A number of young scouts are stuck in Zurich after some members of their group missed an Air Canada flight to Toronto on Friday and it’s not clear whether travel insurance will cover their return, one of their mothers says.
“It was a great experience until it was time to come home,” Karina Vega, the mother of one of the scout members, told CTV News Toronto on Saturday afternoon.
Her 14-year-old son Marcus Roy set out on a 10-day trip to Switzerland with his contingent of scouts aged 12 to 14 from Bancroft, Ont. The main event of the trip was the World Scouts Jamboree, a gathering of the worldwide scout community.
But on their way home, the Bancroft contingent faced challenges with the ArriveCan app. The leaders had entered the group’s information on the app, but when they arrived at the airport, they discovered only the information for the two adults was logged. They also couldn’t get Wi-Fi at the airport because they didn’t have a local phone number.
“By the time they got everything sorted out, the check-in desk closed,” Vega said. “They literally saw their flight leave.”
According to Air Canada, 15 of the 21 people in the group flew home on July 15, while six others – including two adults – were not on the flight due to lengthy security lines.
As a group, Vega said, they paid for travel insurance.
“Air Canada won’t respect their travel insurance policy, which they purchased at an extra cost and includes missing flights,” she said. She added that it was going to cost $1,800 per kid to fly home.
“All of our kids are Canadian citizens, they’re scared, tired and very stressed,” Vega said.
The mother says the parents enlisted Scouts Canada, the group who organized the trip, for help with getting their kids home.
“We just got a call saying the embassy is involved,” Vega said.
CTV News Toronto has reached out to the Canadian embassy for comment and is waiting on a response.
Meanwhile, Air Canada confirmed that some members of the group missed their flight, but did not comment on whether or not the airline would honour the group’s travel insurance.
“Since they booked via a travel agency, someone has already reached out to their travel agent to assist,” a spokesperson for the airline said.
Vega said her son, along with the other five members of the group, is now at a hotel and in “better spirits” since the embassy got involved.
“At the beginning, everyone was pretty stressed out, crying, upset, but now their mood has changed because the embassy of Canada has contacted them directly,” she said.
Now, she’s hopeful her son will be on a flight home soon.
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.
