There are certainly areas where is that strict because they are properly following the rules. There seems to be some areas where the follow-up is awful although the follow-up seems to have gotten much better in many regions with the variants. In places like the Maritimes they have been very strict with quarantine policy for a long time and your friend would have been told absolutely not. It seems as though Ontario has gotten better with their quarantine follow-up after so many instances where a traveller spread it to their whole extended family and because we have seen what variants can do. Quarantine is a simple concept. Stay away from anyone you have not travelled with and prevent anyone who hasn’t travelled from potentially catching covid. See many people saying it is their choice to potentially get exposed to covid and they aren’t hurting anyone. Unfortunately anyone who gets covid could end up in hospital which does affect the whole health system. People also forget that 10% of people have serious longterm consequences with long covid so nobody should be willingly exposing themselves to covid.