New COVID-19 isolation rules prompt trucker protest in Canada

New travel restrictions have gone into effect in New Brunswick, Canada in response to COVID 19, and truckers say they could force drivers out of the industry. 

The new travel restrictions require anyone, including truck drivers, to isolate for 14 days after returning from travel outside of New Brunswick. These rules went into effect on Saturday, April 24th at 11:59 p.m., reported CTV News.

While the restrictions allow for truck drivers to leave their home to get “the necessities of life” during that 14 day period as long as they do not come in direct contact with anyone, drivers say this 14 day isolation period is not realistic for truck drivers who are constantly coming and going for work. Some say that these new restrictions may even force drivers out of the industry, as two weeks of mandatory isolation can be difficult to manage for a working trucker. 

A group of drivers even gathered at the New Brunswick/Nova Scotia border on Sunday, April 25th to protest the restrictions, while the executive director of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association says he plans to speak with government officials to figure how to better accommodate truck drivers. 

“We need everybody out there, we need everybody working in a good environment,” he says. “We have to travel. It’s not that we’re doing it out of our own will, we have to.”