Air Canada's unions have been responsible and decent about this issue. Once it was established that this was an infectious deadly disease expanding exponentially, workers had a reason with which to decline working the Chinese routes. Cleaners also had a right to decline to work on aircraft which may have held carriers of an infectious disease. IMO, AC employees and contractors were about to refuse to work the China route aircraft.

The fact that Canadian government and Air Canada have lagged behind the international community is IMO politically motivated. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Canadian authorities were using the term "no human transmission", until they could no longer deny the reality and have since changed their statements to "no human to human transmission in Canada", which is an empty statement and may explain some of the public confusion. The point being that political motivations should not be taken as positions based upon actual fact.