Most MPs, councillors to limit holiday travel

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This article was published 22/12/2021 (1741 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Some of Manitoba’s MPs won’t say whether they’ll heed Ottawa’s advice to forgo travel abroad this Christmas to tamp down transmission of the Omicron variant.

The Free Press surveyed Manitoba’s 14 MPs as well as Winnipeg’s 15 councillors and Mayor Brian Bowman, a day after asking MLAs about their holiday travel plans.

On Dec. 15, the Public Health Agency of Canada issued a travel advisory to avoid non-essential international travel, while Manitoba officials have been urging anyone who qualifies for a booster shot to get their third dose.

Five of Manitoba’s 14 MPs did not answer queries Monday and Tuesday: NDP MPs Daniel Blaikie and Leah Gazan, and Conservative MPs Raquel Dancho, Ted Falk and Marty Morantz.

All other MPs, including all four Liberals, said they’ll be boosted and stay in Canada. That party as well as the NDP have ordered MPs not to leave the country; the federal Tories have resisted such an order.

Bowman and 14 Winnipeg councillors said they all had plans to stay in Canada and get their booster shot, if they hadn’t already. The only one who didn’t respond was Point Douglas Coun. Vivian Santos, who has claimed she has a medical exemption to vaccination.

At the legislature, all three parties have instructed their MLAs not to leave Canada, and a Monday survey found the NDP and Liberals have all made plans to get booster shots, while the governing PCs would not say if MLAs have been instructed to get doses.

Manitoba hasn’t imposed interprovincial travel restrictions. It wouldn’t have much impact, said University of Manitoba epidemiologist Souradet Shaw.

“The horse is really out of the barn, with respect to Omicron in Manitoba,” Shaw wrote in an email, arguing the province might better use resources to enforce mask restrictions in stores where people regularly violate the rules.

“I think it would be prudent to avoid travel inter-provincially, if possible, if only because there is currently so much uncertainty about Omicron across Canada, and the subsequent reactions from each of the provinces,” Shaw wrote.

“The previous travel restrictions may have somewhat delayed the impact of Delta in our province, but Omicron is here now.”

— with files from Carol Sanders

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca