(Ottawa) Business leaders are urging Ottawa to relax its mandatory vaccination policy imposed on cross-border truckers to ease the congested supply chain with the United States.
Posted at 5:51 p.m.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday defended the bond, saying it’s a necessary step to keep supply chains open, arguing that 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 that 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 Manufacturing 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 obligation on 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 showing that truck drivers 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.
“If the government has numbers like these and is concerned that they pose a particular threat, they should have had an educational program specifically for them long ago and they could have worked with provinces and industry to implement is setting up mobile vaccination clinics near the border, at railroad crossings and truck stops across Canada,” said Beatty.
“What we are asking is that they delay implementation during this time when supply chains are under severe pressure and use this time to encourage and facilitate vaccination. »
The Coalition of Manufacturers of Canada, which represents more than 30 professional manufacturing associations, called for the complete abandonment of the vaccination obligation after meeting Friday with the Minister of Industry, François-Philippe Champagne.
Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters President Dennis Darby, who chairs the coalition, told Champagne that “Canadians are seeing empty shelves” because the mandatory vaccination policy is making bottlenecks in the supply chain worse. supply.
In a statement, Mr Darby said the meeting with Minister Champagne was “a good first step, but we now need to see concrete action from the government to start addressing these challenges, starting with canceling compulsory vaccination truckers”.
Supply chains were already struggling with two years of pandemic disruption, workers falling ill from COVID-19, and multiple weather events, including snowstorms and flooding last fall in Colombia. British.
On Monday, Prime Minister Trudeau showed no signs of adjusting policy and said getting vaccinated was the most important way to keep Canada’s economy going. He said Tories are making “scaremonger talk” about empty store shelves.
Mr. Trudeau reiterated that the Canadian Trucking Alliance claims that 90% of truckers are already vaccinated. On Sunday, the group denounced a convoy of hundreds of truckers who were now heading to Ottawa to demonstrate against the policy.
“The reality is that vaccination is the way we’re going to get out of this,” Trudeau said.
The Conservatives are pressuring the Prime Minister to lift the requirement, calling it a risk to supply chains and Canada’s economic recovery.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole called on the government to allow unvaccinated truckers to take rapid tests and argued the public health effects would be minimal.
Mr O’Toole avoided saying on Monday that he would meet the truck convoy. He also declined to say whether those taking part in the protest had his support.
“It is not for the Leader of the Opposition or a political party to attend a demonstration on the Hill or a convoy,” he said in Ottawa.
Former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer went public when a convoy arrived in Ottawa in 2019 to demonstrate against a range of issues, including the Liberal government’s energy policies.
Over the weekend, liberals and conservatives posted messages on social media asking if store shelves were full or empty. Conservative Transport Critic Melissa Lantsman has been accused of misleading Canadians by sharing a photo of empty shelves that turned out to be an image of a British grocery store.
Several Liberal supporters and political staffers posted photos of fully stocked shelves as proof that there was no supply chain problem.