The unions representing border officers is asking for vaccine prioritization for its members, including those working at Vancouver International Airport.
The Customs and Immigration Union — a component of the Public Service Alliance of Canada — which represents Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) workers, is calling on Premier John Horgan to recognize the “threat” its members face and to add them to the first responder priority list.
“Outside of healthcare, we are on the frontlines of these variants that are coming into Canada,” said Richard Savage, fourth national vice-president of the Customs and Immigration Union. “We’re also seeing that the rest of the international airports either have been or will soon vaccinate frontline CBSA employees.”
CBSA officers are the first point of contact for those entering Canada, said Savage. Officers need to speak to each international traveller arriving at the airport – or at land border crossings – to ensure they meet all of the federal pandemic entry requirements.
Those interactions with travellers could range from just five minutes to 45 minutes, depending on the situation, said Savage, who also works as a CBSA officer at a land border in Surrey.
But those aren’t the only essential duties CBSA officers carry out, said Savage. There are inland officers, performing arrests and deportations, removal officers who “fly to COVID hotspots to remove people,” and officers at immigration holding facilities housing detainees.
According to the union, YVR is the only airport in the country open to international travel, where CBSA officers haven’t been prioritized for vaccination.
Just four airports in Canada – YVR, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto – are currently open to international travellers, and flights arrive daily from around the world.
According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, around 120 international flights have been flagged for COVID-19 exposures since January.
Flights, however, are currently down by about 90 per cent at YVR.
The Ontario provincial government lists border inspection officers as a priority group under phase two of its vaccination plan. Officers working at the Montreal airport are receiving vaccines as essential workers, according to Savage, while the union has been told that CBSA workers will also likely be prioritized in Alberta.
In B.C., however, border officers have fallen through the cracks in the vaccine rollout, said Savage, and weren’t included in the list of workers under the province’s frontline worker program unveiled last month.
That program has since been halted over concerns of rare blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine, although Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry said last week the province is in the process of ramping it up.
