Border rules extended to July 21
Some changes in works for fully vaccinated
OTTAWA • Restrictions on non-essential travel across Canada's land border with the U.S. will be extended until at least July 21, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair announced on Friday.
The extension comes despite mounting pressure from business organizations to allow fully vaccinated travellers to cross the border, and a growing chorus of opposition to the border restrictions from politicians of all stripes in the U.S. and Canada.
“In coordination with the U.S., we are extending restrictions on non-essential international travel and with the United States until July 21st, 2021,” Blair posted on Twitter Friday morning.
He also said the government is planning to adjust measures for travellers who are currently allowed to enter Canada, but said those details wouldn't be fully available until Monday. The government has previously said it is planning to adjust rules in early July so fully vaccinated travellers will not be required to stay at a hotel for part of their quarantine period.
Perrin Beatty, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said he's “disappointed but not surprised” by the news, and said he still doesn't have a clear understanding of what numbers the government needs to see before it will reopen the border.
“With today's announcement, it confirms that it will be easier for fully vaccinated Canadians to fly to Paris and have their summer vacation there than it will be to drive to Buffalo,” Beatty said. “It just flies in the face of science.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking to reporters later in the morning, said he believes it's not safe yet to allow fully vaccinated travellers to move freely across the border.
“Even a fully vaccinated individual can pass on COVID-19 to someone who is not vaccinated,” Trudeau said. “Even though they are protected from hospitalization, the people around them might not be.”
Trudeau said it will take 75 per cent of eligible Canadians receiving one dose and 20 per cent fully vaccinated before “we can start loosening things up,” a metric first stated in May by the Public Health Agency of Canada. According to the latest federal data, Canada is nearly there: 73.44 per cent of eligible Canadians have had one dose and 14.67 per cent are fully vaccinated.
Pushed on whether he's rejecting advice from his own government's expert panel that has said quarantine isn't necessary for fully vaccinated travellers, Trudeau said his government is making decisions based on all the input it receives.
“We are actually following the advice of the range of experts that we talk to,” Trudeau said. “And of course, as we've seen a number of times through the pandemic, there are different perspectives from different experts.”
Trudeau said his government is still committed to easing restrictions soon for fully vaccinated travellers.
“But it matters also the level of protection in vaccination in the community to which they return,” he said. “That's why it's not just about saying, `Okay, if you're fully vaccinated, have fun, go with it, run around.' It's about saying that you're still returning to a country where we haven't yet reached by enough thresholds of second dose vaccination.”
Reaction to the announcement came swiftly from U.S. politicians who have urged both national governments to open the border.
“There's no other way to say it: another month's delay is bull----,” said Democratic Congressman Brian Higgins, who represents a New York district on the border with Canada, on Twitter.
A joint statement from Higgins and his Republican counterpart Bill Huizenga, who both co-chair the Canada-u.s. Interparliamentary Group, said “millions of Americans and Canadians are counting on our governments to work together.”
“While the arrival of vaccines in record time has been a modern marvel, the inability of the U.S. and Canadian governments to reach an agreement on alleviating border restrictions or aligning additional essential traveller classes is simply unacceptable,” their statement said.
Along with business associations — particularly those in the tourism and hospitality industry — pushing to have the border reopened for vaccinated travellers, some provincial premiers have started publicly calling for it.
“The vaccines are working,” Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a letter earlier this week. “We call on the federal government to promptly develop a safe, science-based plan that will allow fully vaccinated individuals to resume international travel.”
Among the issues the Canadian government is still grappling with are how travellers can show proof of vaccination, though Trudeau said it will happen in two steps.
“In the initial phase, we're going to be working with the Arrivecan app in ways that people can upload an image of their paper proof of vaccination or online proof of vaccination so that the border agents on their return to Canada can verify, indeed, that they are fully vaccinated,” Trudeau said.
“That's something that we will have in place in the coming weeks ... but for the fall, in the medium term, we are working with the provinces to establish a national certification of vaccination status that will be easily accepted around the world for people who need to travel internationally.”