‘Ridiculous’: Canada border closed to unvaccinated truckers

article content

Industry watchers foresee bleak days when Canada on Saturday and the United States on January 22 close their land borders to commercial truckers who are not vaccinated.

article content

“It’s ridiculous. To me, it’s going to be parts, but to you it’s going to be edible,” said Jonathan Azzopardi, president of the Canadian Association of Moldmakers.

Referring to the economically important automotive and parts manufacturing sector, the chairman of Windsor-based Laval International added: “It will put additional pressure on an industry that is already under tremendous pressure.”

Even before the latest measures to protect Canadians from the Omicron variant of COVID-19 were put in place, Azzopardi said finding trucks to move goods was challenging enough and increasingly expensive.

“Even if we lose 10 percent (of commercial drivers), that’s 10 percent on a system that’s already under pressure,” he said. “The government is not thinking about the industry.”

article content

Trucks move about 80 percent of the $648 billion in annual cross-border trade between Canada and the U.S. The Canadian Trucking Alliance estimates that 10 to 15 percent of truckers are unvaccinated, up to 12,000 Canadian truckers .

“On November 19, 2021, we announced that effective January 15, 2022, certain categories of travelers who are currently exempt from entry requirements will only be able to enter the country if they are fully vaccinated with one of the vaccines approved for entry to the country. Canada,” three federal ministers said in a joint statement.

His statement on Thursday followed one issued the day before by the Canada Border Services Agency, sent “in error,” that appeared to roll back the vaccination requirement at the border.

article content

Canadian truck drivers cannot be denied entry to Canada, but if they are not vaccinated, they must remain in quarantine. Foreign truckers who are unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated will be directed back to the US.

Azzopardi, a firm believer in the importance of COVID-19 vaccines who received his booster shot on Friday, said health authorities are targeting the wrong industry.

He said some drivers don’t even get out of their trucks at their delivery destinations. Regulations could be put in place, he added, for them to remain distanced from anyone else while loading or unloading. Meanwhile, he said, food servers who interact with many others during their entire work shifts are currently not even required to get vaccinated.

article content

“Trucks are more important than some of those other industries,” Azzopardi said.

With many of the fruits and vegetables in Canadian grocery stores during the winter months being trucked in from the United States, concerns have been raised about higher food prices and potential empty shelves.

“They’re going to see it,” Azzopardi said. “You literally don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you.”

[email protected]

twitter.com/schmidtcity