vinegarboy

I've already tried reaching out to the CBC, the Globe n Mail, & to the Toronto Sun, snd strangely nobody ever calls/emails back; so I now strongly suspect that there's probably some kind of a federal gag order in place as regards reporting on/from the PHAC's DQFs.

This is an entirely federal operation, so the local provincial authorities plead no powers in here, but the Canadian Red Cross is permitted virtual/telephonic access to detainees.

The provincial Human Rights organisation referred me to the national HR office, which can receive complaints, but which has a 60-day lag/backlog before one can actually speak to an advisor.

Today's my Day 14 in here (DQF), so I'm hoping to be being released from here tomorrow morning.

Am yet to find out if I'll be being charged under the Quarantine Act for acting to save my brachycephalic dog's life during our awful bus-ride to get here 2wks ago.

It certainly doesn't feel at all Canadian in here. If I'm released tomorrow, then I'll feel safer being even more forthcoming on here about what's going on.

Fingers & paws crossed that we're now less than 24hrs from regaining our freedom.

BristolUK

It's not called Terezin by any chance?

vinegarboy

Well I've just had to look that up on google, and I definitely wouldn't presume to even begin to compare my 2021 DQF plight to what occurred to those poor people at Theresienstadt during WW2.

The Canadian Red Cross never interacts with a federal Quarantine Act detainee physically, except when taking the detainee's first nasal Covid PCR test swab at the border crossing; so other than that face-to-face, one never sees a Red Cross official again.

Phoning the Red Cross from a DQF is an experience all by itself, as none of their call-takers speaks either English or French as a first language, so one has to battle even to communicate.

Phoning the PHAC gets one fobbed-off back over to the Red Cross call centre.

Red Cross asks detainees to be "understanding" about being fed past-Best-Before-date food (particularly dairy).

Red Cross counsellors do phone one, but they ask detainees to focus on the positives ("brightening") rather than on the negatives ("shadening") of the DQF experience; apparently these are terms which are taught to counselling classes in Africa. "Shadening" is certainly a new word to me, haha.

Former Lancastrian

“And in life, it is all about choices we make. And how the direction of our lives comes down to the choices we choose.” – Catherine Pulsifer
I suspect if you went public and any article had a comments section then I suspect many would not be sympathetic towards your situation. There were options to avoid being held in a Canadian Gulag.

vinegarboy

Prior to opining so critically & seemingly so all-knowingly, one ought to have first ensured that the object of one's scorn hadn't in fact had a choice, at short notice, of where to overwinter.

In fact, mon ami, I lost my job on Dec 1st and was then kindly invited by an American friend to survive disaster by overwintering at his place in Virginia (where I was also fortuitously able to become fully vaccinated, owing to the U.S. evidently having far smarter politicians & public health officials than we do).

Gozit

Freedom of speech is protected under the Charter. A ticket under the quarantine act for speaking out about your experience I suspect would not hold up in court, and there are many lawyers who would take your case.

Gozit

With the absolute shambles and infringement of rights this program is, as well as our abysmal response to the pandemic i'm ashamed to even call myself Canadian right now. Our leaders are not upholding the values their predecessors instilled, especially Trudeau. His father was a good politician who introduced the Charter. He must be ashamed of his son violating it so grossly right now.

scilly

Not everyone thinks like you.

I'm still extremely glad that I am in Canada, not back in the UK, or Europe

Remember, NZ has been acclaimed for its success with keeping the pandemic away ........ and how did they do it???

The PM closed the borders to everyone for months and months. NZ basically became a country that no-one could enter, not even citizens.

Result ................ very few covid cases, acclaim by everyone from citizens to the rest of the world.

I feel somewhat the same re our government, and only wish that Trudeau had instituted mandatory 14 day quarantine in government hotels much much earlier.

He did uphold a lot that you should appreciate .................. such as assuring that people in need received money. You managed to get some monetary support did you not??

If you feel as you posted, then I fail to see why you do still want to return here, and still call yourself Canadian. Why not stay and help Malta get back on its feet?

Gozit

Malta is on its feet because our government didn't keep us in lockdown forever. I would have rather not received the CERB and been able to operate my small business and not deal with lockdown - I took it because I was eligible and who would turn it down if they were eligible?

I don't really want to return. But its also hard living in a country where you don't have a guaranteed place to live, a social life, or your family around you. (Yes, I have extended family in Malta, but my parents and siblings are not here.)

Then again, in Canada Ontario there's also no social life due to the endless lockdowns.

If i decided to stay here I would have to secure some sort of income pronto so I could rent an apartment. I would not be able to stay where i'm staying right now indefinitely.

I could accept the border restrictions if Canada was in the same place as Australia with COVID. But we will never get there. It's too little too late. 14 days of quarantine to be in lockdown anyway is absurd. It would be different if Canada was "covid-free" like Australia.

I never said everyone should think like me, what I posted is just my opinion I didn't vote for Trudeau in the last election, my opinion of him has never been that great, other then the fact that he legalized marijuana which I support.

bc2015

You mean in Ontario there's no social life due to lockdowns, in BC (at least) the situation is very different.

Gozit

Fair point. Post edited

Atlantic Xpat

The only "Canadian" or Federal Govt part of the C19 response that impacts most of us is 1) Travel / Border restrictions and 2) Federal procurement and supply of vaccines. On 1) The Feds locked down the border with the US early on and given the sh1tshow that the US was for much of the last year that doesn't feel like a bad move. The mandatory quarantine gulag experience or even the gulag-light experience of being hosed by an airport hotel chain for a 3 day stay is clearly sub-optimal - a better approach would be for folks with a practical quarantine plan to quarantine at final destination. Of course assessing and enforcing that is the challenge. On 2) well Canada was slow off the mark compared to UK and US with vaccine procurement - not aided by the toxic orange former president, barring Pfizer from exporting vaccines from the US to Canada (or elsewhere). A ban it took Mr Biden some time to rescind. All things being equal though vaccine supply has scaled up and Canada has gone back to near the top of the vaccine league tables so to speak.

Most of our experiences then with life in the time of the plague are down, as is so much in Canada, to our provincial/territorial governments. And here, Gozit, you have my sympathies as Doug Ford has, well, not been terribly good at managing ON's Covid response. Nor have others, notably Jason Kenney. Other provinces have done rather better, including the bankrupt rocky island that I call home. We haven't been in lockdown forever and have had rather more freedoms than most other places in Canada & most certainly the UK.

So crapping on Trudeau (who I have little time for due to many many other reasons than his pandemic response) or "Canada" as a whole, seems a little misguided. Sure, travel restrictions are a PITA, but you want to bitch about lockdown? Look to Ford my young Padawan, Look to Ford...

bats

Seems absurd saying that to a group of immigrants.

Gozit

True! I'm sure you all went through the same questions and issues when you chose to immigrate. Doesn't mean I don't want to try living here, and of course given time and effort you build up a new circle. These are not reasons to forget about leaving Canada, i'm just being realistic that it's not all rosy. There are plenty of good reasons to move country and there are a few downsides as well. That's all.

scilly

This is very much my view ... although I did vote for Trudeau, largely because there was no way I could look at the Tories in view of what they did to science in this country, and the NDP didn't appear to have much chance of actually forming a government.

But I was also quite happy with the way Trudeau had been handling the pandemic last year, and the way he was keeping us informed while keeping out of the way of the various premiers doing what they had to do, or should have been doing. It is against the Constitution for the Prime Minister to overrule the Premiers, he can only go into what is their responsibility if they ask him.

Last year Ford was the pits so far as the pandemic was concerned, he and Kenny were basically denying what was happening.

The 4 Atlantic provinces and their bubble, and the territories were great. It's in these later waves that they have had cases.

Blame your own Premier, not the Prime Minister, for most of your current problems.