Western Standard - November 02, 2021


Thousands of Canadian aviation workers lose their jobs

Topics
mandatory vaccinations in aviation行业
Mentioned
Matt Ed Sims
Trudeau to cap oil and gas emissions O’Toole silent as Trudeau starts shutting down energy industry

Episode Stats


Length

3 minutes

Words per minute

163.09

Word count

623

Sentence count

28


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Thousands of Canadian airline workers were put on leave without pay Monday for not complying with industry-wide mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations. The group Free to Fly, a hub for airline professionals and travellers, was started in April by two Canadian airline professionals.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.240 Hello, I'm Melanie Rizdin, reporter with the Western Standard.
00:00:04.000 Thousands of Canadian aviation professionals were put on leave without pay Monday for not
00:00:08.560 complying with industry-wide forced COVID-19 vaccinations. The group Free to Fly, a hub for
00:00:14.800 Canadian airline professionals and travellers against the COVID-19 mandates, was started in
00:00:20.240 April by two Canadian airline professionals. Yesterday, thousands of pilots, flight attendants
00:00:25.920 and other free-to-fly aviation professionals were forced into unemployment, said the group
00:00:31.200 in a statement released to the Western Standard. They have been deemed unwelcome by employers they've
00:00:37.520 served safely and faithfully for decades, after insisting on their right to informed consent
00:00:43.040 and health freedom. These men and women are exchanging current comfort and security to
00:00:48.160 bravely stand for the future freedom of this once great nation." Matt, one of the founders,
00:00:54.160 who has asked that we only use his first name, is a pilot for one of Canada's major airlines.
00:01:00.320 Matt and his wife, who is a flight attendant, were both put on leave without pay on Monday.
00:01:05.440 Flying has been my dream since I was five years old, said Matt in an interview.
00:01:09.600 But I'm actually doing okay. I have the support of my family and the truth is my wife and I have
00:01:14.960 taken solace in banding together with like-minded people we've met through Free to Fly.
00:01:20.480 Matt said membership for Free to Fly has been growing daily and sits just under 40,000.
00:01:26.640 We are working to create a coordinated, coherent media message to up our presence.
00:01:32.560 The goal is to recruit enough people that our forces felt economically, said Matt.
00:01:37.760 Matt also said the group is working closely with lawyers who have a proven track record for working
00:01:42.960 on cases like this. We plan to share stories from passengers and some of our airline professionals
00:01:49.040 to show how people are suffering greatly with these new restrictions on travel, said Matt.
00:01:54.400 Free to Fly has updated its website with a video that explains why tens of thousands of airline
00:01:59.840 professionals would give up lifestyle, financial security, and for some, a lifelong dream career.
00:02:06.480 For things to go back to a free and fair society, said Matt, we all have to give something up.
00:02:12.160 But the longer we wait to stand up, the more we will have to give up.
00:02:15.840 Matt encourages travelers and industry professionals to sign up on the Free to Fly website.
00:02:21.120 In the meantime, Matt said he and his wife plan to start a business together to support their family.
00:02:26.000 Monday, WestJet implemented the federal government's mandatory vaccination policy for air travelers
00:02:31.600 and put about 300 employees on leave without pay for not complying with the company's vaccination mandate deadline.
00:02:38.240 The implication of these policies mark a major confidence milestone for our industry as Canadians can fly
00:02:45.280 knowing that they are traveling within a fully vaccinated ecosystem, said Ed Sims, WestJet Group
00:02:51.280 president and CEO in a statement. Quote, we are taking all necessary steps to ensure our guests are
00:02:57.680 advised of the new requirements for travel prior to taking their next flight.
00:03:02.240 According to the WestJet statement, for phase one travelers between October 30th and November 29th,
00:03:09.440 in order to travel with the WestJet Group, guests must prepare to provide proof of vaccination or
00:03:15.600 proof of a valid PCR test to demonstrate the requirements for travel. For phase two,
00:03:21.280 for travelers on or after November 30th, only proof of vaccination for guests 12 years and older,
00:03:28.000 with narrow exceptions, will be acceptable for travel on the WestJet Group. Roughly 96 percent of all
00:03:34.240 WestJets are fully vaccinated. The Western Standard reached out to Air Canada for a statement,
00:03:39.840 but did not hear back in time for publishing. For the Western Standard, I'm Melanie Rizdin.