KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

“When are you com­ing home, dad­dy?” 
It is what Kirk Bayne hears every time he speaks to his chil­dren via What­sApp. At the ages of 11 and eight, Bayne’s chil­dren are too young to un­der­stand dad­dy’s predica­ment of be­ing trapped in a for­eign coun­try with no idea of when he would see them again.
“I tell them it is all de­pen­dent on when our Gov­ern­ment de­cides to fly us home or repa­tri­ate us. I do not want the bor­ders open be­cause I do not want COVID-19 spread­ing and get­ting them sick. I tell them Trinidad owns an air­line and the Gov­ern­ment can very eas­i­ly fly us home with­out open­ing bor­ders,” Bayne said yes­ter­day.
Bayne is part of a group of 22 T&T cit­i­zens in Cana­da lob­by­ing the Gov­ern­ment to send a repa­tri­a­tion flight to al­low them to re­unite with their fam­i­lies here. It has been three months since the Gov­ern­ment closed T&T’s bor­ders to stem in the im­por­ta­tion of COVID-19. Now that pub­lic health au­thor­i­ties have suc­cess­ful­ly con­trolled the spread of the virus lo­cal­ly, how­ev­er, they are say­ing it is time for them to come home.

How­ev­er, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty did not ap­prove the ap­pli­ca­tions for ex­emp­tions they sent months ago.

Bayne, a well­bore in­ter­ven­tion spe­cial­ist, lives in west Trinidad with his wife and chil­dren. He went to Mex­i­co on March 4 to work on a rig 150 miles off­shore, where oth­er T&T cit­i­zens were work­ing. The closed bor­ders left all of them strand­ed. With no way to get home, Bayne went to Cana­da where he un­der­went quar­an­tine for two weeks be­fore tak­ing up an­oth­er job in New­found­land. The job end­ed on April 20 and he re­mains there.
“It is dread­ful be­cause my kids are young and are al­ways ask­ing ‘dad, when are you com­ing home. They do not un­der­stand that I am try­ing to be sup­port­ive of them. My wife is an es­sen­tial work­er and it is dif­fi­cult for them. They are shut­tled around but for the most part they are home,” Bayne ex­plained.

“I am a very in­volved fa­ther when I am home. I do ro­tate over­seas and home for work but I am very in­volved in every as­pect of their dai­ly lives.”

An­oth­er na­tion­al, Lor­net­ta Jan and her hus­band were in Dubai when they heard the US bor­ders were clos­ing. As they trav­elled to Jor­dan to get clos­er to home, Jor­dan­ian au­thor­i­ties quar­an­tined them in a ho­tel for 16 days. Even­tu­al­ly, they got to Cana­da in April, where they were able to stay with rel­a­tives. Since then, they were able to com­mu­ni­cate with oth­er T&T cit­i­zens stuck there and be­came part of the group lob­by­ing the Gov­ern­ment for a flight home.

Jan said yes­ter­day there is al­so a men­tal toll caused by be­ing away from her fam­i­ly. Due to anx­i­ety, she said she has lost about 12 pounds.
“In our group, who can af­ford it, we will pay for our quar­an­tine. Our group has 22 peo­ple, and we have all been back and forth email­ing the Min­is­ter. I emailed a group re­quest for all of us. I cre­at­ed a Face­book group, and an­oth­er girl cre­at­ed a What­sApp group called TT Na­tion­als in Cana­da.
“It is crazy be­cause with­out an ex­emp­tion the air­line will not en­ter­tain us. With­out flight in­for­ma­tion, the min­ster will not en­ter­tain us. Send a repa­tri­a­tion flight like the oth­er coun­tries are do­ing for na­tion­als abroad. There are Tri­nis in Cana­da who still need to come home. Thank God we are not in a sit­u­a­tion like that. So far, we are okay but not every­body is so lucky. Some peo­ple are sleep­ing on so­fas,” Jan said.
Bayne said Caribbean Air­lines (CAL), as a State com­pa­ny, is owned by cit­i­zens and he be­lieves it is on­ly fair that they have ac­cess to an air­craft in dire cir­cum­stances.
Be­fore join­ing the group in Cana­da, he was part of an­oth­er group in the US com­pris­ing 99 cit­i­zens. He said that group ap­proached CAL who said it would cost US$75,000 to ac­com­mo­date 99 pas­sen­gers on a repa­tri­a­tion flight.
The group in Cana­da is will­ing to pay CAL for a flight back home. How­ev­er, Bayne said if a plane ar­rives in Toron­to at that price it would be dif­fi­cult.
“Yes, we are will­ing to pay our way home but the Gov­ern­ment will have to work with us in this sit­u­a­tion. In a nut­shell, they can pick up some peo­ple in the US and some in Cana­da be­cause we need to fill the plane to be able to af­ford it.”
Bayne al­so said if the Gov­ern­ment pro­vides ex­emp­tions, they can trav­el to oth­er Caribbean is­lands, mak­ing CAL’s repa­tri­a­tion flight short­er.
“Un­less we get some di­rec­tive from the Gov­ern­ment we are all in lim­bo be­cause no­body knows what to do. It is ab­solute mad­ness. I am 100 per cent for keep­ing bor­ders close and I com­mend the Gov­ern­ment for con­trol­ling COVID-19 and keep­ing it down to ze­ro,” Bayne said.

“I have to ad­mit that they are tak­ing too long. They should have start­ed bring­ing peo­ple home since they closed the bor­ders. It is our right. I am not beg­ging to come back home. It is an em­bar­rass­ment to them and me.”

Young re­sponds

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young says the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing to repa­tri­ate all na­tion­als strand­ed abroad by the lock­down of the bor­ders due to COVID-19. How­ev­er, he says the process will take time and will have to be man­aged very care­ful­ly to en­sure the coun­try’s pub­lic health sys­tem can fa­cil­i­tate the process.

His com­ment came in re­sponse to an ap­peal from a group of na­tion­als strand­ed in Cana­da to be repa­tri­at­ed home.

“The Gov­ern­ment has made its po­si­tion very clear through­out the very chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od of deal­ing with the glob­al pan­dem­ic of COVID-19 with re­spect to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s bor­ders,” Young said.

“We are care­ful­ly man­ag­ing the re­turn of thou­sands of na­tion­als. We are bal­anc­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the coun­try’s par­al­lel pub­lic health fa­cil­i­ties set up for COVID-19 and the ca­pac­i­ty of state quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties and the abil­i­ty of the state to su­per­vise quar­an­tine with the num­bers of na­tion­als who have re­turned and who wish to re­turn.”

He added, “In the last cou­ple of weeks we have man­aged the re­turn of hun­dreds of cruise ship work­ers, stu­dents from UWI’s Ja­maica and Bar­ba­dos cam­pus­es, as well as na­tion­als re­turn­ing from Suri­name, Guyana and Venezuela amongst oth­ers.

“We are now plan­ning the repa­tri­a­tion of na­tion­als from coun­tries such as the Unit­ed King­dom, USA, Cana­da and oth­er coun­tries. This is a bal­anc­ing ex­er­cise to en­sure that we get na­tion­als back to Trinidad and To­ba­go but in a man­ner that does not jeop­ar­dise the hard work that has achieved pro­tec­tion for the pop­u­la­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

We are cur­rent­ly work­ing out the op­tions for repa­tri­at­ing the next groups of na­tion­als and will make an­nounce­ments short­ly.”