B.C. couple charged in vaccine queue-jump

YUKON CLINIC

The chief executive of Great Canadian Gaming Corp. has resigned as an officer and director of the company after he and his wife were identified as the couple charged with breaking pandemic rules and jumping the queue to get COVID-19 vaccinations.

Rod Baker, 55, and his actress wife, Ekaterina, 32, were ticketed and charged under Yukon's Civil Emergency Measures Act in Whitehorse last week on Jan. 21 after travelling to Yukon from their home in Vancouver.

Rather than isolating, as required, Baker and his wife appear to have chartered a plane to the small community of Beaver Creek where they received vaccinations.

Beaver Creek was chosen as a priority community to receive doses of COVID-19 vaccine because it's a remote border community. It is home to fewer than 125 people, including members of the White River First Nation.

Yukon Community Services Minister John Streicker said 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 said the couple arrived in Yukon on Thursday and declared they would follow the territory's mandatory two-week self-isolation protocol but instead travelled to Beaver Creek, some 1,850 kilometres from their Vancouver home.

He said they were charged for failure to self-isolate and failure to behave in a manner consistent with their declaration upon arrival. Streicker said the couple allegedly presented themselves as visiting workers, misleading staff at the mobile vaccination clinic in Beaver Creek.

Territorial enforcement officers received a call about the couple, who were later intercepted at the Whitehorse airport trying to leave Yukon, he said.

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

Ekaterina Baker is an actress best known for her roles as Veronica in Chick Fight and as Oksana in the award winning short film Oksana and Viktor.

Ontario-based Great Canadian Gaming, which operates 26 casino, gaming, entertainment and hotels in Ontario, B.C., New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, issued a short statement Monday in which it said Baker had resigned, effective Jan. 24. Terrance Doyle, president of strategic growth and chief compliance officer, has been appointed interim CEO.

Spokesman Chuck Keeling said “Baker … is no longer affiliated in any way with the company.”