The doctor in question showed up at the London airport to start his new life in Canada, and when they checked in at Heathrow, he was informed that he was allowed to get on the plane but not his family. His wife and teenage daughter, with their pet dog, had to find a hotel at a moment's notice in London, England.
At the time, I was aware of the problem. We were desperately trying to troubleshoot this so that the family could make it onto the plane and board. We just hit one dead end after another in terms of trying to speak with Immigration or to speak to somebody who could allow the family to board the plane.
The family ended up going to the hotel, as I mentioned. Again, we were trying to reach out through appropriate channels, which would have been through health care in Nova Scotia, through the Department of Health, and then we tried to reach out to Immigration to try to make sure that this family could join their father and husband as quickly as possible. In fact, we just found one delay after the other, and the family was just so frustrated.
They ended up having to spend three weeks in that hotel in London before they got to come to Canada. Meanwhile, the physician had to do his quarantine period in Canada for two weeks alone, without any access to his family. Of course, when they arrived in Canada, they had to do the two-week quarantine as well.
It was a pretty tough start to their life in Canada. We're lucky that this is a resilient family they have settled into this country and made Nova Scotia their new home, but it sure was a rocky start and a fairly emotional one at times.
If we had a way to improve our ability to troubleshoot when those issues arise, that would be incredibly helpful to avoid any future problems like that happening.