Nova Scotians are technically prisoners right now

Newcomers to Nova Scotia, did you know that you are expected to play prisoner? Of course, the numerous air travel restrictions in place do not affect the Criminal Elite and their familes. There are entire classes of people who are exempt from Quarantine requirements. To quote a Federal website,

National interest – A person or any person in a class of persons whose presence in Canada is determined by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to be in the national interest [….]

Do you really think we will have statistics and data on the thousands of people who have been shoehorned into this category? Then there is the case of “essential workers.” Theoretically, if you have paperwork (and maybe some connections) to prove that you flip burgers at Macdonalds every weekend, you too could qualify as an “essential worker.” Wouldn’t they starve to death without the Big Macs and Cola?

Then there is this category:

Officials of the Government of Canada, a provincial or a foreign government, including law enforcement, border enforcement, and immigration enforcement officers, who enter Canada for the purposes of law, border or immigration enforcement, or national security activities that support active investigations

It is known that members of the Criminal Elite do gigs at CSIS and other “spook” agencies. Gigs are awarded to them whenever they feel like. Of course, the agencies can’t confirm because “National Security.” We will never have statistics and data about this category, which according to rumors is in the thousands.

As far as leaving Nova Scotia is concerned, some airlines /countries are demanding a PCR Test. Isn’t it nice for the NSHA to do that free of cost? All you have to do is show up at the Homburg Centre near St. Marys University. Don’t we have a great healthcare system? Whoops disregard that. To quote the NSHA,

Nova Scotia Health has reached an agreement with PRAXES Medical Group to support COVID-19 testing for people who require proof that they do not have the COVID-19 virus for work or travel.

So you book an appointment, and climb up these stairs on 1778 Market Street (pictured on the right), to be greeted by a sign which tells you you to please leave unless you are 5 minutes within your appointment time.

So you go back downstairs and loiter in the streets till your appointment time. The test begins. You realize this is more or less a one-man show, and instead of the throat swab, they are unneccesarily going with the punitive nasal swab…ouch, but too late. The administrator asks if you have your NSHA number because they want to peek at the results and stir drama when positives, or false positives are detected . But wait, didnt NSHA completely exclude themselves from this by delegating everything to a third party?

And now the bill…..$287.50

To give you an idea of the profit margin, India, a relatively poor country without a properly functioning public healthcare system, has mandated that PCR Tests conducted in Government facilities will be free, and unlike NSHA, the results can be used for any purpose, including travel. For Private Labs, the Government has capped the price to $78. State Governments have further capped the price to half of that. And unlike Praxes, most labs do throat swabs. Results are available via email within ten hours. Praxes claims that it cannot guarantee a turnaround time because they simply send samples to the NSHA Lab, and redirect the results from NSHA back to you. The results even have the NSHA logo (Wait, they don’t even have their own lab?).

It is clear that NSHA wants to punish plebs who dare travel. But with this ingenious arrangement, some of their pals get to profit as well.

Update: Praxes later changed their lab to a more customer friendly location. They also dropped their prices a bit, to $118 the last time I checked.

Update: In August 2021, I had one such test done for travel. The person who signed it off was none other than the Dr. Strang! Does Dr. Strang normally take time off from his busy schedule to sign off on the numerous incoming lab tests? Or are there “special cases?”