Canada, U.S. confer on border, virus
Freeland assures on control measures taken
Canada and the United States conferred over the fate of their shared border while the provinces pleaded for cooler heads to prevail Thursday, after President Donald Trump slammed America’s door on foreign nationals who have been in outbreak-racked Europe.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland spoke Thursday with U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to emphasize Canada’s strong health and border measures — part of a scramble to keep Canada’s most important bilateral relationship from being sideswiped by Trump’s dramatic efforts to arrest an accelerating pandemic.
“I spoke with him about the very strong public health system and health- care system in Canada and the measures we are taking to combat the coronavirus,” said Freeland, adding the two agreed to keep the lines of communication open.
Business leaders implored the Trudeau government to avoid overreacting and to ensure Canada’s border agents could keep potential virus carriers out of Canada without hindering access to the crucial American market.
Trump’s prime- time Oval Office announcement had more to do with politics than public health, said Perrin Beatty, head of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
“There’s a concern we may face, whether in the U. S. or elsewhere, ( of ) pandemic protectionism — people will want to seal off markets, ( and) use the excuse of the pandemic for doing so,” Beatty said in an interview.
Canada doesn’t have to move in lockstep with the United States but “we have to be concerned if we get too great a divergence that suddenly that we find problems on our border and problems doing business with our largest customer,” he added.
Goldy Hyder, head of the Business Council of Canada, called the Canadian government’s response to COVID- 19 “spot on,” and urged it to think twice before acting. “We have to look at protecting that flow of services and that flow of people in what is effectively 75 per cent of our economy.”
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was in Ottawa with most of his counterparts for a first ministers’ meeting — a gathering that turned into a conference call with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau self- isolating at home. Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, was awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test after experiencing mild flu-like symptoms.
“We have to be vigilant, keep an eye on our borders, make sure that we’re doing proper screening,” Ford said. “We have to look at this as North America, not just Canada — it’s absolutely critical we keep the borders open and have the trade flowing back and forth.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, a former federal immigration minister, said he told Freeland to exercise “greater rigour” — including mandatory quarantine — on foreign nationals from countries with a greater risk of infection. But closing the Canada- U. S. border should be a non-starter, he insisted: “There is no single action which would impose greater cost on the Canadian economy.”
Trump’s order, which takes effect at midnight Friday night, only applies to the movement of human beings, not goods or cargo, despite what he said on television. It covers only foreign nationals who in the last two weeks visited one of 26 countries in Europe that allow free and open travel across their borders. American citizens and permanent residents are exempt, and will be directed to one of 13 U. S. airports where they can be screened.
A persistent effort to start banning international visitors could have deeper implications for globalization and the unfettered movement of goods and people around the globe, warned Chris Sands of the Canada Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center.
“There are a lot of implications here that are quite worrisome,” said Sands. “The potential economic damage of this is very high ... and there doesn’t seem to be any path for Europe to fix it.”
Canada will have to “seriously consider” whether to follow the U. S. lead to keep traffic moving between the two countries, he added — all the while working diplomatic channels to find a better solution, including ways to ensure Canadians don’t end up on the wrong side of the next White House proclamation.