Crackdown at border is long overdue,
Does it matter if the coronavirus, or some new and virulent variant of it, gets into Canada by plane or by car? Whether, in other words, it’s carried in by someone arriving by air or by land?
Of course not. Once a person with the virus is in the country they can pass it on to others. Who cares how they got here?
Until this week at least, it seemed the federal government cared. How else to explain the glaring discrepancy between the COVID-19 rules applied to people landing at Canadian airports and those who just drive across the border?
For those landing at airports, Ottawa has a plan: they will be tested for COVID upon arrival and have to quarantine in a hotel at their own expense for up to three days. If they test positive, they’ll have to spend more time in supervised quarantine at a government facility.
But nothing so harsh applied to returning Canadians who drive across. They could just show up at a land crossing and be admitted with a pledge to self-quarantine for 14 days, under minimum supervision.
This was a significant loophole in the rules designed to minimize the number of COVID cases coming into the country, especially with heightened concern about virulent new variants of the virus originating in several countries.
So it’s good to see that the government has, belatedly at least, recognized this risk and taken steps to address it.
First, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that, starting Monday, people crossing into Canada will have to show proof they’ve had a negative COVID test in the previous three days.
Then on Friday, the government took another welcome step. Starting on Feb. 22, people arriving at the border will have to take two additional tests. One right at the border, and then another one toward the end of their mandatory 14-day selfquarantine period.
This is the minimum that should be required. In principle, anyone arriving in the country by any means for non-essential purposes should face the same rules — including the hotel quarantine period being imposed on air travellers.
But the government makes a persuasive case that air and land entry points are quite different. Flights into Canada are being funnelled through just four airports, all of them with nearby hotels suitable for quarantine. But many land border crossings are remote, making it practically impossible to impose a hotel stay. Not ideal, but it’s the nature of the country.
Taking stronger measures at land crossings is particularly important when you consider that more non-essential travellers have been arriving in Canada by land than by air during the pandemic.
Since the end of March, roughly the time COVID-19 hit Canada in a major way, 2.4 million people have arrived by air compared with 2.9 million who entered via a land crossing, according to the Canada Border Services Agency.
And that number doesn’t include the many essential workers, including some 100,000 truck drivers every week, who have been crossing back and forth, keeping commerce between the two countries humming throughout the pandemic.
Those essential workers pose a whole separate set of problems. It wouldn’t be possible, and certainly not wise, to cut off the cross-border flow of people and goods given how inextricably linked our two economies are. But we can do better on that front as well (more in a moment).
It’s also good to see the government getting on with actually implementing the tests and quarantine measures it announced on Jan. 29.
At the time, Trudeau talked tough and his officials said travellers should be prepared for those measures to come into effect “very quickly.” Time ticked by with no further announcement, and air travellers kept arriving without being tested on the spot or being sent to government-supervised hotels. (Ontario, in fact, lost patience with the delays and implemented its own tests at Pearson Airport).
Now, however, we know these measures will be implemented as of Feb. 22. Earlier would have been better, but at least it’s getting done.
Those measures are pretty tough, and are meant to be. The result, no doubt, will be to discourage the great majority of people from travelling for the time being. But that’s what “non-essential” means — you don’t really have to make the trip. And after all the cost and sacrifice imposed by the pandemic, it’s not too much to ask.
As for all those essential workers and truckers criss-crossing the border, there are few controls. They should be tested regularly; one group of experts says that should happen every time they arrive in Canada.
That would be a big job and require considerable resources at border crossings. But it’s doable. This week we learned there are millions of rapid test kits sitting unused because the provinces can’t or won’t figure out what to do with them. How about bringing them out of storage and testing essential workers as they cross the border?
It’s taken Canada a long time to start getting serious about reducing international exposure to the COVID virus. Tightening restrictions on all travellers, regardless of how they arrive, is a step in the right direction.