Cannabis CEO sues federal government over decision to ‘incarcerate’ travellers in quarantine hotels

Christopher Nardi
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The lawsuit comes at a time of ongoing debate over the extent at which the government should be able to impose harsh lockdowns and travel restrictions on the public. Photo by Jason Payne/Postmedia

OTTAWA – From a house on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, the CEO of a Canadian cannabis company is asking the federal court to quash the Trudeau government’s “arbitrary and capricious” decision to “incarcerate” travellers returning to the country in quarantine hotels.

“I personally woke up the morning that that was announced, and said ‘Holy s—, I now live in East Germany, and I’m a prisoner of the Government of Canada’,” said Jeffrey Rath, barrister and constitutional law expert at Rath & Company, referring to new quarantine measures announced by the federal government in late January.

Rath filed the lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of Dominic Colvin, the CEO of cannabis company CannaPharmaRx who is afraid of being “unconstitutionally” forced (the lawsuit reads “incarcerated”) into a quarantine hotel if he returns to his home in Kelowna, B.C.

Colvin flew to his home on Saint Martin on Jan. 24, 2021, at a time when a government travel advisory strongly discouraged any non-essential travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A few days later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced strict new measures to dissuade Canadians from travelling abroad as the country grapples with the spread of the novel coronavirus, including a mandatory three-day quarantine in government-selected hotels upon return at a cost of up to $2,000.

The lawsuit comes at a time of ongoing debate in Canada and elsewhere over the extent at which the government should be able to impose harsh lockdowns and travel restrictions on the public.

Colvin is afraid that if he were to fly back to Canada within the next few weeks, he’ll be forced by the government to quarantine in a hotel (which he calls a “quarantine incarceration facility” in his lawsuit) instead of at home because he says he’s not sure he’ll satisfy the governments’ unclear definition of a “suitable quarantine plan.”

“The decision to incarcerate Canadian citizens returning to Canada made by the (government) puts my right to freely return to Canada at risk as I cannot return to Canada under the threat of arbitrary incarceration for an undetermined period of time,” Colvin wrote in an affidavit submitted in support of his lawsuit.

He was not available for an interview on Thursday, but his lawyer spoke to National Post on his behalf.

“Mr. Colvin is quite comfortably ensconced in a house on Saint Martin with access to a beach every day. So he doesn’t want to leave Saint Martin to come back and face arbitrary incarceration measures that have been promulgated by a government that clearly doesn’t know what it’s doing,” Rath said.

Currently, federal rules allow public health officials to force travellers arriving in Canada to stay up to 14 days (or longer if they end up testing positive for COVID-19) in government-run sites notably if they can’t show a proper two-week quarantine plan.

Trudeau’s updated plan to force all travellers entering Canada to spend three days in a federally overseen hotel has not officially come into force. The government is expected to release additional details as well as an effective date for the new measures as early as Friday.

Holy s—, I now live in East Germany, and I’m a prisoner of the Government of Canada

“By putting in place these tough measures now, we can look forward to a better time when we can all plan those vacations. Our government is committed to the safe restart and recovery of the Canadian travel and tourism sector as soon as conditions improve, ideally later this year,” Trudeau said at the time of the announcement all the while discouraging Canadians from leaving the country during March break.

But even if the mandatory three-day quarantine rule isn’t yet officially in effect, Colvin is asking the federal court to strike it down in advance because he argues that the government is already forcing some people without quarantine plans or recent negative COVID-19 tests into supervised federal sites.

“It’s just completely outrageous what they’re doing,” Rath said. “We’re judicially reviewing that decision to incarcerate people because it’s obvious that they’re already doing it.”

Colvin and Rath aren’t the only Canadians to oppose the government’s efforts to limit travel abroad by enforcing increasingly strict quarantine and travel rules.

Earlier this month, the Canadian Snowbird Association wrote a letter to Transport Minister Omar Alghabra saying it was “firmly opposed” to the mandatory hotel quarantine rule.

‘The CSA believes that the existing quarantine protocols should remain in place and travellers should be permitted to quarantine in their own homes. To force Canadian citizens to pay over $2,000 for three nights of accommodation in a government approved hotel is unreasonable and will be a financial hardship for many,” CSA president Karen Huestis wrote.

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