The cost to Canadian taxpayers of mandatory quarantine hotels used during the COVID-19 pandemic has already hit nearly $339 million and accounting isn’t finished, according to figures disclosed to date by the federal government.
A Health Canada briefing note, disclosed by Blacklock’s Reporter on July 25, indicates that expenses for each traveller housed in a hotel for 72 hours were at a cost of more than $17,000.
The costs associated with the government’s mandatory quarantine rule included lodging, meals, security, traveller support, and transportation,” said the document, “Designated Quarantine Facilities,” and the total cost came to hundreds of millions, according to the document. It says the final cost is still unknown as “accounting continues given the program was recently cancelled.”
The briefing note said that “$338.7 million was expended on designated quarantine facilities,” which works out to the equivalent of $17,500 per traveler. The data was “not previously published only as accounting continues given the program was recently cancelled,” it said.
From March 2020 to September 2022, travellers who arrived in Canada who did not have a COVID test of a particular type prescribed by the federal government, or that could not prove they were COVID-free, were required to stay in a designated “quarantine” hotel for at least three days. Those travellers who refused to submit to COVID tests reported they were not allowed to leave the hotel for days or were issued hefty fines.
The government designated a total of 38 hotels contracted for quarantined travellers between March 2020 and September 2022, the note said. “A total of 22,188 travelers were quarantined or isolated at designated quarantine facilities between March 22, 2020 and September 30, 2022.”
“Maintaining these facilities as a contingency was an important part of protecting Canadians,” said the Health Canada document.
“Upon the elimination of the border measures on October 1, 2022, the Public Health Agency was managing 17 designated quarantine facilities and had access to rooms in one provincial site with a total room capacity of 1,465 rooms for travelers in 14 cities across Canada,” the document indicated.
The budget for the program in 2021 by the Public Health Agency was $225.6 million. At the time, then-health minister Patricia Hajdu said the quarantine “is in place for a very important purpose. It allows for the clearing of a test for a person to be tested for Covid and for Canada to receive the results of that test prior to any onward travel.”
The program was later criticized by the auditor general—among others including constitutional lawyers and civil rights advocates—for being an expensive failure. Auditor General Karen Hogan said on Dec. 21, 2021, “This is not a success story. I am concerned the Public Health Agency is unable to show us whether or not these border measures are effective.”
An Inquiry of Ministry filed by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner (Calgary Nose Hill) on Jan. 31, 2022, found that one specific hotel, the Westin Calgary, received a $26.8 million federal payment to quarantine 1,490 travellers. From June 22, 2020, to Oct. 30, 2022, the hotel provided housing at a cost of roughly $18,000 per person, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
A number of news reports at the time had horror stories of travellers allegedly stuck in hotels with no hot water, poor food, no supplies, and in some cases, separated from their families.
“Of course we have time to look back and learn from those lessons,” then-Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said. “At the time we did what we felt was necessary to protect the health and safety of Canadians.”
“During the pandemic we did a lot of extraordinary things to protect the health and safety of Canadians, unimaginable things that none of us imagined,” added Mr. Alghabra.
