Starting today (Feb. 28), fully vaccinated travellers no longer have to take a PCR-style test to enter Canada.
Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos last week announced that travellers will still be required to take a pre-arrival test before entering Canada. But the Trudeau government now will allow fully vaccinated Canadians and foreign visitors to provide results from a rapid antigen test, which can be purchased more easily than PCR or molecular-style tests, and are a fraction of the cost.
The government initially said rapid tests will have to be taken with 24 hours of a scheduled departure to Canada or 24 hours before a traveller arrives at a Canadian land border crossing. But the CBC today reports that the Canadian Border Services Agency is now saying the tests only need to be taken the day before, which could mean more than 24 hours.
Unvaccinated Canadians and visitors still need to be tested after they arrive and quarantine for two weeks, including a second negative test on their eighth day in Canada. Children under 12 travelling with vaccinated adults will not have to quarantine.
Duclos last week also said Canada was removing its warning against non-essential travel out of the country. That warning was in place on the weekend but is no longer on the site.
The testing change is a move that will make it cheaper for Canadians to travel out of the country. Travel agents say they’ve already seen an uptick in business since the announcement was made.
The change also makes it easier for Americans and residents of other countries to visit Canada.
But critics have said the move doesn’t go far enough and that ALL testing needs to be abolished.
The CBC reports that mayors of southwestern Ontario border cities, along with a U.S. counterpart, and tourism groups are calling on Ottawa to end any COVID-19 testing at land border crossings.
Mayors of Windsor, Niagara Falls and Sarnia in Ontario and Niagara Falls, N.Y, the Tourism Industry Association of Canada and the Hotel Association of Canada held a news conference Friday underlining the economic losses due to the border testing “barrier.”
“The practicality of the loosening of this restriction really means nothing to the average traveller,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said during today’s event. “It really is providing no real protection.”
“As Canada enters a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic – one marked by widespread vaccination and high levels of prior infection, and one which many Medical Officers of Health have called endemic – it’s time for the federal government to reopen Canada by ending not just PCR, but also antigen testing for all fully-vaccinated travellers,” Beth Potter, president and CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, said recently.
“We urge the government to lift all pre-departure testing requirements for fully vaccinated travellers,” Wendy Paradis, head of the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies, said in a statement last week. “Rapid antigen tests are an additional cost and often difficult to procure. All testing requirements create uncertainty and deter travel.
“There is no scientific basis to single-out travel for testing.”
