B.C. couple charged in vaccine queue-jump

A former CEO of a Canadian gaming and hospitality company and his actress wife have been charged after allegedly chartering a plane to sneak into a COVID-19 vaccine clinic in a remote Yukon community about 1,850 kilometres from their Vancouver home.

Yukon News reported that Rod Baker, 55, and his wife Ekaterina Baker, 32, were charged in Whitehorse on Jan. 21, 2021, under the territory's Civil Emergency Measures Act.

Yukon News reported the couple apparently travelled from their home in downtown Vancouver to Whitehorse and then chartered a private plane to fly another 360 km northwest to Beaver Creek, an isolated community of about 100 people.

They allegedly claimed they worked at a local motel in order to get the Moderna vaccine without a Yukon health card.

Rod Baker resigned as director, president and CEO of the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation on Sunday, the company said in a statement released Monday. Ekaterina Baker recently had roles in two movies released last year — the Christmas film Fatman and the comedy Chick Fight.

Yukon Community Services Minister John Streicker told The Canadian Press he's outraged a couple travelled to the most westerly community in Canada, near the border with Alaska, to get the shots. He did not identify the couple.

Streicker says he heard Thursday that the Canadian couple arrived in Yukon on Tuesday and declared they would follow the territory's mandatory two-week self-isolation, but instead travelled to Beaver Creek.

He says they were charged for failure to self-isolate and failure to behave in a manner consistent with their declaration upon arrival.

Streicker says the couple allegedly presented themselves as visiting workers, misleading staff at the mobile vaccination clinic in Beaver Creek.

He says territorial enforcement officers received a call about the couple, who were later intercepted at the Whitehorse airport trying to leave Yukon.

The maximum fine under the emergency measures act is $500, and up to six months in jail. The RCMP have been notified, he said in an interview on Friday.

Streicker hadn't confirmed where they are from, but said they didn't show Yukon health cards at the clinic.

Yukon has two vaccination teams that are visiting communities with priority to those in group-living settings, health-care workers, people over 80 not in long-term care, and Yukoners living in remote and First Nation communities.

Beaver Creek was chosen as a priority community to receive doses of COVID-19 vaccine because it's a remote border community, he said.