VANCOUVER —
The latest rules for travellers arriving in Canada are ruffling feathers among snowbirds wintering south of the border, while those who stayed home wonder why thousands opted to travel during the pandemic.
Valorie Crooks, Canada research chair in health service geographies, said everyone has had access to the same public health information and snowbirds who flocked south “did what they felt was allowable.”
There is no ban on travel and snowbirds don’t think of themselves as vacationers, said Crooks, a professor at Simon Fraser University who’s done research for years with snowbird communities in Florida and Arizona.
“They’re viewing this as part of their life or lifestyle,” she said, noting snowbirds relocate for extended periods of time and they’re used to factoring health considerations into their decision-making.
Some snowbirds feel late government communication on travel during the pandemic has left them hanging, said Crooks, as stricter requirements come into force in days ahead for anyone arriving in Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week that anyone arriving in Canada by land must present negative COVID-19 test results starting Monday. Those without the requisite test results could be fined up to $3,000.
Travellers arriving by air have been required to show the results of a molecular (PCR) test no more than three days old since last month.
The Canadian Snowbird Association has decried an added requirement that air travellers take a second test upon arrival and stay in a hotel for around three days while awaiting results, with a potential price tag of $2,000 each.
In a recent letter to the federal transportation minister, president Karen Huestis wrote the cost of the hotel stay poses financial hardship for many and travellers who test negative should be able to quarantine in their homes.
Those arriving in Canada by land won’t be required to quarantine in a hotel.
It’s unclear when air travellers will start being ushered into hotels near one of the four Canadian airports currently accepting international flights in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal. Hotels had until Wednesday to apply to be among those on a list inbound passengers may choose from.
The prospect of quarantining in a hotel sent some snowbirds flying back to Canada early, while others take their chances or extend their southern stays.
Dr. Morley Rubinoff, 71, said he left his condo in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, about six weeks early this year to avoid what he called “hotel hell.”
The semi-retired dental specialist said he arrived in Mexico on Dec. 31 and planned to stay until mid-March before returning to Toronto.
Rubinoff said he wore a mask “constantly” and had very little contact with anyone while in Mexico, setting him apart from tourists at nearby resorts.
“We’re not the same,” he said, adding he has permanent residency in Mexico.
Rubinoff said he believes the latest travel rules are mainly aimed at preventing short trips by vacationers over holidays in February and March, while snowbirds should be recognized as a distinct group.
Denise Dumont, a Canadian who lives full time in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., echoed Rubinoff, saying snowbirds “don’t act like regular visitors.”
“I don’t think it is fair to treat them like a simple visitor who will go for an all-inclusive two-week vacation in Mexico,” said Dumont, the editor in chief of Le Soleil de la Floride, an online source for francophone news in Florida.
Dumont would like to see an exemption to the hotel stay so that snowbirds returning to Canada with a negative COVID-19 test and proof they’ve been vaccinated against the illness may go straight home to quarantine.
Toronto-based insurance broker Martin Firestone said he’s advised against travelling during the pandemic, but more than a thousand of his snowbird clients are abroad and they’re all opposed to the hotel quarantine.
He said about a third of his clients headed south in November and hundreds more were spurred on in January by the accessibility of COVID-19 vaccine in Florida for people age 65 and older, though Firestone is careful not to count his clients among “vaccine tourists,” since most own property there.
Some of Firestone’s clients are extending their travel insurance in hopes of returning to Canada when travel rules are relaxed, but he noted Canadians may only stay in the United States for 182 days per year before having to file U.S. taxes or potentially putting their Canadian health insurance at risk.
“I’m very wary to tell all clients who are extending, if you went down in November, I have concerns that you’re still sitting there in May and June because you’re waiting to avoid this three-day hotel thing.”
He’s also concerned clients who buy travel insurance to cover treatment in case of illness or injury unrelated to COVID-19 could encounter hospitals where resources are stretched to the limit due to the pandemic.
There are many reasons behind snowbirds’ decisions to travel to warmer climates each year, including during the pandemic, said Crooks.
“You get a lot of people discussing things like improved arthritis symptoms, even changes to the amount of medication that is required.”
Others have planned their retirement finances around “snowbirding” and the pandemic has not changed that budgetary reality, she said.
Crooks said she believes snowbirds are a distinct group needing tailored messaging that addresses specific concerns related to their return to Canada “with all the baggage that entails,” including pets, for example.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2021.
This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
OTTAWA – A CSIS official denies they threatened a Montreal man who was later imprisoned and allegedly tortured by authorities in Sudan.
The spy service employee, who can only be identified as Witness C to protect their identity, is testifying in Abousfian Abdelrazik’s lawsuit against the federal government.
Abdelrazik claims Canadian officials arranged for his arbitrary imprisonment, encouraged his detention by Sudanese authorities and actively obstructed his repatriation to Canada for several years.
The Sudanese-born Abdelrazik was arrested in September 2003 while in his native country to see his ailing mother.
Witness C, who had previously spoken to Abdelrazik in Montreal, travelled to Khartoum to interrogate him.
In Federal Court today, the witness acknowledged telling Abdelrazik in Canada that he should not travel, but characterized that as sincere advice to protect him rather than a threat.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – A disciplinary investigation has found a former Vancouver police sergeant shared “disrespectful” commentary on a fellow officer’s court testimony about being sexually assaulted by a colleague.
The decision against Narinder Dosanjh, obtained by The Canadian Press, includes the running commentary on the woman’s testimony — apparently written by someone inside the courtroom — that calls her a “bad drunk” and says there was “no way” her case would be proved.
Former New Westminster police chief Dave Jansen, the external officer who rendered the decision against Dosanjh, says his assessment accounts for a culture of treating officers who testify against each other as “rats.”
Former Vancouver constable Jagraj Roger Berar was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to a year in jail for assaulting the woman, who can’t be identified because of a publication ban on her name.
Jansen says in his ruling, dated Oct. 11, that the comments in a Vancouver police group chat appear “supportive” of Berar and reflect “all-too-common myths” about women who make sexual assault allegations.
While Jansen found Dosanjh committed discreditable conduct by sharing the chats, a complaint against a more-senior Vancouver officer who was inside the courtroom, and who the victim and other officers believed wrote the commentary, were not substantiated.
The ruling says Jansen, who retired as New Westminster’s chief constable, would accept submissions before deciding how Dosanjh should be punished.
The woman who was assaulted was the complainant in the disciplinary investigation, and said in an interview she felt “vindicated” by Jansen’s decision because it “truly paints what I’ve been through,” after reporting a fellow officer for sexual assault.
She said many other women in municipal policing fear speaking out about ill-treatment at work, and some have told her about being assaulted and harassed but feared ruining their careers if they complained.
“This decision is important for those women to see,” she said. “It shows the tides are changing. Like, this is the first win I’ve had.”
A spokesman for the Surrey Police Service, where Dosanjh now works, did not immediately answer a question about how he was penalized, and said Dosanjh declined an interview request with The Canadian Press.
In his decision, Jansen said there was an “unfortunate but often pervasive” culture of treating officers who complain as “‘rats’, who betrayed their colleagues.”
“In terms of the messages themselves, Sergeant Dosanjh alleges that they are not degrading, humiliating or derogatory and do not attack the personal character of the complainant. I disagree,” Jansen wrote.
The decision includes a screenshot of the commentary about the complainant, who said the order of the messages appeared to refer to her evidence while she was being cross-examined and suggested the comments were written by someone listening to her testimony.
The commentary on a Vancouver police chat group on the Signal messaging app said the victim “wore a wire twice,” and “admitted in cross to possibly drinking way more alcohol than she originally claimed.”
“Her memory is super hazy and there’s no way you can prove beyond reasonable doubt,” the person wrote.
“And she admitted that she is really bad drunk,” they added.
Another message said it was a “nail in the coffin” of the case that video showed the complainant “cuddling, holding hands” with Berar.
The victim, who became aware of the commentary when a friend in the department showed them to her, was distressed by the messages and disputed their accuracy, said Jansen.
“The comments also appear to reflect some of the all-too-common myths around women making allegations of sexual assault. Some of these myths include the belief that because a victim socialized with the perpetrator, or engaged in some consensual activity with him, therefore she must have consented to the assault,” he wrote.
Jansen’s decision said Dosanjh shared the messages with a fellow officer after getting them from a “VPD chat group that he claims he knew little about, from a co-worker he claims not to be able to identify.”
The decision said other officers believed the commentary was written bya more-senior officer in the department who had been present at the trial, but Jansen said the discreditable conduct complaint against that person was unsubstantiated.
The decision said Dosanjh claimed he was the “fall guy” and “a pawn in a broader game.”
Jansen’s decision said Dosanjh was a senior officer and supervisor who was aware of the “vulnerability of victims of sexual crimes and of the myths that surround sexual assault victims.”
It said Dosanjh’s “distribution of these messages that were disrespectful of an alleged victim of sexual violence who was also a co-worker, should they become public, would likely discredit the reputation of the police force.”
The Vancouver Police Department did not immediately provide comment on Jansen’s decision.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
FREDERICTON – The offspring of beetles imported from British Columbia are ready to take up the fight against an invasive insect that is killing hemlock trees in Nova Scotia.
Last fall and spring, about 5,000 Laricobius nigrinus beetles — affectionately called Lari by scientists — made an overnight journey from the West Coast.
Lucas Roscoe, research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service, says in the fight against the woolly adelgid that is destroying swaths of hemlock trees in Nova Scotia, the first step was to make sure the Lari beetle can survive a Nova Scotia winter.
The one-to-two-millimetre black flying beetles were released across six sites in Nova Scotia that had the woolly adelgids.
In one of the sites, scientists placed cages of imported beetles and about 60 per cent of them were able to survive the winter in Nova Scotia, which Roscoe says is an encouraging rate.
He says the woolly adelgid was first seen in southwestern Nova Scotia in 2017 and the peppercorn-sized insect, aided by climate change, has since spread north.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.
