On March 9th of this year my son Daniel and his grandparents went to Montevideo, Uruguay for March break. Ontario Premiere, Doug Ford, assured the public on March 12 international travel was fine. ‘Go ahead, enjoy your March break,’ he said. Nine days later, international borders are closing, travel is restricted, and basically the whole world was in lockdown. Daniel and his grandparents became stuck abroad.
We expected it to be a 30 day quarantine and daily updates from Canadain Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has assured the public that all Canadians—as a top priority—would be brought home from abroad. This has not happened at all nor has there been any sign this will be anytime soon. The only communication my family has received from the Canadian government is a list of other people stranded in Uruguay, and after 115 days of nothing, a generic email asking if they were still there or had returned to Canada.
In the (as of this writing) 115 days since the arrived, five flights have been cancelled (no repatriation flights as promised, all commercial) all with exorbitant price tags, upwards of $7500US for the three of them to fly, with no luggage and no guarantee of actually arriving on Canadian soil. The next flight date that is expected to take them home (again, commercial flight, no repatriation) is on September 8th. That is 265 days, stranded in another country, while our businesses reopen, our borders reopen and life here returns to a semblance of normalcy. But not for them and the 50 or so other people stranded in Uruguay.
On April 22nd, at the apex of the pandemic, a repatriation flight landed in Lima, Peru and brought back 200 Canadian citizens. Why then now, when we are currently in stage two of reopening, do these other Canadian citizens have to wait a further 3 MONTHS to return home? My family went for a two week vacation in the South American summer. They did not pack for a winter they didn’t expect to see. Please sign this petition to help me bring my family and others stranded without any communication, commiseration or help from our government. Thank you.