boegman says the agency is already investigating the mistakes to “identify key lessons learned” to improve training, change processes or make recommendations for legislative change.
He says the uncounted ballot box containing about 861 votes in Prince George-Mackenzie was never lost, and was always securely in the custody of election officials.
Boegman says a failure in five districts to properly report a small number of out-of-district votes, meanwhile, rippled through to the counts in 69 ridings.
Eby says the NDP will propose that a committee examine the systems used and steps taken by Elections BC, then recommend improvements in future elections.
“I look forward to working with all MLAs to uphold our shared commitment to free and fair elections, the foundation of our democracy,” he said in a statement Tuesday, after a news conference by Boegman.
Boegman said if an independent review does occur, “Elections BC will, of course, fully participate in that process.”
He said the mistakes came to light when a “discrepancy” of 14 votes was noticed in the riding of Surrey-Guildford, spurring a review that increased the number of unreported votes there to 28.
Surrey-Guildford was the closest race in the election and the NDP victory there gave Eby a one-seat majority. The discovery reduced the NDP’s victory margin from 27 to 21, pending the outcome of a judicial review that was previously triggered because the race was so close.
The mistakes in Surrey-Guildford resulted in a provincewide audit that found the other errors, Boegman said.
“These mistakes were a result of human error. Our elections rely on the work of over 17,000 election officials from communities across the province,” he said.
“Election officials were working 14 hours or more on voting days and on final voting day in particular faced extremely challenging weather conditions in many parts of the province.
“These conditions likely contributed to these mistakes,” he said.
B.C.’s “vote anywhere” model also played a role in the errors, said Boegman, who said he had issued an order to correct the results in the affected ridings.
Boegman said the uncounted Prince George-Mackenzie ballot box was used on the first day of advance voting. Election officials later discovered a vote hadn’t been tabulated, so they retabulated the ballots but mistakenly omitted the box of first-day votes, only including ballots from the second day.
Boegman said the issues discovered in the provincewide audit will be “fully documented” in his report to the legislature on the provincial election, the first held using electronic tabulators.
He said he was confident election officials found all “anomalies.”
B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad had said on Monday that the errors were “an unprecedented failure by the very institution responsible for ensuring the fairness and accuracy of our elections.”
Rustad said he was not disputing the outcomes as judicial recounts continue, but said “it’s clear that mistakes like these severely undermine public trust in our electoral process.”
Rustad called for an “independent review” to make sure the errors never happen again.
Boegman, who said the election required fewer than half the number of workers under the old paper-based system, said results for the election would be returned in 90 of the province’s 93 ridings on Tuesday.
Full judicial recounts will be held in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna-Centre, while a partial recount of the uncounted box will take place in Prince George-Mackenzie.
Boegman said out-of-district voting had been a part of B.C.’s elections for many decades, and explained how thousands of voters utilized the province’s vote-by-phone system, calling it a “very secure model” for people with disabilities.
“I think this is a unique and very important part of our elections, providing accessibility to British Columbians,” he said. “They have unparalleled access to the ballot box that is not found in other jurisdictions in Canada.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
WINNIPEG – A public memorial honouring former judge, senator and chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools, Murray Sinclair, is set to take place in Winnipeg on Sunday.
The event, which is being organized by the federal and Manitoba governments, will be at Canada Life Centre, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets.
Sinclair died Monday in a Winnipeg hospital at the age of 73.
A teepee and a sacred fire were set up outside the Manitoba legislature for people to pay their respects hours after news of his death became public. The province has said it will remain open to the public until Sinclair’s funeral.
Sinclair’s family continues to invite people to visit the sacred fire and offer tobacco.
The family thanked the public for sharing words of love and support as tributes poured in this week.
“The significance of Mazina Giizhik’s (the One Who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky) impact and reach cannot be overstated,” the family said in a statement on Tuesday, noting Sinclair’s traditional Anishinaabe name.
“He touched many lives and impacted thousands of people.”
They encourage the public to celebrate his life and journey home.
A visitation for extended family, friends and community is also scheduled to take place Wednesday morning.
Leaders from across Canada shared their memories of Sinclair.
Premier Wab Kinew called Sinclair one of the key architects of the era of reconciliation.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sinclair was a teacher, a guide and a friend who helped the country navigate tough realities.
Sinclair was the first Indigenous judge in Manitoba — the second in Canada.
He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba to examine whether the justice system was failing Indigenous people after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne and the police shooting death of First Nations leader J.J. Harper.
In leading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he participated in hundreds of hearings across Canada and heard testimony from thousands of residential school survivors.
The commissioners released their widely influential final report in 2015, which described what took place at the institutions as cultural genocide and included 94 calls to action.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
OTTAWA – Members of Parliament studying the federal government’s decision to buy a $9-million luxury condo in Manhattan are preparing to recall Canada’s consul general in New York to answer more questions about his involvement in the purchase.
The Conservatives put forward a motion on Tuesday to have Tom Clark return to the House operations committee. The move was supported by other opposition parties after new information emerged that contradicted his previous testimony.
Clark told the committee in September he had no role whatsoever in the purchase of the new condo, or the sale of the previous residence.
But reporting from Politico on Tuesday indicated Clark raised concerns about the old unit two months after he was appointed to his role as Canada’s representative in New York.
Politico cited documents obtained through access-to-information, which were then shared with other media by the Conservative party.
A May 2023 report from Global Affairs Canada indicates Clark informed government officials the residence needed to be replaced.
“The current (consul general in New York, head of mission) expressed concerns regarding the completion of the … kitchen and refurbishment project and indicated the unit was not suitable to be the (consul general’s) accommodations,” the report reads.
“It does not have an ideal floor plan for (consul general in New York) representational activities.”
The final call on whether Clark will face further questions has not been made, however, because the committee adjourned before the motion went to a vote. The committee’s next meeting is next week.
Tuesday’s meeting featured Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly as a witness, and she faced questions about Clark’s involvement in the purchase.
“This was not a political decision because this was an operational decision,” Joly told the committee in a testy exchange with Conservative MP Michael Barrett.
“(The committee) had numerous people, officials of mine, that came to see you and said that. So, these are the facts.”
Joly later told the committee she only learned of the decision to purchase a new residence through media reports, even though her chief of staff was notified weeks earlier.
“The department informed my chief of staff once the decision was taken. Because, of course, it was not a political decision,” Joly said.
Shortly before Joly was excused, Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie put forward the motion to recall Clark for two more hours to answer more questions.
Bloc MP Julie Vignola proposed instead to have him testify for only one hour — indicating she would support the motion with that change.
“One hour is more than enough to know whether he lied to us,” Vignola told her colleagues in French.
NDP MP Taylor Bachrach also said he would support the move, given the contrast between the new report and Clark’s testimony about whether he spoke to anyone about a desire to move into a new residence.
“What really irks me is the consul general was so clear in response to repeated questioning at committee,” Bachrach said.
“Mr. Clark said, ‘Never.’ One-word answer, ‘Never.’ You can’t get more unequivocal than that.”
The Liberal government has argued that buying the new residence will save Canadians taxpayers millions of dollars and reduce ongoing maintenance costs and property taxes while supporting future program needs for the consul general.
The former official residence is listed for sale at $13 million, but has yet to be sold.
In her remarks Tuesday, Joly told the committee other like-minded countries have paid more for their Manhattan residences than Canada has — including $11 million for the U.K., and France’s $19 million purchase in 2015.
Joly said among the countries that have residences in New York, only Afghanistan and Bangladesh were not located in Manhattan.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2024.
