WARMINGTON: Bread and water in locked room during forced detention after landing at Pearson
It’s disturbing this man is being held captive when there is no presented reason nor rationale to do so
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Yes, there is bread and water served while detained at this hotel.
Bagels too.
“Got breakfast,” teased Steve Duesing Wednesday morning.
Now into his third full day of being held by the government, the 34-year-old Scarborough man remains locked in his “hotel room” turned cell at the Radisson hotel near Pearson airport. “The bagel is almost as hard as the apple.”
But it’s on par with the ham sandwich dropped outside his ninth-floor room Tuesday.
“They send up four bottles of water a day,” he said.
He’s not on vacation at this hotel. He is being held against his will until he gets clearance by Health Canada to leave. They detained him Sunday night after arriving home from Charlotte, N.C. after not accepting the negative COVID test he paid for in the U.S.
Authorities tested him again and he’s been forced to cool his heels until the results are in.
The 48 hours he was originally told passed by at 10 p.m. Tuesday and he’s not been able to find out when word will come. If for some reason his test comes back positive, he believes he may have to stay there for 14 days.
“But I don’t have any symptoms and I have had a negative test,” he said.
Still, he’s in forced quarantine in a room he’s not permitted to leave, with a guard at the end of the hallway of a hotel that has erected fencing all the way around it and has a security guard on station checking each person who comes on the premises.
It’s disturbing that this man is being held captive like this when there is no presented reason nor rationale to do so. He could be allowed to go home and wait for results there in isolation. That he is not permitted to do that is a new, dark chapter for Canadian civil liberties and in the country’s history.
If he was showing signs of COVID-19 there may be a debate on mandated isolation, but he has none. Holding him prisoner is cruel and unusual punishment. There is nowhere else this could happen without police being called. He should be immediately set free as the free citizen he is. No Canadian should be held against their will without a trial or order from a judge.
No Canadian should be forced to pay $2,000 for lodging with such putrid food in non luxury rooms. These are fellow Canadians. They are not criminals. If they were criminals, they would not be treated this way.
Meanwhile, Steve tells me early Wednesday morning there was much more activity going on at the hotel.
“They seem to be getting more people,” he said. “It’s definitely more active outside and inside. I can’t see much, obviously, but it’s a lot more loud and active with shuttles arriving every hour or two.”
He sent us a picture of a bus arriving taken from his window view.
Health Canada has said it will offer comment on this situation Wednesday. What they should do is cease and desist on holding any more people until this form of detention is debated in the House of Commons and Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms are considered. This is not a totalitarian or police state. People have rights here.
If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to have a voluntary holding centre, that could be helpful in stopping coronavirus spread. But forcing healthy people who have provided a test and who display no symptoms is not Canadian.
With bread and water already on the menu, the only thing missing are bars on the doors and windows.
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