Transport minister says COVID-19 'root cause' of supply chain issues as truckers protest mandate

OTTAWA -

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra told CTV’s Power Play that he will hold a summit next week with supply chain stakeholders.

“There isn’t a single person that we know, or ourselves, that have not experienced supply-chain issues over the past couple of months or past couple of years,” he told Evan Solomon on CTV News Channel’s Power Play. He called COVID-19 “the root cause” of those issues.

Alghabra also said the federal government is working to address labour shortages.

A convoy of protesters is heading to Ottawa to rally against a vaccine mandate for truckers crossing into Canada. The mandate on the American side of the border came into effect Sunday.

Alghabra says the federal government has been phasing in vaccine mandates across industries that make up the country’s supply chains.

“We started with travellers first,” told Power Play. He said that approach included mandating vaccines for marine and air travel before moving to border truckers.

“Last November we announced that we are going to implement it for truck drivers who are crossing the border,” he told Power Play.

Minister Alghabra discusses the vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers in the video at the top of this article