HEALTH

HEALTH Vaccine queue jumpers generate angry responses

Even Dr. Bonnie Henry has joined the chorus of those slamming a former casino executive and a local actor

by Charlie Smith and Craig Takeuchi

More details have emerged about how a Vancouver couple that jumped the vaccine queue ended up being charged under Yukon’s Civil Emergency Measures Act.

The former president and CEO of Great Canadian Gaming, Rodney Baker, and his actor girlfriend, Ekaterina Baker, posed as employees of a motel in the remote community of Beaver Creek.

As a result, they were able to get the first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, which was being administered at a mobile vaccination clinic to all the town’s residents.

They have each been charged with two counts of violating the act, with each offence carrying a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine.

In an interview with Mike Smyth on CKNW Radio, Yukon’s minister of community services, John Streicker, said the couple flew to Whitehorse and was supposed to remain in quarantine at their hotel for 14 days. Instead, they violated an undertaking to do this and chartered a plane to Beaver Creek, where the vaccines were being distributed.

After being vaccinated in the remote community near the Alaska border, they asked for a lift back to the airport. And that aroused suspicion.

Streicker said the vaccine team later called the motel and asked if the Bakers were working there.

“The answer was ‘no’,” Streicker told Smyth. “So then the vaccine team called back to Whitehorse and talked to our civilemergency-measures enforcement folks.”

The enforcement people headed to the Whitehorse airport to meet the chartered plane from Beaver Creek, but it was already on the landing strip.

“Then the enforcement team went to the hotel where this couple had declared that they would be self-isolating,” Streicker continued.

Because the Bakers had already checked out, the enforcement team then returned to the airport to see if they were taking a domestic flight.

“They found them in the departure lounge heading back out of the territory and charged them there,” the cabinet minister said.

Streicker also revealed to Smyth that an all-party committee had been convened to start amending the Civil Emergency Measures Act. However, no changes have been made so far to the law’s penalties because territorial officials are focused on keeping people safe during the pandemic. To date, only 70 Yukon residents have contracted COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

On January 25, Baker resigned as president and CEO of Great Canadian Gaming after the queue-jumping became public. Baker had collected more than $6.7 million in compensation in 2019. The previous year, his pay package added up to $6.2 million.

So he’ll have no difficulty forking over $500 fines for failing to self-isolate and failing to follow a declaration.

Ekaterina Baker has appeared in the 2020 films Chick Fight (starring Malin Akerman), Fatman (starring Mel Gibson), and The Comeback Trail (starring Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman).

But the couple may have more trouble living down the infamy that has resulted from their actions.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry told reporters on January 25 that the Bakers should be ashamed of themselves.

“They put a community at risk for their own benefit,” Henry said. “And that, to me, is appalling.”

Solicitor General Mike Farnworth described the couple’s actions as a “Marie Antoinette let-them-eat-cake moment”.

“I can’t believe I’ve ever seen or heard of such a despicable, disgusting sense of entitlement and lack of a moral compass,” Farnworth told News 1130.

By flying to the Yukon, the Bakers also disregarded Henry’s recommendation to British Columbians to avoid nonessential travel outside of the province. However, doing this does not leave them vulnerable to any penalties in this province.

Beaver Creek is home to elderly and high-risk residents with limited access to health care, which is why they were selected for early COVID-19 vaccinations. The Bakers’ decision to fly into the community has upset the White River First Nation, which alleged in a statement that they placed others at risk.

Streicker has told many media outlets how angry Yukon residents are about what happened.

“We were outraged,” he told Smith. “I don’t think that’s me alone, as the minister. And, especially, the folks in Beaver Creek are really choked that Canadians would act—that anybody would act—in such a selfish fashion to put themselves ahead of a community.”

In addition, the queue-jumping has infuriated other Indigenous people in Canada, including Ginger Gosnell-Myers, the Nisga’a-Kwakwaka’wakw Indigenous Fellow with the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. She pointed out over Twitter that these vaccines were meant for Indigenous elders.

“A $500 fine does not fit this selfish crime,” Gosnell-Myers declared.

Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq was equally outraged.

“These people deserve a lot more than a fine, or at least a fine that reflects their financial status,” she tweeted. “This is unacceptable. They put a vulnerable community at risk.” g

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Rodney Baker quit as CEO of Great Canadian Gaming Corp. after he and his girlfriend, local actor Ekaterina Baker, took a charter flight to Beaver Creek to get immunized against COVID-19.

They put a community at risk for their own benefit.

– Dr. Bonnie Henry