Rempel Garner insists she quarantined after U.S. stay
OTTAWA • Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner assured she quarantined for the mandatory 14 days upon returning from the United States, where she was based for a significant part of the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the latest meeting of the federal COVID-19 parliamentary committee on Wednesday, many people on social media were surprised to see Rempel Garner sitting in a seat in the House of Commons in Ottawa.
That’s because in April, the Toronto Star reported that Rempel Garner was working remotely from Oklahoma since the beginning of the pandemic. At the time, she said the travel was due to an “unexpected and urgent private personal matter.”
Oklahoma is where her husband and stepchildren live.
Since then, there had been no indication that the Conservative MP had returned to Canada … until her appearance in the House.
In an interview, Rempel Garner assures that she went “above and beyond” public-health guidelines when crossing the border back into Canada, including going into a mandatory 14day quarantine.
“If you think that I would not be in compliance with Canada’s quarantine laws, and that I hadn’t been in contact with public-health authorities, you would be mistaken,” the Calgary MP said.
She declined to identify where and when she spent her time in quarantine, for “obvious security reasons.”
“I went as far as to ensure that we had contacted PHAC (Public Health Agency of Canada) to make sure that we were counting things right. We planned every minute of it out to make sure that I was in extra super compliant, not just for political reasons, but because I set an example” as an MP, she added.
According to quarantine laws put in place by the Trudeau government to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, any person arriving in Canada from a foreign country must isolate completely for a minimum of 14 days.
Some essential workers, such as MPS, could request an exemption to the rules, but Rempel Garner says she did not.
In a statement, her office also confirmed that she arranged for private transport to take her to her quarantine location upon arriving in Canada, and wore a mask during the transit.