Business leaders are urging Ottawa to ease its mandatory vaccination policy imposed on cross-border truckers to ease supply chain congestion with the United States.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday defended the obligation, saying it’s a necessary step to keep supply chains open, saying COVID-19 itself is the biggest risk to the economy. Canadian.
The policy, which came into effect after an exemption ended Jan. 15, means Canadian long-haul truckers must now be vaccinated against COVID-19 to avoid a two-week quarantine after crossing the border, while unvaccinated non-Canadian truckers will be refused entry.
The United States brought into effect on Saturday its own mandatory vaccination policy for truckers, which means that unvaccinated Canadian truckers will also not be able to travel south of the border.
In separate statements, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Manufacturers Coalition urged Trudeau to back down. House Speaker Perrin Beatty told The Canadian Press that while “we strongly support vaccinating as many people as possible,” the government should allow more time before imposing the requirement. to truckers. “Until now, governments have viewed truckers as providing an essential service, which has kept supply chains running even during the most severe waves of the pandemic,” Beatty said in a written response to questions. .
Mr Beatty, however, said the government had not presented statistics indicating that truckers are a major source of COVID-19 cases in Canada. Neither the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, nor the Chief Public Health Officer, the DD Theresa Tam, were only able to provide data on COVID-19 and truckers when asked last week at the House of Commons Health Committee.
The Coalition of Manufacturers of Canada, which represents more than thirty professional manufacturing associations, called for the complete abandonment of the vaccination obligation after meeting Friday with the Minister of Industry, François-Philippe Champagne.