Border-traipsing yahoos should just stay home

Last month, Premier Doug Ford slammed the “bunch of yahoos” protesting social distancing measures outside of Queen’s Park.

I’d like to borrow the blunt-spoken premier’s phrase to criticize another “bunch of yahoos” — those who think now is a great time to start traipsing back and forth across the Canada-U.S. border.

According to a CBC news report, between March 22 and May 3, the Canada Border Services Agency stopped 2,951 people from crossing into Canada from the U.S.

About 88 per cent of those travellers were Americans and their most common stated reason for travel was “tourism or sightseeing.”

Hello? Now is not the time to gawk at Niagara Falls or marvel at the scenic beauty of Banff. What part of “global pandemic” do these people not understand?

Our federal government is currently in talks with the U.S. over the status of border restrictions, after the current ban on non-essential travel expires on May 21.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is far from being a yahoo, but her vague answers as to whether the border restrictions will remain in place make me nervous.

It makes me nervous when she says that, as the Canadian economy starts to open up, “we’ll see more Canadians choosing to go back and forth” across the border. s

Hang on — we’ve been hunkering at home for two months to stop COVID-19 from spreading and now people are going to be able to “choose” to cross the border, trailing virus particles like malevolent fairy dust? This is not OK.

Now is not the time for our government to offer vague assurances about “keeping Canadians safe” and engaging in “constructive dialogue” with the U.S.

Now is the time to state unequivocally that the Canadian border remains closed to all but essential travel.

Let’s take a clear-eyed look at what is happening south of the border.

The U.S. has recorded more than 1.3 million cases of COVID-19. They are adding more than18,000 new cases a day to that total.

More than 80,000 Americans have died of COVID-19.

A model, recently released by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, estimates that 147,000 will die by Aug. 4.

The epidemiological curve has not flattened in the U.S. Outside of the New York metropolitan area, the overall infection rate is still rising.

Numerous health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, have warned that avoidable suffering and death will occur if economic activity resumes too quickly.

Yet many states are hastening to send people back to work.

If the U.S. wants to rush the reopening of its economy, let them. But don’t drag Canada into it.

I’m not a member of the Conservative party. I didn’t vote for Doug Ford. But I began this piece by quoting the premier, and I’ll end it by quoting him again.

“I don’t want the borders open.”