SASKATOON —
Travellers say they’re frustrated by long wait times to book hotel quarantines and chaotic service during their stays.
Raymond Truesdale recorded a now-viral video of a crowd of hotel guests yelling at staff in a government-sanctioned hotel in Toronto on Friday. They said they hadn’t been fed for hours and weren’t getting clear answers from the front desk.
“It was a boondoggle. Pandemonium. You could see people really frustrated and I don’t blame them” he told CTV News in a video interview.
Truesdale, who is returning from a work trip in Tennessee, explained that fellow travellers were exhausted from 12- to 14-hour flights from overseas.
The new hotel stay requirement — which can cost between $1,000 and $2,000 depending on the hotel — began on Monday. All incoming air travellers to Canada must spend at least three days in one of the government’s approved hotels, at their own expense, as they await results of a COVID-19 test they were required to take when they landed in Canada.
A lack of bottled water and hot, prompt meals were two of many issues travellers say they faced, as well as poor service, minimal hotel security, and poor communication.
Arunthia Urmi, who stayed at a Holiday Inn in Toronto, told CTV News she wasn’t given any utensils with her late dinner and was running out of bottled water.
“I was so hungry. I called so many times,” she said, recalling her attempts to get more water from staff. “They said, ‘we can only give with meals, dinner and lunch, one bottle [each]. Other than that, you drink from the tap.’”
Jordan Evans, who flew in from Arkansas to be with her partner in Montreal, said at her quarantine hotel, she was given extra bottled water after waiting for more than six hours.
“[My supper] was cold. It was not what I ordered and they didn’t put a beverage in there. So I didn’t have a drink,” she told CTV News in a video interview, adding that her breakfast was only two small drinks, a yogurt cup and two pieces of bread.
The Hotel Association of Canada told CTV News the health and safety of its guests is its top priority.
“The health and safety of guests and staff is our top priority. We will continue to implement the advice of public health experts including the best practices provided by PHAC for those specific hotels,” a spokesperson said in an email, adding that every hotel is operated individually.
“The cost of each stay will vary between hotels, with additional fees for meals, augmented security, supervised movement to outdoor areas, designated transportation, and additional infection control measures.”
The mandatory, non-refundable hotel stay — which some travellers have skirted — requires travellers to show proof of their hotel booking before boarding their flight.
With no online option, the only way to book a room is through a dedicated phone line run by the Public Health Agency of Canada. But the influx of calls has clogged the lines, with many travellers experiencing frequent dropped calls and wait times of up to 16 hours.
‘I’M NOT ANGRY… I JUST WISH THE MEASURES WORKED’
David Anjo, who is moving back to Canada in July after 10 years of living in Vietnam, was unsuccessful in booking a hotel after spending half a day trying.
“The experience calling on a phone system that really wasn’t designed from the get-go to be very effective has been pretty frustrating,” Anjo told The Canadian Press. “There’s no doubt in my mind they could have done this a lot better.”
Dr. Rosa Wu, a psychotherapist who lives in the Vancouver area and returned from Taiwan to deal with a family health scare, said it took her husband three tries and nearly 10 hours to get through to an agent.
“I’m not angry at the fact that we have to do this,” she told The Canadian Press, from her room at the Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver International Airport. “I think it’s about time Canada implemented strict measures. I just wish the measures worked.”
The phone line received 20,000 calls on Feb. 19, the first day it was introduced, the Public Health Agency of Canada told CTV News earlier this week. That figure was 15,000 on Feb. 20 and 10,000 on Feb. 21.
Wu said she ended up paying $2,000 for three nights, despite receiving her negative test result after the first day. She didn’t anticipate following the rules would prove this difficult and said travellers like her — who didn’t go abroad for vacation — have paid the price for a chaotic rollout of the quarantine program.
Megan Kat, a spokeswoman for American Express Global Business Travel, which is running the phone line for hotel bookings, said the company was aware of the high volume of inquiries and the wait times that callers were experiencing.
“We will continue to work with the Public Health Agency of Canada to mitigate caller wait times and provide the necessary support to those people arriving in Canada that need to book a hotel room,” Kat told The Canadian Press.
The hotel-stay quarantines are part of the federal government’s attempts to crack down on non-essential travel amid increasing concern about more infectious variants of COVID-19.
“I’m just hoping that they’ll figure out something more efficient, in terms of booking the hotels,” Wu said, “because right now, it’s a complete disaster.”
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.
