By Staff
May 4th, 2022
BURLINGTON, ON
A Burlington resident who is as solid as they gety when it comes to being fully informed sent me a long note.
Let me pass it along to you.
He called it “scary”.
Because we were at a border crossing community for medical reasons and because we were so close to the border, yours truly and his spouse thought we would slip over to have lunch and buy a few items at one of our favorite stores, “Trader Joes”. As well we were more than happy to be able to fill up with $1.20 C a litre gas.
The border crossing – entering the US
As required and prior to our return we completed the “ArriveCan” process. Upon returning we proceeded to the border where we were advised by the agent to proceed. Nothing was said to either of us about having to take a random molecular test.
Except on Monday May 2, three whole days later I received an email message from the Government of Canada (that I first thought was a scam) that indicated I had been chosen for random testing and was directed to a local supplier located in Mississauga ON.
As you will hopefully appreciate, I was taken aback as I had heard nothing about this at the border or in my email until this point. I immediately took an in-house test which indicated I was negative for COVID. I then went on to the Switch Health website (which is a disaster in the making) and arranged to have my test within the hour. I then jumped into my car and proceeded to travel to Mississauga.
As an aside Switch Health is the only testing company listed for Ontario. The email that I received from the Federal Government indicates they have 7 locations in all of Ontario (a complete joke and worthy of another story). The results of the Molecular test also indicated I was negative for COVID. As mentioned earlier I was not advised nor was I given a home test kit by the border agent. The test cost me $180 and the results were delivered within 30 minutes.
This gets you home.
We are avid mask wears and have had 4 vaccines so far. We could have attended a Raptor, Jays or Leaf’s Game along with tens of thousands of other un-masked residents and would not be required to take a random or any other molecular COVID test. But apparently the Government of Canada feels that spending an hour and a half in the United states with minimal exposure requires us to do so.
Here is the spooky part. As I was preparing to write this, I checked my e-mail folder for the email from the Government of Canada and it was nowhere to be found. I then checked my deleted items folder and the email in question was again nowhere to be found. My advice to anyone who receives such an email is to immediately print a copy.
The article in a local American newspaper speaks to these random tests and we as citizens should seriously question what on earth is going on where testing is concerned and is their use backed-up by science. Does this mean the protests in Ottawa, while poorly executed, and included some nutbars, may have been onto something? Perhaps Karina Gould should be asked to account for and to justify the governments approach on random testing.
I thought I would attach the news article from the Buffalo News outlet as well.
This is another example of recent stories that support the opinion that governments are great at talk, less great at following through with action, and generally incompetent in implementation.