Canada’s border closure to non-essential travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic — which is continuing until at least Jan. 21 — has sparked confusion and questions about who can and cannot enter.
To help unravel the country’s complex border restrictions, CBC News spoke with Denis Vinette, vice-president of the COVID-19 Border Task Force at the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA).
“It’s been quite staggering,” Vinette said about how the pandemic has affected Canada’s borders. “The challenge on this has been dealing with — implementing these [border] controls.”
In late March, Canada closed its borders to foreigners visiting for non-essential reasons. Since then, more than seven million Canadians and foreigners have entered the country by land or air, according to the CBSA. That number includes multiple entries made by the same individuals.
The tally is actually a drop in the bucket compared with 2019 when, oftentimes, more than seven million people entered Canada in a single month.
Denis Vinette is vice-president of the Canada Border Services Agency’s COVID-19 Border Task Force and its Travellers Branch. He says Canadian citizens and permanent residents make up the largest group of people entering the country during the border shutdown. (CBSA)
Truckers keep the economy moving
Vinette said truck drivers account for the largest group of people entering Canada during the pandemic, making up about half of the total entries so far.
The second-biggest group is individuals who live in border towns and have jobs on the opposite side of the border, he said.
Both groups are exempt from Canada’s 14-day quarantine requirement — which was designed to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
“Most of the trade in North America, between Canada and U.S., is by truck. It would come to a standstill” if truckers had to quarantine each time they entered, Vinette said.
“One of the early onset direction[s] that we received from the government was let’s make sure that trade continues to operate, flourish.”
When looking at nationalities, Vinette said, Canadian citizens and permanent residents make up the largest group of people entering the country during the border shutdown. That group includes leisure travellers.
Truck drivers have made up about half the more than seven million entries to Canada since the border closed to non-essential travel in late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Jeffrey T. Barnes/The Associated Press)
“There’s nothing that prevents a Canadian from leaving Canada, and when they return, they enter by right,” Vinette said.
According to CBSA data, just over one million Canadian air passengers have entered the country since March 21.
CBSA made mistakes
While it may be obvious why truck drivers get a free pass, questions have been raised about why some other travellers were granted entry to Canada — and got to bypass the quarantine requirement.
CBC News recently reported that the CEOs of two large U.S. companies — shipping giant Uline Inc. and retailer Costco — were each allowed to enter Canada and skip quarantine in August. During each of their short trips, the CEOs visited company-owned operations in Ontario.
Vinette said that, in both cases, CBSA officers misinterpreted the CEOs’ travel as essential and mistakenly allowed them to enter.
“Regrettably it did occur.”
Vinette said that the CBSA has since clarified with its officers what types of business travel qualifies as essential.
“Typically to come in and just visit your operations for the purposes of your annual visits would not be permitted,” he said.
WATCH | Costco executives mistakenly get quarantine exemption, Ottawa says:
CBC News has learned that Costco executives from the U.S., including the CEO, were given an exemption to Canada’s quarantine rules by border officers in August, which Canada Border Services Agency now says was an error. The exemption happened on the same day another group of U.S. executives received an exemption. 2:03
Since the start of the border closure, Americans have been allowed to drive directly through Canada to Alaska for non-discretionary reasons, such as for work or to return home. By the summer, it became clear that some were breaking the rules by going off-route for leisure trips during their treks.
“We had instances where people would enter in Quebec, transiting to Alaska from the East Coast, and they would spend upwards of two weeks in Canada,” Vinette said.
In response, CBSA now designates which border crossings Alaska-bound drivers can enter and the date by which they must exit Canada.
“Anyone who has taken more time will be subject to more scrutiny and perhaps even be refused entry to Canada in the future,” Vinette said.
Americans still trying to cross to shop
While millions of travellers have entered Canada during the border shutdown, CBSA has also denied entry to 28,612 foreigners (mostly Americans) who tried to cross from the U.S. by land or air, because they wanted to visit for non-essential reasons such as shopping or sightseeing.
More than 4,000 of them were denied entry in the past two months — despite months of news reports and warnings posted by the CBSA about the Canada-U.S. border shutdown.
“Some arrive unknowingly, not understanding or not having … captured any of our media around, ‘Now is not the time to travel,'” Vinette said.
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For the first six months of the pandemic, CBSA officers also had to turn away many people trying to visit loved ones in Canada, including their partners. Although Canada began allowing foreigners with immediate family to enter in September, many unmarried couples didn’t qualify.
“It was heartbreaking because you had folks arriving at the border, wanting to reunite, not having been with partners for long periods of time,” Vinette said.
Canada further loosened its travel restrictions on Oct. 8, allowing some extended family and couples dating for at least a year to reunite — once they get pre-approval from the government.
“It has certainly made [a border officer’s] job a whole lot easier,” Vinette said.
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.
