SYDNEY MINES, N.S. -- Arriving at Halifax Stanfield International Airport was anything but welcoming for Zach Lapenat and Lorna MacLean.
The mother and son say Friday, May 7 is a day they felt like criminals in their own province.
"It was a pretty frightening experience," Lapenat says. "It was terrifying. We were in shock and we remained that way for days after we got home."
Lapenat was arriving from British Columbia, where he had lost his job due to the pandemic. His mother was waiting to pick him up.
He had a job waiting in Cape Breton and says he took the necessary steps including safe check-ins, and a negative COVID test to be able to enter the province.
But while he was in the air, the rules changed, when the province implemented stricter border measures.
"They were going to ship me back to B.C. where I had no house, nowhere to live, I had no job, I had no income," Lapenat says.
Lapenat now needed proof of permanent residency, and a letter indicating he had a full-time job lined up.
Until the documentation was provided, he says the pair was escorted to a nearby hotel, with a person posted outside their room.
"We were watched by a guard, we could do nothing," Lorna MacLean said.
MacLean says she had planned to pick up her son and head back to Cape Breton the same day and was not prepared for an extended stay.
"I was getting worried," MacLean said. "I missed two doses of my diabetic medication, I missed a dose of my blood pressure pills."
On Wednesday, Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Robert Strang was asked whether this was proper protocol.
"It's unfortunate, but we've done our best to make sure that requirements about who can come and the documentation you need to prove certain things," Dr. Strang said.
"At least put support systems in place for people," MacLean said. "There’s nobody in that hotel for people to talk to."
The family wants the health department to have staff stationed at hotels to deal with situations like theirs.
