Mayors of Canadian and U.S. border cities are pushing the Canadian government to jettison COVID testing requirements it says are both overly expensive and unnecessary.
Mayors from the likes of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Windsor, Sarnia, and Niagara Falls, New York, as well as upstate New York Congressman Brian Higgins, gathered for a virtual press event on Monday to denounce the current rules implemented by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.
In a tidy symbolic note, the event was held just hours after the U.S. government opened its land borders to fully vaccinated residents of Canada and Mexico, as well as opening air traffic to the U.S. from some three dozen overseas countries.
It’s an important step in normalizing travel and tourism. But critics say the Canadian government’s rule that requires visitors and returning residents to show a negative result from a COVID-19 PCR test is a massive problem.
Tests, which must be taken with 72 hours of your departing flight to Canada, or to someone’s planned border crossing by land, can cost upwards of $200 USD. I was in California last week and was quoted a booking fee of $25 USD and a PCR test fee of $200 USD, which comes out to around $275 CAD for one person.
Critics say that a rapid antigen test taken closer to the time someone enters Canada would be just as effective at keeping the virus out of the country, and also far less expensive. Rapid antigen tests can often be purchased for about $25 USD.
The new U.S. rules that allow Canadians to drive over the border provides a pathway across the border, “yet that pathway is dampened by an unreasonable and costly requirement for a PCR test to return to Canada,” Windsor mayor Drew Dilkens said during today’s virtual event.
In a report on the CBC’s website, Jim Diodati, Mayor of Niagara Falls, Ont., said he’s excited the U.S. border has reopened to fully vaccinated Canadians for non-essential travel.
“To make it truly open, we need to remove the senseless PCR test, the molecular test, ” he said. “It does nothing to make things safer, it does nothing to help anybody, it can’t happen fast enough.”
“When you tell a family it’s going to cost you another $1,000 to visit us and you won’t have any more to eat or a nicer place to stay, they choose not to [come],” Diodati said.
Ski industry officials in Alberta hope to keep the pressure up with a press event of their own on Tuesday.
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s top medical officer, said last week that Ottawa is looking carefully at the PCR testing rules to see if perhaps an adjustment might be needed.
