I'm glad you agree that this plan is half baked and that we're not getting concerned for no reason.
I am highly concerned about these fraudulent tests being sold at airports. That is irresponsible beyond belief.
Being treated like a COVIDIOT and a snowbird when I've dutifully self-isolated for a year is frustrating beyond my ability to express it. I am stuck abroad with my spouse and a newborn waiting for PR to go through so I don't abandon my spouse and child without health insurance or income in the middle of a global pandemic. My family has not seen their granddaughter, and likely won't until she's nearly a year old. I have not interacted socially with a soul other than my spouse since July, when restrictions had eased, and that was the only time I had since March. And now the prospect of an extra unbudgeted 6K+ (if it is truly per person) is turning what seemed to be relief at the end of a long ordeal into more just another abyss of despair.
This is the problem with the selfish culture we're in the middle of - you can't design a public policy around COVID thinking about people complying, you have to assume that people haven't complied, and then you end up penalizing people who have. I've worked from home since March 2020 because of the risks; don't see friends or family; etc etc but I also know that I'm making all these sacrifices and the idiots around us who aren't are the ones that cause the government to crack down like this.
There are so many what-ifs here: what if a test could be entirely reliable, could you skip quarantine? Well no, the tests aren't reliable. What if we didn't charge people for the hotels? Well, then people would see it as a "free" way to go to Mexico for a quick vacation. How would they do that if we cancelled all Canadian carriers flights to Mexico and the Caribbean? Well, the US airlines operating out of Vancouver are flying to Mexico now, with a quick stop in LA or Chicago.
All throughout the pandemic the government has horrified me with their "announce first figure out the details later" strategy of things like this. The goals are good, the intentions are good - but it's ridiculous to make life-changing announcements like "you need to pay $2k for three days for a test" and then not provide details for weeks. One obvious outcome is that people are scrambling now to book flights and get back to Canada before the policy is written - causing a rush of people who may well be COVID positive back into the country who will then ignore the testing regime.
It's all stupid, we're the ones complying, we're sacrificing ourselves for the idiots who think that masks are a satanic cult. But you can't design public policy thinking about the most responsible, sophisticated people. You have to think about the lowest common denominator.