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Canada single-handedly destroys the Alaska cruise industry
This week, Canada has contributed to the ruination of the Alaska cruise industry. Numerous cruise lines, including Princess, Celebrity, Disney, Norwegian, Holland-America, Crystal, and Seabourn, cruise to Alaska from ports on the US West Coast, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. Canada has now prohibited any cruise line from cruising in their waters, or landing at any of their ports, until the end of February 2022. That is a year from now. Not to mention, the ruination of the finances of the State of Alaska, which stands to lose over 800,000 passengers who shop and tour in Alaska from those cruise ships, and up to $800,000,000 of revenue from those passengers.
Canada also hosts other cruise lines on the US Great Lakes, St. Lawrence Seaway, and Atlantic Coast from ports in the US such as Detroit, Chicago, New York, and Boston. For the next year, cruise lines such as Victory and American Queen will not be able to run river cruises that touch any part of Canada. Just this week, we received in our mail fancy brochures from both of the above cruise lines, detailing their 2021 sailings, which will now have to be canceled.
The reason for all this destruction of economic value and livelihoods? Yes, it’s the Wuhan Coronavirus pandemic. Canada just could not allow itself to be invaded by all those infected tourists, who would, of course, spread the deadly virus to every Canadian citizen they encountered. “Public health” is now the accepted reason for millions of people all over the world being prevented from traveling, visiting their loved ones in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, eating out at a local restaurant, attending school or concerts, and celebrating holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas with their families.
Just when do the people start fighting the Health Nazis in government, who seem to be bent on the destruction of their lives and the economies of their countries? Just when do the populations of the US and Canada, in particular, decide that enough is enough, and it is time to go back to living their lives? When is it finally time to admit that the virus will be impossible to contain, control, or stop spreading? When will it be time to start protecting the most vulnerable older citizens and let the rest of the world get back to work, play, and cruise vacations? If it is not soon, many more deaths of despair will occur, and more industries will die, all in the name of “keeping the public safe”.
LET OUR CRUISES GO!
[originally posted at RushBabe49.com]
Published in Culture
My French Canadian wife keeps up with many of her relatives. Her closest cousin and her husband are very conservative and were Trump supporters but even these conservatives blame their lack of vaccines on the US government not their own socialized healthcare system. They are very angry with America now.
Alaskan Cruises have long been controversial in Canada. These cruise liners float off the coast – so that passengers can take in the view of the wild coast line of Vancouver Island and north – causing all kinds of pollution and problems – without ever stepping foot in Canada or spending a single dollar anywhere along the coast.
So to hell with them – Repeal the Jones Act and the cruise ships could book more actors so they can have performances in the afternoons as well.
Uh, while not as senic and a bit tougher, the cruise ships could go around Vancouver Island and avoid Canadian water altogether.
Other than the QEii I cant really think of a modern passenger ship that sails a route where land is out of sight for days at a time.
A lot of cruise ships reposition with the seasons. Alaska in the summer, Hawaii in the winter. Mediterranean in the summer, Caribbean in the winter. So twice a year they have longer cruises. I have a friend who plans to go on one from Vancouver to somewhere in Asia.
In 2018, we took a cruise from San Francisco round-trip to Hawaii. Four days without sight of land. Crystal Cruises does round-trips to Hawaii from both LA and SF. Or they used to. Who knows when the government will allow cruises again. All the big cruise lines may be ruined by the government shutdowns.
Ironically, Americans will be finished with the virus by the end of spring while we will not be.
I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Our Health Nazis have told us to prepare to wear masks and social distance indefinitely, since vaccines will be in short supply and so many have refused inoculation. Our Dictator says restrictions will not be lifted until a majority of the population is vaccinated and that may not happen for months. They will continue to move the goal posts so they may maintain control over us.
Is it foreign owned or foreign flagged?
Cruise line ownership, the country flag flown, employees, and property owned is a tangled web. Despite flags, they own property in the US employ US citizens stateside, and are traded on our stock exchanges so Americans invest in them. Lefties hate them. They are mad they can’t control wages of shipboard workers, expecting the lines to pay Indonesian workers US wages. They also see them as a threat to the environment. Ergo, it is hard to know what impositions are needed for covid and which ones are there out of spite, much like the hatred they have for us and Trump. Here is a taste from wiki:
[I cruise HAL and it has the Netherlands flag. This is from wiki.]
[It became part of Carnival Corp in 1989.]
and this on Carnival Cruise Lines, also from wiki:
If I’m following this correctly, the Alaska cruise shutdown isn’t just Canada’s fault. The comments above suggest that touching at a Canadian port is necessary for an Alaska cruise to avoid violating the Jones Act.
I confess that I know little about the Jones Act. My quick research indicates that the Act requires imposes four important requirements on ships operating directly between two US ports:
However, this law appears to apply only to cargo ships, not passenger ships. But . . .
There’s another law called the PVSA (Passenger Vessel Services Act) that applies similar restrictions to passenger vessels.
I’m not completely convinced that this legislation is “archaic.” It does impose some significant costs. The stated rationale is to maintain a viable merchant marine, and a viable domestic shipbuilding industry, both of which are important in the event of war. This certainly was true with respect to WWI (before the Jones Act though after the PVSA) and WWII (after the Jones Act).
Cruise lines are hurting in general from government over-reaction to the epidemic:
https://www.insider.com/abandoned-scrapped-cruise-ships-illustrate-struggling-industry-2020-11#he-explained-that-cruise-ships-can-be-extremely-costly-to-maintain-if-theyre-not-operational-3
Of course, older ships are usually sold or scrapped anyway, but it was accelerated in 2020. Cruising is not cheap, but it is affordable and is a fun vacation. I won’t return to cruising until there are no restrictions on ships or the ports. If this is forever, then so be it.
An Alaskan cruise is on our bucket list of “must take” cruises. One of my coworkers sent his wife and daughter on an Alaskan cruise. He asked if I had any cold weather headgear his daughter could use. I said, “Sure!” and brought him my “mad bomber” hat the next morning. “Tell her to take plenty of pictures,” I said. When I got my hat back, her father showed me the pictures. At every stop, his daughter took the hat off, held it out, and took a picture of the hat against the background. To summarize, my hat has been to Alaska, but I haven’t!
Cruise lines can easily just not stop in Canada. No need to do so, can stop only in Alaskan ports of call. Canadian waters should be only a 12 mile limit, so does eliminate senic part of inside passage, until we get into US waters, but that can be cruised overnight with right planning, so I expect we will have US only cruises.
One issue, that could occur is US law that might force vessels to be US registered if they don’t have a foreign port of call on the itinerary. Most cruise liners are NOT US registered, because all of the Union and Coast Guard rules and regulations, and taxes would likely double the cost to passengers. US should tweak these laws. Was a problem for Puerto Rican hurricane relief as well.
A good reason to get rid of the Jones Act or to carve out an exception. Not hard for Congress to do, if they care. Murkowski had better be able to deliver this, as she is up for reelection in 2022 and already marked for strong primary challenge.
Exactly. The cruise lines – and they aren’t dummies – will seek out only US ports of call and replot their ships’ courses to avoid Canadian waters. However, it won’t happen overnight, but I hope they succeed. I want my Alaskan cruise!
A Canadien POC is easily replaced with an Alaskan ones. Ships don’t visit all of them on a specific itinerary- reserving one day for a Canadian one per law.
@stad if you really want to feel bad, hop on over to RushBabe49.com and check out my posts on the 2016 Hillsdale Alaska cruise. We had a great time.
A US flagged operator could cruise between lower 48 and Alaska ports and avoid Canadian waters assuming restrictions were lifted in the US. Our Covid case numbers are dropping precipitously — large swaths of US commerce might be soon relatively unshackled from Covid restrictions, even though Canada would have their border closed through 2022. Agree with another commenter that it wouldn’t be as scenic to skip the Inside Passage routing, but the foreign flagged cruise operators only include stops in Victoria and/or Vancouver as points of convenience to comply with the US laws. Rescinding or granting exemptions to foreign flagged operators to US laws could lift the cruise industry even if Canada insists on maintaining their restrictions through 2022. Changing the laws might also create some pressure internally in Canada to undo their restrictions. They can keep their restrictions on far flung places like Nunavut without creating huge impacts to the global cruise industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_Vessel_Services_Act_of_1886
We have heard of vaccines. But we are so incompetent that we are unable to get any to the populace. Yesterday, the USA vaccinated a million people. We vaccinated 5000.
Its not the USA’s fault that our government has been totally incompetent. We could have had our own Vaccines, but the Federal government botched the development.
After the new US regime killed the pipeline, Canada felt compelled to prove they could also come up with ruinous, own-goal, scientifically unfounded brain-dead policies of their own. Maybe if Carnival, Viking, or Royal Caribbean come up with a way to eat poutine and watch hockey highlights inside a sealed capsule for an entire two-week cruise that would shame them into undoing the ban.
In the early 2000s we took the Cat (huge catamaran) from Bar Harbor, Maine to Nova Scotia. Nice trip, fun ride. A few years after that, they suspended operations for a summer when oil prices rose. A few years after that, the company folded and the boat was sold and now there are no fast boats from Maine to Nova Scotia.
Oil prices are now starting their inexorable rise after Biden’s executive orders on oil exploration and drilling.
Between Covid and high priced fuel, some of these excursions may never come back.
Cruise lines have to add a fuel surcharge once the price per barrel hits a certain point.
Bill Gates made it very clear in several interviews between mid February and mid May 2020 that we would be locked down for two years, while the vaccines were developed. Then when Trump thought it was a good thing to bring about Operation Warp Speed, his supported vaccines came about in such an astonishingly short period of time that the Gates’ supported vaccines suddenly showed up too. (Surprise Surprise!)
Anyway, there is a definite attachment to keeping us locked down for two years or more. An acquaintance of mine who works for a bank locally here in No Calif was told last autumn to shut up about his hatred of mask wearing, as he can expect tow ear them for three years from that time.
It is also suspected that it might be 2025 before we are “back to anything resembling normal.”
Both Fauci and Gates have stated that the main benefit of the vaccines for COVID is that they will minimize the symptoms experienced by people who have a mild case of COVID. The vaccines will not at all affect the transmission of COVID – transmission can continue to occur. Various critics of the COVID policies and of COVID vaccines, like Dr Francis Boyle and Dr David Martin, have pointed out the same thing.
The vaccines do not at all stop the transmission of COVID. They minimize symptoms, but an individual can still get COVID and still suffer a serious case of it and then can still die.
If our media was not totally controlled by the Big Pharma forces, and the “donations,” we would be hearing 24/7 that the vaccines are not actually vaccines, but are only something that minimizes symptoms. And the side effect of the vaccine can be the injected person spending two days feeling quite ill, so it doesn’t seem to me that there is any benefit in having the vaccine. (Other than we are benefiting money wise those who have produced the vaccine, like Gates and also glyco protein patent holder Fauci.)
This sort of thing is really sad when you grow up in a border town.
Pre-9/11, border crossings were routine. When crossing the Peace Bridge from Buffalo into Fort Erie for Chinese food, the only question on the return trip would be “Ming’s or Happy Jack’s?”(the correct response, of course, is “Happy Jack’s”). When you’re in high school, crossing the border at 6 AM on a Sunday with a group of your friends in a VW golf covering in rowing stickers, they didn’t bother asking you why you were going to Welland or St. Catherine’s. Nor would they ask a group of over 19 but below 21 year olds why they were crossing the border on a Saturday night. They took one glance at you and knew exactly who you were and what you were doing. They were allowed to exercise judgement.
Even now, the crossings were not too bad. A few more questions. Younger guards with stern expressions to demonstrate that they are Following the Procedures®. But it was still an easy thing to do for a routine family drive.
My children still ask from time to time when we can next go to the Toronto Zoo, or African Lion Safari, or the Ripley Aquarium. As much as we miss these places, I can guarantee you that the people running them, who still have to pay to care for the animals whether there are guests or not, miss our dollars even more.
Those in charge, whose livelihoods have not been threatened, can continue to sleep well. Secure in the knowledge that if anyone has been crushed, it was for the Greater Good®.
This hits me personally. My summer employment for the last seven years has been driving a motor coach doing Alaska tours, most of which originated or terminated in Seward on the cruise dock. Our company just had a zoom meeting this week with updates for this summer. Fortunately we have a fair number of clients who were fly-ins before and we can expect some business from them but overall it will be a much reduced summer. Better than last summer though.
Nice to to put a real human face on the tragedies of these lockdowns. I feel for you. I am on several FB cruise groups to get news. People are very eager to get going again. The politicians can’t see past their own snit over the foreign flags. Many Americans are hurting. I hope to be a passenger on your bus some day.
A collapse at least eleven years in the making. Gates/Rockefeller thought they could bring this about back in 2009, but the plan fell through when the vaccine released at that time caused a seizure disorder in 1 out of a hundred vaccinated individuals.
There was also the rather sticky problem that the Obama Administration was not interested in promoting the swine flu of that yer as the life altering pandemic Gates hoped Obama would view it as being.
So it was back to the drawing board the main players went.
I’m not going to blame Canada for killing Alaska’s upcoming cruise season. The need to “touch” Canada before proceeding on to Alaska from Seattle is an artificial one, as noted by other posts on this thread regarding the Jones Act.
As for Canada losing U.S. tourism dollars, I have a feeling that many Canadians resent U.S. tourists, which isn’t unusual because any tourist town or country has locals that resent tourists, whether from the same country or not. Hawaii is notorious for resenting U.S. based tourism.
I’ve read some stories in Canadian publications that cars with U.S. plates are often vandalized. Usually these are owned by Canadian citizen expatriates residing in the U.S., who are legally in Canada that have passed through their isolation requirements.
As usual, many Canadians turn their nose up at American culture, including our varied Covid response from state to state. Many Canadians are scared of us.
I’m not sympathetic to them or their fears.