Who pays the bill if a Trucker is “selected for quarantine”? Nicholls asks
“Wait….what?” one trucker asked, after reading that even double-vaxxed drivers could be “selected for quarantine” when their essential workers’ exemption is eliminated. “How would that work?” Road Warrior News requested that information from PHAC a week ago and still does not have the answer. Photo: Public Health Agency of Canada website
“Truckers who were exempted from showing proof of vaccine at the border for the past two years were also not at risk of being quarantined,” says Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls.
“Now that the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has indicated non-exempt essential workers like Truckers must be prepared to be ‘selected for quarantine,’ when the exemption is ended on January 15th, somebody needs to answer questions on how this will work.”
For example, Nicolls says, Truckers have asked for the following information:
- If I am selected for quarantine, where will my load go?
- What if I am carrying perishable products, like lettuce? Does the whole load get quarantined, or just the driver?
- Who pays for the down time for the truck?
- Who pays for the drivers’ time off in quarantine?
- Will drivers be allowed to quarantine at home, or could they be sent to a quarantine hotel?
“I am disappointed, but not surprised to see Justin Trudeau intentionally causing chaos at the border,” says Rick Nicholls, MPP for Chatham-Kent-Leamington. “All of this confusion could be avoided by simply extending the exemption Truckers have had for the past two years.
“Why hasn’t Doug Ford picked up the phone to call Trudeau and ask Canada to provide the same exemption to Truckers it has provided to hockey players and basketball players?”
The Public Health Agency of Canada told Road Warrior News it is working on the answer to these questions and hopes to have information in the afternoon of January 14th if it is available. Truckers will no longer be exempted from the vaccine mandate as of January 15th.
Melissa Lantsman, Conservative Transportation Critic, sent a letter to Minister Omar Alaghabra on January 5th asking him to share his plan for the January 15th border changes. She says not only has she not seen any plan, but her letter has not even been acknowledged by the Minister’s office.
“I never underestimate the incompetence of this government when it comes to to COVID, as you know, we have we have some of the some of the most out of step regimes on testing and travel,” Lantsman said, “And I think the government’s ignoring the very real fact of the supply chain issues we’re about to face if they don’t reverse their reversal.”
