Joe Oliver: What treatment of returning Canadians tells us about the government and ourselves

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The federal government’s treatment of Canadians flying home from foreign countries is vindictive, egregious and possibly unconstitutional. Its obvious purpose is to look tough and divert attention from the delay in acquiring vaccines that has put us in a humiliating 52nd place globally in full vaccinations per capita, at one-tenth the vaccination pace of the Americans. The prime minister and his colleagues must hope people unaffected by the border measures consider them to be appropriate or at least unobjectionable.

Under the guise of preventing COVID-19’s spread, returning Canadians are required to: show a negative result from a molecular test administered within 72 hours of departure time; submit to another test on arrival; then be confined for three nights at a government-designated hotel at a cost of up to $2,000 — even if they are fully vaccinated. If the second test result is negative, they are released to go home for a monitored 11-day quarantine and another test on day 10. However, if the second test is positive, then for 14 days they must “relocate to a designated quarantine facility or other suitable location as directed,” with the hope their residence is suitable. This is wrong on so many levels.

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According to the Canada Border Services Agency, 74 per cent of 8.6 million travellers who arrived in Canada since the start of the pandemic were exempt from testing or quarantine. That is almost 6.4 million people, including truck drivers and others providing essential services. Granted, we need them to cross the border freely, but no tests are required on arrival, not even rapid ones, which makes little sense. Despite this loophole through which many trucks literally drive, a mere 0.7 per cent of people contracted COVID from a traveller, according to an April 11, 2021 epidemiology update from the federal government. The punitive measures are clearly way out of proportion to the risk.

And they are unnecessary. Why should some travellers testing positive be prohibited from going home to quarantine when infected stay-in-country Canadians can do so? People have to congregate to check into the hotels and some angry guests have gathered to protest the lack of food. Such interactions put returnees in more danger than if they were safely at home. Perhaps for that reason some people have refused to comply with compulsory isolation and have been handed tickets, which they have vowed to fight in court.

The policy applies if travellers arrive by plane. But if they return by car or on foot (and I am not talking about illegal immigrants, who are another story), then hotel confinement rules are not applicable. This is odd since you supposedly cannot leave the country by car because “the border is closed” — except it is not.

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Ontario snowbirds can take advantage of that loophole by, for example, flying from their U.S. winter quarters to Buffalo, N.Y., and hiring a cab or renting a car to drive home. It is expensive and inconvenient but much less expensive and inconvenient than spending three nights in a locked hotel room, with shuttered windows and food that would cause prison riots. Mind you, the incarcerated wouldn’t need to travel to Florida for vaccinations even if they could because they have priority access to vaccines.

According to Dr. Rochelle Walensky of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control (CDC), “Our data … suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.” So why do draconian rules continue to apply to immunized Canadians who have tested negative, other than to punish them for leaving the country? Lifestyle resentment does not justify involuntary confinement, not in a country that values freedom.

Recall, this is the same somnolent government that for months permitted flights to arrive from Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic, and from many other countries, with the acquiescence of inexplicably inert or complicit health authorities. For a long time, passengers were not tested on arrival and were free to mingle with the general population, unless and until they fell deathly ill.

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The Canadian Constitution Foundation is challenging the enabling order-in-council for violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantees of liberty and freedom from arbitrary detention. The government will have to prove less severe procedures were not available to protect the public — which will be hard.

Canadians are worried about exposure to variants and many are hurting financially and psychologically. Understandably, they may not be focused on international travellers. But they should be concerned about seriously flawed public policy. We must be especially vigilant whenever government exploits an emergency to needlessly trample on fundamental human rights. Otherwise, ultimately, everyone’s freedom will be eroded.

Joe Oliver is a former minister of natural resources and minister of finance.