A federal court judge ruled 18JUN that hotel quarantine does not violate travellers’ Charter rights, and that the federal government can enforce mandatory hotel quarantine on arriving pax.
This latest ruling comes after Ottawa announced its intention to relax hotel quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated Canadians entering the country sometime in JUL.
In his ruling, Chief Justice Paul Crampton said that stricter measures for international travellers who enter Canada by land could also be allowed if needed - not just in order to save lives - but also to reduce the perception of uneven and unfair restrictions.
The applicants of last week's court hearing were primarily Canadians seeking to return to Canada by air, including an employee of Rebel News Network and the CEO of a cannabis company. Both argued that the hotels are unsafe, the program prevents Canadians from returning to Canada, that it infringes on their liberty, and that the measures are not justified in a free and democratic society.
Justice Crampton disagreed, saying that none of their grievances were considered to be Charter violations.
The hotel quarantine program has been in court twice before - first in MAR and then again in APR - and both times the hotel quarantine program was upheld by the judge t. At the last court hearing in APR, Justice William Pentney agreed with the government defending the hotel quarantine, saying that the risks of importing and transmitting variants of the virus outweigh those inconveniences or infringements of certain Charter rights, and that the “evidence amply demonstrates that the public interest lies in not suspending the challenged measures.”
The travel industry and many in the business community, as well as bordertown politicians, have expressed frustration with the hotel quarantine program, especially after it was reported that less than one per cent of hotel quarantine scofflaws tested positive for COVID-19.
“I recognize that those who have second residences abroad or other good reasons to travel may not welcome such measures, particularly if they are required to pay for some of them,” Crampton wrote.
“However, like times of war and other crises, pandemics call for sacrifices to save lives and avoid broad-based suffering. If some are unwilling to make such sacrifices, and engage in behaviour that poses a demonstrated risk to the health and safety of others, the principles of fundamental justice will not prevent the state from performing its essential function of protecting its citizens from that risk.”
The hotel quarantine program goes against the recommendations of an expert panel convened by Health Minister Patty Hajdu. The panel had recommended that the requirement for all air travellers to quarantine in government-authorized accommodations be scrapped altogether, because it is not applied equally to land and air travellers, is expensive to administer, provides opportunities for travellers to bypass by paying a fine, and is inconsistent with the incubation period of the virus.
Despite this recommendation, rather than stopping the program, the federal government decided to increase the fine for hotel quarantine scofflaws from $2,000 to $5,000.
The federal court decision was released 18JUN ahead of the border closure order that would have been expiring 21JUN. The federal government has extended the border closure for non-essential travel with the U.S. until 21JUL, but has said that it will confirm relaxed entry requirements for fully-vaccinated Canadian arrivals soon.
