The new travel rules for Canada should be a big help to tourism in border cities, but two Ontario mayors are angry that the rules aren’t changing until the start of next month.
The Justin Trudeau government on Thursday said that fully vaccinated residents and visitors to Canada will no longer need to show a negative pre-arrival test result as of April 1.
But the mayors of both Sarnia and Niagara Falls say the move should have taken effect right away.
“Tell us a legitimate reason you can’t (end the testing requirements) tomorrow night,” Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley told the Windsor Star. “If they have a legitimate reason to continue this, they need to speak up and say what it is.”
“What’s the purpose of waiting two more weeks?” asked Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati. “Why would you do that? Please explain it. And nobody can. There is no explanation.”
Still, Diodati said the news from Ottawa could provide an enormous boost to his city.
“We’ve got a chance this year of snapping back and having a really, really good season,” he said in an interview on 900 CHML’s Hamilton Today.
“Of course, everybody’s still tentative … waiting for that shoe to drop, but right now, people are really excited.”
In a story posted at MSN.com, Diodati said Niagara Falls, Canada’s number one leisure destination, had been seeing close to 14 million visitors per year prior to the pandemic. That equals roughly 50% of all revenues for the city.
But he said border restrictions caused the loss of some 32,000 jobs in the region, 16% of the local job market.
