While U.S. and international flights coming into Canada have been significantly curtailed since the outbreak of COVID-19, thousands of passengers are still arriving each week at the country’s airports.
It’s an issue that at least one infection control epidemiologist believes is cause for concern.
“The fact of the matter is this pandemic arrived everywhere in the world through travel,” said Colin Furness, who is also an assistant professor with the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information.
“We should be closing our borders as much as we can. We can’t bring [the number of entrants] down to zero but we should get as close as we can.”
According to the Canada Border Services Agency, 356,673 air travellers came into Canada from the U.S. last year during the week of May 11-17. In the same time period this year, there was a nearly 99 per cent drop.
Yet 3,691 people still entered Canada that week.
As well, international travel in that time period saw a 97 per cent decrease from last year’s total of 374,775. This year, during that same week, 10,845 people arrived at one of the four Canadian airports that accept international flights — Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.
In total, since March 23, 76,072 passengers from the U.S. and 193,438 international travellers have arrived in Canada.
Travel-related cases dropped
Two months ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that for air travel specifically, as of March 18, the government was barring foreign nationals from all countries except the U.S. from entering Canada.
But an order in council later that month exempted a number of individuals, including immediate family members of a Canadian citizen, emergency service providers, temporary foreign workers and international students.
The ban came at a time when the vast majority of COVID-19 cases were deemed to be travel-related. Since those restrictions have been implemented, travel-related cases of COVID-19 have dropped significantly.
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, as of May 25, 81 per cent of all COVID-19 cases were related to community transmission. Meanwhile, 19 per cent of cases were the result of someone becoming exposed while travelling or being exposed to a traveler coming to Canada. Nine per cent of cases were those who reported to have travelled outside of Canada.
A series of social distancing policies have been implemented on aircraft in the wake of the pandemic, including the mandatory wearing of masks. (Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press)
“The data from PHAC suggest that since the borders were closed, international travel is rarely a cause of cases in Canada — the biggest category by far is domestic spread,” said Dr. Michael Gardam, an infectious disease specialist and chief of staff at Humber River Hospital in Toronto, in an email.
“I don’t think the risk [of international travel] is zero but it is much lower than it used to be, especially since international arrivals must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.”
But Furness said some countries that seemed to get the virus under control have experienced small flare-ups because of infections related to travel.
“It may well be that we’re not seeing a large number of travel-related cases, but one case can then spawn one more, which then spawns a whole ton of community spread,” Furness said.
‘Trusting people to self-isolate’
Anyone arriving in Canada by air or land must complete a contact tracing form to help PHAC monitor and enforce the 14-day quarantine or isolation requirement. Failing to comply with the Quarantine Act can lead to a fine of up to $750,000 and/or imprisonment for six months.
“Those that aren’t [self-isolating] I imagine are in the minority,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease specialist and researcher based at Toronto General Hospital.
“I think it’s safe to assume the vast majority of those individuals are adhering to the 14 days isolation.”
Last week, PHAC revealed to CBC News that police officers have made nearly 2,200 home visits to make sure Canadians are complying with the self-isolation rules when they return to Canada.
PHAC said there have been no arrests under the Quarantine Act since the pandemic restrictions began.
Still, Trudeau told reporters last week “we need to do more to ensure that travellers who are coming back from overseas or from the United States … are properly followed up on, are properly isolated and don’t become further vectors for the spread of COVID-19.”
He said conversations were ongoing with the premiers regarding potential monitoring tools for those arriving in Canada.
Stringent policies
Recently, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced his government was implementing more stringent measures at the province’s two international airports in Calgary and Edmonton to screen incoming passengers from outside Canada for symptoms of COVID-19.
Travellers arriving from destinations outside Canada will undergo temperature scans and provide provincial officials with details of their 14-day mandatory quarantine plan. That includes where they will stay and how they will get there.
Travellers without such plans or private transport to their destinations will be isolated on site, Kenney said.
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In April, the federal government announced that all air travellers would have to wear face masks while in transit and whenever maintaining two metres’ separation from others is not possible.
Passengers arriving in or departing from Canada have to prove they have a non-medical mask or face covering with them during the boarding process. If they can’t, they can be prevented from continuing their journey.
Some airlines have capped the number of tickets they sell, or ensure that the middle seat is kept empty.
However, the International Air Transport Association, in an effort to restart commercial flights, suggested this month that it was time to end some of the in-flight physical distancing rules.
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.
