Originally Posted by jlisi984

My 2c (well, this is more like a toonie) on the matter: the hotel quarantine would make my life incredibly difficult. I cannot work from anywhere, I can work from home. The 14-day quarantine requirement is onerous, inconvenient, and ineffective, but mostly understandable (and, for better or worse, it has become a world standard). I would also understand and encourage banning non-essential travel (VFR, tourism) both domestically and internationally though it is very questionable how that would be enforced and/or defined.

For me, no travel = no work (i.e. no income). It's that simple. In June, I went to Europe, and since it was more a trial run than anything, came back and quarantined the full 14 days. In August, I left once again, this time staying in Europe indefinitely because returning to a 14-day quarantine in Canada made no sense. I returned in November, as lockdowns hit again, and was lucky enough my arrival was just after the implementation of the pilot project.

A mandatory hotel quarantine in which the government pays for the hotel would be too much of a taxpayer burden, in my opinion. On the other hand, a $3000 quarantine (as is the case in Australia) is incredibly costly.

It is truly unfortunate many (most) people cannot follow simple rules and/or consider themselves to be above them. In all my quarantines, I have fully respected the rules and I believe that is enough to prevent rapid community spread. However, I personally know multiple individuals who arrived back in Canada and to varying degrees flaunted the rules (some more egregiously than others). Personally, a hotel quarantine would be a complete waste of two weeks of my life (well, OK, I could read a lot of books and brush up on my languages). For many others, it would not make much of a difference, either in work (computer) or pleasure (TV) - neither of these apply to me.

I also believe there are many types of traveling - having seen (first-hand) videos of party scenes at Mexican resorts, I have a different appreciation for banning travel. From my perspective, whether I'm at home or on the road, my life continues very much the same, and though the risk is obviously increased while traveling, I tended to even make (not take!) meals in my hotel room towards the end of my European stay. Knock on wood, having visited a dozen countries and traveled extensively, I did not get sick.

I would agree to almost any measure if we were successfully fighting the virus (see: Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, even China). But we have not been successful, we have vast community spread (including of the many variants) and banning/restricting travel further will not impact this. As long as we have hundreds of thousands of people crossing the border regularly, both from our neighbour and from far-reaching countries, who do not require quarantine or testing of any sort, we have zero chance of keeping out any potential future variants.

I feel like Canada is trying to respect "constitutional rights" by penalizing those who have no alternative but to travel, while simultaneously giving exemptions to a broad swathe of individuals, many of whom actually do not strictly require one.

Surely, testing is (in the case of Alberta) and would be (for the rest of Canada) the most effective method, though to be honest, I feel the government is singling out travelers as a very easy scapegoat rather than focusing on at-risk areas domestically.

TL;DR - I do not support hotel quarantine, but I believe travel should be limited. Also, where's 2022?

Originally Posted by mileageking

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has long been a strong advocate for more stringent border protections at Toronto Pearson International Airport and nationwide to prevent further spread of COVID-19, and has now expressed his desire for the federal government to shut down borders completely to all travelers who aren't residents of Canada.

Doug Ford wants to close down the Canadian border to all non-residents (blogto.com)

Originally Posted by yvrcnx

This is actually the situation 10,000's working in the travel industry have been in now for almost a year: No Travel = no work = no income

Sadly for some reason everything has polarized around travel and as previously mentioned numerous times, truck drivers can cross the border without any restrictions, Costco stores are open, day care centers with dozens of children are open, etc.
I went to Europe last year for family reasons and spend over a month there, returning my son and I did the 2 week quarantine, adhering to all rules with which we have absolutely no issues.
I was honestly more concerned getting infected from any of the deliveries we received and are still receiving on a weekly basis instead of going out shopping than sitting on a plane for 10 hours or spending time in Europe where we felt safer than going to our local supermarket.

Originally Posted by jlisi984

Without a doubt, I agree. Unfortunately, for many in the travel industry it will be a slow recovery. While I fully support reopening when feasible, I cannot imagine extensive international travel, cruises, excursions et al coming back very soon. I think you understood from my post, but I actually have to travel to work. I'm not criticising any governments reopening plans or what they classify as essential, but some countries have very different priorities than others.

Speaking of essential, it is quite funny that pilots and F/As are considered essential and don't have to self-isolate (see: my neighbour), because their job is "essential"... as they are flying pax to their non-essential holidays abroad.

Originally Posted by The Lev

Because only foreigners have COVID.

Originally Posted by The Lev

Because only foreigners have COVID.

Originally Posted by Badenoch

. The chance of infection in the most common winter vacation spots in the U.S. (Arizona and Florida) is higher than it is in Ontario. Nevertheless, self-indulgent non-essential leisure travellers whine about being slightly inconvenienced if they ignore the travel warnings and go on an entirely non-essential winter vacation..

Originally Posted by jlisi984

Without a doubt, I agree. Unfortunately, for many in the travel industry it will be a slow recovery. While I fully support reopening when feasible, I cannot imagine extensive international travel, cruises, excursions et al coming back very soon. I think you understood from my post, but I actually have to travel to work. I'm not criticising any governments reopening plans or what they classify as essential, but some countries have very different priorities than others.

Speaking of essential, it is quite funny that pilots and F/As are considered essential and don't have to self-isolate (see: my neighbour), because their job is "essential"... as they are flying pax to their non-essential holidays abroad.

Originally Posted by Badenoch

Other nations, notably Australia and New Zealand have more stringent entry requirements than Canada and their infection and death rates are lower than ours. Evidently some Canadians are not taking the travel advisory seriously. The government of Canada will continue raising the stakes until they do and will raise those stakes with majority support of the Canadian public.