The Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors continues to make headway, securing a meeting with Health Minister Patty Hajdu earlier this week.
After many months of advocating for a meeting, ACITA had the opportunity to chat via ZOOM with the Minister and 93 participants.
ACITA Co-founder Brenda Slater says the "overall impression was that she understood our precarious position as we are about to have our lifeline (CRB) to $300 per week starting in July and continue to fall through the federal aid cracks for Independent Advisors. She committed to having a conversation with her fellow Ministers to bring this gap in aid to their attention.
We (ACITA) understand that in terms of loosening travel restrictions, its complicated but she seemed hopeful that there were some changes that were imminent. With the announcement about Quarantine Hotel Changes - we now understand why she was making it clear that changes are coming."
Minister Hajdu mentioned that she was particularly bothered by the negative advertising around travel coming from the Ontario Premier's office. She agrees that travel is not the issue, something ACITA has been advocating the last year and asked for the travel industry to support her messaging that travel is not evil.
ACITA pointed out her ask was a contradiction to the Federal campaign against travel (travel.gc.ca) and Hajdu said she will be asking them to change their tone moving forward.
Hajdu spoke about the USA rates of vaccination stalling and that Canada will catch up to their rate soon. Nancy Wilson, co-founder of ACITA, suggested that if being vaccinated means Canadians will regain some freedoms, then there is added incentive.
ACITA also asked for Hajdu to help facilitate a meeting with Minister Qualtrough and Minister Freeland, something they've been trying to do for almost a year.
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