For one Ottawa resident, it’s good to be back on Canadian soil.
Kai Huang and his 78-year-old mother Yi Huang had been stuck in Wuhan, China, ever since the city was placed in lockdown in late January.
The 50-year-old wasn’t able to board the chartered flight Ottawa sent, but was told by Canada’s embassy in China that he and his mother had seats on a U.S. flight.
Both planes touched down in Trenton Friday.
“It’s really exciting,” Huang told Power & Politics Friday from CFB Trenton.
“We were really anxious and nervous [about] if we were going back to Canada.”
The first plane, carrying 174 Canadians, landed at the military base early Friday. The plane Huang was on, carrying 39 Canadian passengers who hitched a ride on a U.S. government-chartered flight, landed Friday afternoon.
No signs of coronavirus in repatriated Canadians
Ottawa is planning to send another chartered flight to Wuhan to repatriate more Canadians looking to leave Hubei province.
“The repatriated Canadians and their family members were met at Canadian Forces Base Trenton by Canada Border Services Agency officers, and were thoroughly assessed by quarantine officers from the Public Health Agency of Canada,” a joint press release from Public Health and Foreign Affairs reads.
According to the release issued Saturday, none of the repatriated Canadians show symptoms of coronavirus.
Huang has been concerned about whether his mother would make it back to Canada on either flight.
Only Canadian citizens and permanent residents accompanying Canadian children were allowed to board Ottawa’s first flight out of the coronavirus epicentre – a decision made by Chinese officials.
Worried mother would be left behind
Huang, a Canadian citizen, had made the difficult decision to leave his mother behind because he wanted to be with his one-year-old daughter back in Ottawa. But he’s an only child and felt troubled leaving his mother in the coronavirus epicentre.
“If she gets the infection, [it will] probably be life-threatening,” he said. “Because if she goes to the hospital – around the hospital is very dangerous right now.”
But the Ottawa man soon learned that neither he nor his mother, who is a permanent resident of Canada, were on the list of evacuees allowed on Canada’s chartered flight home.
Then, without much warning, the Embassy of Canada in Beijing sent Huang a letter saying both he and his mother could leave on the U.S.-chartered flight. That letter allowed Huang to bypass checkpoints on the way to the airport.
“Before we go to the airport, we don’t know exactly [if she’s allowed] to board or not,” Huang said.
“We don’t know. We just go to the airport. Eventually, we find her name and my name on the list. We can go.”
Now the mother and son will be spending a lot of time together as they’re quarantined together for two weeks at the military base.
Comfortable conditions
Huang said the room where he and his mother are staying in is clean, has WiFi, a telephone and is stocked with a refrigerator, microwave oven, furniture and a television to help pass the time. He describes the living conditions as “comfortable.”
Huang said the guests aren’t supposed to mingle but are allowed outside.
Following the flight, he said his mother is exhausted, but likewise happy to be back in Canada.
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.
