TORONTO —
As of early Wednesday morning, all travellers returning home to Canada must go into mandatory self-isolation for 14 days according to new measures being enacted under the federal Quarantine Act.
On Wednesday morning, Health Minister Patty Hajdu told the Senate that all travellers, with the exception of “essential workers,” will be legally obligated to isolate themselves upon their arrival in Canada to prevent further spread of the novel coronavirus. She said the new measure will provide “clarity” to those re-entering the country.
During a scrum with reporters following the Senate proceedings, Hajdu said Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers will inform arriving passengers of their new obligation to self-isolate.
The health minister said all international travellers will be told they won’t be allowed to make any stops along the way on their journey home and they will not be allowed to take public transportation. She clarified that this would be the case for all returning travellers and not just those exhibiting symptoms, as she said earlier in the day.
Hajdu said the government will make travel arrangements for those who don’t have private transportation lined up.
The health minister also said travellers will be forbidden from self-isolating in a place where they may come into contact with vulnerable people, such as the elderly or those with underlying medical conditions. Hajdu said the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) will make alternative arrangements for accommodations for those individuals.
To ensure the rules are being followed, Hajdu said officials will collect travellers’ contact information to follow up with them and there will be random inspections.
“My officials are working with CBSA right now to ensure that people know that this will be serious and that there will be significant penalties if people violate the quarantine,” she said.
Travellers arriving at one of the four international airports and connecting onwards will be forced to isolate for 14 days in the city they land in, the health minister said.
“We will provide the accommodations and meals for those situations,” she said.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the health minister is using powers that she has under the Quarantine Act and they’re required now to flatten the curve of COVID-19 in the country.
“All Canadians have been working very, very hard to practice physical distancing in their lives and we have for some time now been urgently advising people coming into Canada to self-isolate for 14 days upon their return. We have decided that now is the time to make that measure mandatory,” Freeland said during a press conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday.
“I think we all really appreciate that it is so important to have this self-isolation to protect the health and safety of Canadians.”
Freeland said the issue had been debated “at length” during the coronavirus cabinet committee meeting on Monday night.
While the government has been urging travellers returning to Canada to enter into a two-week self-isolation for weeks, the new measure will make it illegal to disobey. Those caught in contravention of the act may be subject to fines or even arrest, according to the federal government.
“I think all Canadians understand that this is a serious situation,” she said. “It will get worse before it gets better.”
Under the Quarantine Act, which received a major overhaul in 2005 following the SARS outbreak of 2003, the federal government can impose significant measures aimed at preventing the spread of a virus.
The deputy prime minister stressed that travellers should already be doing this in order to protect the health and safety of their fellow Canadians.
“If we can flatten the curve, then we can go back to normal life more quickly,” she emphasized.
International travel, particularly from hard-hit countries such as China, Iran, and South Korea and then later Europe and the U.S., has been identified as one of the major reasons for the virus’ spread in Canada.
Earlier this month, the Canadian government followed the lead of other countries and closed their borders to foreign visitors. The Canada-U.S. border has also been closed to all non-essential travel.
Freeland said those essential workers returning to Canada from the U.S. will not be subject to the mandatory 14-day isolation.
“We need to be thoughtful about how the people who provide those essential services, including cross-border trade, are treated,” she 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.
