Author: Rita Smith

In response to questions sent by Road Warrior News last week, Health Canada has provided the following answers. To avoid any confusion in interpreting the information, here are the questions and answers exactly as received:

“Where will the load go? What if the truck is carrying perishable products, like lettuce? Does the whole load get quarantined, or just the driver? Will drivers be allowed to quarantine at home, or could they be sent to a quarantine hotel? 

Commercial drivers who are required to quarantine are able to proceed to their final destination and be considered in quarantine while doing so, so long as they follow specific instructions provided to them on entry, including minimizing time outside of their conveyance and have no contact with others. Once drivers deliver their load to their final destination, they are required to continue to quarantine at a fixed location. 

 “This is the right decision, and it speaks well of those who made it,” Rick Nicholls, MPP for Chatham-Kent-Leamington says of Canada’s decision to maintain the essential workers exemption for Truck drivers crossing the border. According to numerous sources, it appears the federal government is backing down on a vaccine mandate for Canadian Truck drivers.  

Trucking firms in his riding have already told Nicholls that they are very pleased with Canada’s decision and hope that the U.S. will follow suit, he says.

On January 13^th, Nicholls placed a call to Ontario Premier Doug Ford, and emailed him a letter, urging him to request American trade partners suspend any new Border policy.

It appears Canada’s federal government is backing down on a vaccine mandate for Canadian Truck drivers, three days before the January 15^th deadline was set to take effect.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has informed Road Warrior News in an email that unvaccinated, or partially vaccinated, Canadian truck drivers arriving at the border on January 15^th will “remain exempt” from arrival and post-arrival testing and quarantine requirements.

Truck drivers are more important than basketball players, Rick Nicholls told Doug Ford in a letter sent January 11^th.

“Please pick up the phone and call Justin Trudeau. Please tell him that truck drivers are more important than basketball and hockey players. Please ask him not to eliminate the essential workers exemption for truck drivers,” Nicholls wrote. He was referring to the January 15^th deadline for elimination of the essential workers’ exemption for truckers crossing the US border.

“Doug Ford needs to pick up the phone and call his friend Chrystia Freeland. He needs to tell the Trudeau government to back down on eliminating the COVID exemption for truckers crossing the border,” says Rick Nicholls, MPP for Chatham-Kent-Leamington.

“The Trudeau government is manufacturing another crisis that could mean food shortages for all Canadians…I look forward to seeing stories about Justin Trudeau and his family not getting the food they need. Do you think we will see that happen? I doubt it,” Nicholls says.