It was only a few months back that PM Justin Trudeau sternly warned Canadians not to believe “harmful misinformation” and “conspiracy theories” that his government was preparing COVID-19 internment centres. Just pay no attention to those… COVID-19 internment centres.
Trudeau bloviated that such “harmful misinformation” would “undermine people’s confidence in their institutions, in their democracies”. I rather suspect that the Prime Minister blatantly lying to their faces would do more to undermine people’s confidence in democracy than what were largely factually correct reports. The prisoners may be in hotels, but denying that they’re COVID internment seems a bit like arguing that the Warsaw ghetto was “home detention”.
Especially when you’re forcibly whisked into a prison van-like “shuttle bus” and detained in a tiny room with security keeping a vigilant watch.
You will have to forgive Steve Duesing for not believing there are no COVID-19 internment centres in Canada.
“I’m in one,” the 34-year-old Scarborough man told the Toronto Sun on Tuesday.
Not by choice.
“I was told when I arrived (at Pearson International Airport) Sunday night from Charlotte that it was either three days quarantine or go to jail.”
So he was escorted on a shuttle bus from Pearson to the nearby Radisson Hotel on Dixon Rd. But this is no normal hotel stay.
“I am not allowed to leave the room,” he said. “There is a guard at the end of the hall”[…]
He’s effectively incarcerated.
It’s not like he’s done anything wrong: in fact, he rigorously complied with Canadian government rules, taking a COVID-19 test before returning.
“It cost me $130,” he said. “I tested negative.”
Duesing said his ordeal began when the Public Health Agency of Canada didn’t accept this rapid test and ordered him detained until the results of their own test were known. The agency did not respond to the Sun‘s request for a comment.“I was escorted by police to a shuttle bus and taken to this hotel, which is fenced off from the public.”
It definitely has a detention centre feel to it. There is a barrier preventing anybody from coming and going and a security detail checks every vehicle entering the property.
Duesing is sanguine about his treatment, at least.
“I am angry, but other than that, I’m fine.”
But he worries about the eight other people taken off his American Airlines flight, and dozens of others, inside this hotel. ”Some cried and said they would lose their jobs or didn’t have babysitters,” he said.
There was no leniency. They were no longer free. They were ordered into government custody.
Toronto Sun
Just don’t call it an internment centre. Because they don’t exist. Trudeau said so: who’re you gonna believe?
Please share this article so that others can discover The BFD