In November 2020, I went back to Africa to see my family. My plan was to stay until the end of January 2021, but with classes being online and me being happier there, I decided to stay for as long as possible. In February 2021 the Canadian Prime Minister announced that all travellers coming to Canada would need to quarantine for 3 nights at a hotel, paying for it out of their own pockets, and the cost could be up to $2000 per person.
So, my family and I decided that the best choice was to stay in Africa until things got better in Canada. But fate had other plans for me. A few weeks later I received an email from my landlord saying he sold the house where I lived, therefore, could not renew my lease for the next year. So, the only solution I had was to come back to Canada. The preparations were the same as the ones I did to go to Africa, for the most part, as I had to take a covid test before travelling and made sure I had a lot of masks and hand sanitizers. However, this time I had to book a hotel before leaving, so I booked my hotel. On the Canadian government website, there is a list of approved hotels, which are all close to the airport and there is a standardized price so all the reservations cost the same.
The trip was pretty long, I travelled for 24 hours, stopped in Ethiopia and Ireland, before arriving in Toronto. Once I got to Toronto, I waited 3 hours before being able to leave the airport and had to take a second covid test (for some reason, this test was more painful than the ones before because they swabbed both my nostrils and that was very uncomfortable).
When I finally arrived at the hotel I booked, I faced a lot of issues; the booking I initially did got messed up so I ended paying 3 times the price of my initial room and was facing a $3000 fine because of my initial booking issues. Needless to say, I was very panicked but thankfully I was able to fix everything. I even had a Karen moment where I asked to talk to the manager. My waiting was not done, I arrived at the hotel around 11 am and I got to my room at 2:35 pm. And I had to attend a class as soon as I got to my room.
I got my test result the next day so I could leave, but I still had to pay for the 3 nights even though I only stayed 1 because the hotel quarantine is nonrefundable.
My thoughts on all of this are that this regulation is not the best because obviously there are some people who are travelling for no reason but what about people like me. I did not come back to Canada because I wanted to (far from it actually), I came back because I had to. I’m also a student I do not have $1000 but now here I am paying that much money for no reason in a way. I do not know what the government can do to make things better because looking at the number it does not look like the regulation helped except maybe the hotels’ finance, but in my point of view, they need to find a better solution. I do understand that the regulations exist to slow the spread of the virus and to keep people from doing unessential travel, but I don’t think that everyone should be punished because not everyone is travelling for unessential reasons. Maybe the government could create travelling passes that explain why you are travelling with proofs and based on that decide if you have to pay for the hotel quarantine or not.