The Justin Trudeau government has announced a four-week advisory for Canadians to avoid non-essential travel. The government today also suggested new testing rules could be coming. Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said the federal government’s advisory will be posted in the next few hours. He also said Ottawa will continue to expand capacity “to test as many people as possible as quickly as possible,” and that the government “will more have to say on that in the very near future.” “There will certainly be other measures,” he said. “All actions are on the table.” “We must stand together,” the minister Read more
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The Justin Trudeau government today will announce tougher testing rules and other travel restrictions. The Canadian Prime Minister spoke with provincial premiers on Tuesday night, and multiple sources report that tougher rules are coming to help battle the Omicron variant of COVID-19. The Toronto Star says tougher rules “include requiring Canadians who do travel abroad to once again produce negative PCR tests upon return, even for short trips outside the country of 72 hours or less — a condition that was briefly lifted before the onset of the omicron variant.” CTV News reports that the government also will begin requiring Read more
Travel groups from across the globe are calling on government leaders around the world to provide dedicated financial support for travel reliant businesses and to lift travel bans as quickly as possible. The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA), Association of South African Travel Agencies (ASATA), Association of Canadian Travel Agencies (ACTA), Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), European Travel Agents’ and Tour Operators’ Associations (ECTAA) and World Travel Agents Associations Alliance (WTAAA), collectively representing the hundreds of thousands of people who work at travel agencies and related businesses around the world, today (December 13) called on government leaders globally Read more
More than a week after the Canadian government announced increased testing at Canadian airports, they’re only halfway to the final target. Worried about the discovery of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the federal government on November 30 announced that all passengers arriving at Canadian airports from destinations other than Canada and the U.S. would need to be tested. Exactly how testing would work was unclear, and it’s been slow to roll out. Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos on Friday conceded that Canada’s airport testing, which is the responsibility of the federal government, is nowhere near its final target. Duclos said Read more
I like to give folks the benefit of the doubt. But I really am wondering who’s in charge in Ottawa these days. If you read today’s Globe and Mail, you’ll find a startling story in which federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos warns Canadians flying home from any country other than the U.S. that they have to isolate while they await the results of the Trudeau government’s new requirement for on-arrival COVID testing. He’s been saying that for days, so nothing unusual there. But the Globe story goes on to say that “neither he (Duclos) nor Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Read more
