Charles Burton, Associate Professor in Political Sciences at Brock University, had a piece recently published in the Toronto Star about the challenges of evacuating Canadian citizens from China during the coronavirus outbreak.

Burton writes:

“While thousands of people from countries around the world were flown out of China in the past week, seeking sanctuary from Wuhan coronavirus, some 325 Canadians continued to wait for Chinese authorities to let an aircraft land in Wuhan and evacuate them.

The United States, Japan, South Korea, Jordan, Britain, Portugal, Bangladesh and Indonesia have all got their nationals out in recent days. (Taiwan, not surprisingly, has not been allowed to evacuate its people.)

Ottawa has chartered aircraft on standby, but officials in Beijing have not said when the flights would be allowed to land. At a Monday press conference about plans for evacuating Canadians from Wuhan, cabinet ministers Francois-Philippe Champagne (Global Affairs), Patty Hajdu (Health) and Harjit Singh (National Defence) were unable to suggest when China might allow a Canadian airplane to land.”

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