Canada working with the US to close travel ‘loophole’
“A loophole, frankly, does exist because the Americans previously had not placed any restriction on international flights coming into the US,” stated Bill Blair, Canada’s public security minister, throughout a information convention Friday.
“That concerns us because that restriction is at our land border but not at air travel,” he added.
While the Canada-US border stays closed and all nonessential travel is prohibited till at the least February 21, in the 10 months since the border restrictions have been put in place, a whole bunch of hundreds of vacationers have made discretionary journeys between each international locations as air travel has not up to now been topic to the similar restrictions.
With the United States not imposing any air travel restrictions from Canada, the loophole has allowed every part from Canadian snowbirds going to the heat climes of Florida and Arizona for winter to members of the family on either side of the border organising nonessential visits.
Trudeau to Canadians: Avoid travel
On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau underscored his plea to Canadians to keep dwelling and keep away from travel of any type, together with home and worldwide travel.
Trudeau has acknowledged that constitutionally he can not forestall Canadians from touring, however he did warn that it would quickly turn out to be rather more troublesome to return to Canada.
“We could be bringing in new measures that significantly impede your ability to return to Canada, at any given moment, without warning,” Trudeau stated throughout a information convention Friday, including, “The bottom line is this: This is not the time to travel either internationally or across the country.”
International air vacationers who at the moment enter Canada should present proof of a unfavorable check consequence for Covid-19 taken inside 72 hours of departure and are additionally topic to a 14-day obligatory quarantine with violators going through stiff monetary penalties. There are exceptions for important employees.
Looking for extra measures
Canadian officers say they’re on the lookout for extra measures that may discourage as a lot travel as potential, and they’re hoping a brand new settlement with the United State will assist.
“We are looking at a number of measures that can include further restrictions on international travel, additional tracing measures, additional quarantine measures and enforcement measures in order to de-incentivize and discourage people from making unnecessary trips,” Blair stated Friday.
Officials additionally indicated that weeks of lockdowns all through most of Canada are slowly beginning to work with new each day instances of Covid-19 falling.
“This gives us hope that community based control measures are starting to take effect,” stated Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s chief public well being officer. “But it is still too soon to be sure that these measures are strong enough and broad enough to set us on a steady downward trend.”
Photo: Cole Burston/Getty Images
