“A loophole, frankly, exists because the Americans had not placed any restrictions on international flights arriving in the United States,” Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of public security, told a news conference on Friday.
“This worries us because this restriction is on our land border, but not on air travel,” he added.
Although the Canada-US border remains closed and all non-essential travel is banned until at least February 21, in the 10 months since the border restrictions were put in place, hundreds of thousands of travelers have made discretionary travel between the two countries, since air travel has not so far been subject to the same restrictions.
With the United States not imposing any restrictions on air travel from Canada, the loophole has allowed everything from Canadian birds heading into the warm climates of Florida and Arizona for the winter to family members on both sides of the border organizing non-essential visits.
Trudeau for Canadians: Avoid Travel
On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau underscored his call on Canadians to stay at home and avoid trips of any kind, including domestic and international travel.
Trudeau acknowledged that, constitutionally, he cannot prevent Canadians from traveling, but he warned that it may soon become much more difficult to return to Canada.
“We could introduce new measures that significantly impede your ability to return to Canada at any time, without warning,” Trudeau said during a news conference on Friday, adding: “The end result is this: this is not the time to travel internationally or across the country. “
International travelers currently entering Canada must provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test result obtained 72 hours prior to departure and are also subject to mandatory 14-day quarantine with offenders facing severe financial penalties. There are exceptions for essential workers.
Looking for more measures
Canadian officials say they are looking for more measures to discourage travel as much as possible and hope a new deal with the United States will help.
“We are looking at a series of measures that could include more restrictions on international travel, additional tracking measures, additional quarantine measures and enforcement measures to discourage and discourage people from making unnecessary travel,” Blair said on Friday.
Authorities also indicated that blocking weeks in most of Canada are slowly starting to work with new daily cases of Covid-19 falling.
“It gives us hope that community-based control measures are starting to take effect,” said Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s director of public health. “But it is still too early to make sure that these measures are strong and broad enough to put us on a downward trend.”
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