Mandatory random testing of fully vaccinated travellers arriving at some Canadian airports will resume today.
Ottawa paused mandatory random testing for those entering Canada by air on June 11, 2022, as part of a broader strategy to transition testing for air travellers outside of the airports. But mandatory random tests resume Tuesday, July 19, 2022 for travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated. The rules apply to those arriving in Canada by air to the four major Canadian airports—Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto.
Health officials say air travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated and who are selected for mandatory random testing, as well as air travellers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, will receive an email notice within 15 minutes of completing their customs declaration. The email will contain information to help them set up their test with a COVID-testing provider in their region.
Offsite testing for arriving travellers will be conducted by private lab companies, such as Switch Health and Dynacare. Travellers can check the government’s website to learn where to go in their region.
Unvaccinated travellers can complete their tests by a virtual appointment or an in-person appointment with the test provider at their store or at select pharmacies and still respect their quarantine requirements.
If your arrival test result is positive, you must go into isolation and follow the federal requirement to isolate for 10 days from the date of the test result. Your 10-day isolation is required, even if the isolation requirement is shorter in your province or territory.
Travellers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, unless exempt, must continue to test on Day 1 and Day 8 of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.
“Moving testing outside of airports will support testing for travellers arriving by air while still being able to monitor and quickly respond to new variants of concern, or changes to the epidemiological situation,” officials said. “Mandatory random testing continues at land border points of entry, with no changes.”
All travellers must continue to use ArriveCAN (free mobile app or website) to provide mandatory travel information within 72 hours before their arrival in Canada, and/or before boarding a cruise ship destined for Canada, with few exceptions.
The Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable attacked the announcement, saying it unfairly targets the tourism industry.
“As our industry works with government, agencies and partners to combat wait times and delays, this announcement marks a step backward that unfairly targets Canada’s tourism sector and negatively impacts Canadian and international travellers,” the group said. “Medical experts have been clear; mandatory testing should be replaced by more effective ways to assess community spread, such as community wastewater testing for tracking future variants.
“The re-imposition of these measures is an unnecessary and unhelpful step backward that continues to put Canada out of alignment with its international partners and singles out air travel as the only consumer activity in the country with stringent health measures.”
