Trucker vaccine mandate loads of trouble: CFIB

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Barring “essential” truckers based on vaccination status will exacerbate supply shortages and drive up costs for struggling small businesses, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says.

CFIB president Dan Kelly said he’s urging the Justin Trudeau government to drop a policy that he believes is based more on politics than science.

“It feels weird that this late in the pandemic we’ve decided truck drivers are no longer an essential service,” Kelly said Wednesday. “It seems they’re more essential than ever especially given that there’s all sorts of supply chain issues that have nothing to do with the state of the Omicron right now. We’re making this problem way, way worse than we need to.”

The federal government has been turning back unvaccinated foreign national truck drivers at the U.S. border since Jan. 15.

In order to enter Canada, the drivers must have received a single dose of the Johnson&Johnston vaccine or a second dose of another approved COVID-19 vaccine at least 14 full days earlier.

The federal government has assured Canadians that these unvaccinated drivers are in the minority of truckers and that related food shortages will not occur.

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Many CFIB members have been locked down or restricted and now, just as Ontario gets set to ease some of these constraints Monday, they face more pain in terms of costs and availability of supplies, Kelly said.

“You’re going to a restaurant and your favourite meal is no longer there because they can’t get the supply, that’s certainly not going to help the business,” Kelly said. “And we’re seeing more of that — spontaneous closures in part because of labour market struggles and in part because they just don’t have the goods that they need to serve their customers.”

Trying to improve inoculation rates with truck driver vaccine mandates doesn’t make good policy sense, he said.

“We’re in a position right now where we have people in health care working that have COVID because we desperately need them,” Kelly said. “I don’t see how this is all that different.”

aartuso@postmedia.com