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Companies that were in favor of vaccines now say Ottawa is going too far
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June 2, 2022 • 2 hours ago • 5 minutes of reading • 107 comments WestJet has laid off 4,000 of its 14,000 workers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with another 1,000 employees currently on sick leave. Air Canada has laid off 20,000 of its initial 40,000 employees. Photo by Darryl Dyck / The Canadian Press / File
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MAIN HISTORY
As the federal government continues to impose strict restrictions on COVID-19 far beyond the point at which foreign governments have abandoned them, it is beginning to provoke something that was largely absent in the early stages of the pandemic: repression of the industry. .
“The vaccination mandate for air travelers and employees must be dropped,” WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech wrote in a tweet on Tuesday. “Because vaccines do not prevent the virus from spreading from the omicron, there is no more logic to maintaining it.”
The vaccination mandate for air travelers and employees must be abandoned. Because vaccines do not prevent the spread of the virus from the #omicron, there is no logic to maintaining it. This will also ease some of the operational challenges at airports.
– Alexis von Hoensbroech (@AHoensbroech) May 31, 2022
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The statement came on the same day that the Public Health Agency of Canada announced that COVID restrictions on the border would be extended until at least June 30.
For another month, anyone entering Canada will be subject to randomized testing and will need to prove their immunization status by posting their immunization details (including vaccine type and date) on the phone application. smart ArriveCAN.
In addition, federals still maintain mandates prohibiting unvaccinated Canadians from boarding a commercial aircraft, either as a passenger or as a crew member.
PHAC mandates were extended despite a chorus of industry groups calling on Ottawa to withdraw from COVID restrictions, in part because they were precipitating overwhelming waiting times at Canadian airports.
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Last week, the International Air Transport Association hinted that Ottawa should file the ArriveCAN application and lift vaccination warrants for air travelers to curb “massive delays in immigration and security.”
“Passengers on almost every second international arrival flight suffered immigration delays, which in some cases included waiting on the plane for up to three hours before being able to disembark,” a statement read.
We fully support this urgent request that the Canadian government take immediate action to reduce the massive delays in immigration and security. Travelers need predictability and should not be subjected to unacceptable waiting times. https://t.co/J7nO2deAyI
– IATA (@IATA) June 1, 2022
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Similarly, the Canada Airport Council has blamed pandemic measures for serious backups at Canadian entry points. On Tuesday, industry councils in Mississauga, the site of Toronto Pearson Airport, called on the federal government to urgently reduce airport COVID controls so that they do not have irreparable effects on the Canadian economy.
“The recent travel experience will have detrimental and lasting effects on how our region is perceived on the international stage and is having a negative impact on new international investment for the Toronto region,” said Victoria Clarke, CEO of Tourism Mississauga.
Canada is rapidly emerging as an atypical international value in terms of COVID restrictions on air travelers. The UK, for example, has completely lifted all testing and vaccination requirements on its border. The European Union has abolished the mandates for masks on commercial flights. Even Australia has opened up national air travel to its unvaccinated.
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In particular, on the same day that Canada extended its border mandates for another month, Italy, which was home to some of the strictest blockade measures in Europe, removed all COVID requirements for travelers. incoming.
WestJet’s dissent is even more pronounced given that the airline – and von Hoensbroech himself – have been enthusiastic advocates of vaccine mandates.
Just five months ago, the airline suspended nearly 300 employees because of its inability to show vaccination evidence in accordance with federal mandates. Von Hoensbroech, who was CEO of Austrian Airlines before February, posted tweets in November saying “only vaccination will get us out of the pandemic!”
But he was far from the only atypical critic to point out his opposition to Ottawa’s position on COVID. On Tuesday, Toronto-based Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith publicly called for his own government to join travel mandates, saying “a two-dose vaccination warrant without accommodation is no longer justified.”
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I abstained on the Conservatives’ motion to return immediately to pre-pandemic travel measures.
I did not support the idea of dropping the masks immediately, but I also made it clear to the government that a two-dose vaccine warrant without housing is no longer justified. / 1
– Nate Erskine-Smith (@beynate) May 31, 2022
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As early as February, Canadian public health officials began to point out that vaccine warrants had lost their usefulness due to new and more infectious variants that could spread among the immunized, a key factor in the decision to provinces to reverse the vaccine. mandates on interior spaces.
On Feb. 17, Ontario’s chief physician, Kieran Moore, said: “The need for vaccination policies in Ontario’s sectors, whether it’s health or colleges and universities, is no longer necessary.” .
A Russian-owned Antonov An-124 that closely resembles the one shown in the image above is still trapped on a runway at Toronto’s Pearson Airport. The cargo plane had the misfortune to make a stopover in Toronto at the very moment when Canada banned Russian planes from its airspace, making it illegal for the Antonov to take off. According to the Daily Hive, the plane’s unscheduled stay is costing its owners more than $ 1,000 a day in asphalt rates. Photo from Wikimedia Commons
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Ottawa has granted a BC application to temporarily decriminalize possession of hard drugs for personal use. While he is hailed as a first-time American, he is primarily coding the fact that British Columbia police have not been really destroying low-level drug users for quite some time. Victoria police chief Del Manak, for example, reacted to the news by saying that “for years, VicPD has considered addiction and substance use to be a health problem”.
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Surely you didn’t know that Tuesday was the day of the vulva and vagina. Here is Liberal MP Pam Damoff announcing it in the House of Commons. Damoff said he would organize a celebration to “celebrate vulvae and vaginas as powerful and important.” Photo of CPAC
Today is the Ontario election! Basically, all pollsters are already calling for a majority government for Doug Ford’s progressive conservatives. What’s interesting, though, is that PCs have maintained their leadership despite rising far-right options like the New Blue Party, which are now voting up to five percent. This seems to indicate that the PCs are gaining liberal votes in tandem with those who are disappearing from the New Blue Party and the Ontario Party.
With the end of Jason Kenney’s term as Premier of Alberta coming to an end, the fortunes of his United Conservative Party have begun to increase. After months of lagging behind the NDP in terms of voter support, a new Leger poll has found that the UCP without Kenney bounces up to a slight 42% advantage (against 40% of the NDP).
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Meanwhile, Western Standard has heard rumors that Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner may be considering an offer to accept Kenney’s job. Garner was a loyal fan of Erin O’Toole before her caucus showed her the door, and has since backed Patrick Brown’s somewhat long campaign to be O’Toole’s replacement. In other words, it would not be a terrible time for Garner to leave Ottawa and try some provincial policy.
In Saskatchewan, Saskatoon StarPhoenix columnist Phil Tank believes his prime minister, Scott Moe, will soon be ousted from power by the same conservative fights they did in Kenney. If that happened then three Canadian Conservative leaders would be out of power in a matter of months.
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