An influential group of Canadian travel agents is joining the chorus of those pushing for a change to Canada’s on-arrival PCR test program.
“The Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA) and its travel and tourism advocacy partners call on the federal government to lift the mandatory arrival testing and quarantine requirement for fully-vaccinated, asymptomatic travelers so these tests can be used to support Canada’s domestic testing needs,” the group said in a statement today (Friday, Jan. 20).
“It is important that the Government of Canada remove these temporary measures – as well as others introduced over the past two years– in a timely manner based on science, data and information gathered globally,” said Wendy Paradis, ACTA president.
Nationally, provinces are experiencing significant shortages of molecular testing. Sick Canadians are increasingly unable to access this gold-standard tool.
“It does not make sense to use these precious resources to test arriving passengers, who are already fully-vaccinated and who already have negative molecular tests prior to departure,” said Paradis.
“The mandatory arrival testing should be lifted in order to divert urgently needed testing resources back to communities to support sick Canadians,” said Paradis.
In response to the Omicron variant of concern, the Government of Canada introduced mandatory molecular COVID-19 testing for all passengers arriving from any country other than the US.
Further, international travelers must quarantine until a negative result is received from the arrival test, which can now take well over a week at the moment due to backlogs.
“This is a significant barrier to travel, especially as testing systems are strained and delays in returning arrival test results occur,” said Paradis. “We join in the growing appeals to stop mandatory arrival testing and quarantine requirements.”
Several medical experts are calling for the arrival testing to be stopped, along with several prominent media outlets.
