Mandatory random testing of fully vaccinated travellers will resume next Tuesday, and Canadian tourism officials aren’t happy about it. 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. Mandatory random testing will resume as of July 19, 2022, for travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated, arriving in Canada by air to the four major Canadian airports—Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. To qualify as a fully vaccinated traveller to Canada, travellers must have been vaccinated with a primary series Read more
public health
Mandatory Random Testing For Air Arrivals to Canada Resumes Next Week: Tourism Group Blasts Decision
A group of Canadian travel and tourism experts are asking the Trudeau government to avoid bringing back random tests at Canadian airports. They also want to see the lifting of all remaining COVID-19 travel restrictions. “Three weeks ago, to aid the flow of passengers at ‘Canada’s airports, the federal government announced a pause on Mandatory Random Testing through to June 30, 2022,” the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable said in a press release today. But that pause expires in only a few hours, and random testing will continue, albeit off-site. “Removing the entire testing process from airports will ease the Read more
By Jim Byers Member, Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) Canadian medical and business leaders are asking the Trudeau government to remove pre-departure testing entirely for fully vaccinated travellers. Speaking at an event in Calgary today, members of the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable and other experts called on Ottawa to make the change on or before April 1, when the regulations will be updated. Continued testing targeted at solely the travel sector is both unnecessary and not rooted in science, they said. “While the federal government took a step in the right direction by altering the testing regime around Read more
Canada is set to ease its travel and testing rules in less than 48 hours, but the country’s chief public health officer is suggesting the government will throw things into reverse if needed. The Edmonton Journal and Canadian Press report that Dr. Theresa Tam on Friday (Feb. 25) said that nobody knows what the coronavirus will do next, and that Canada has to be ready to bring back some public health measures if case counts begin to rise sharply again. Noting that viruses often pick up steam when cool weather arrives, Tam said Canada needs be ready for the fall, Read more
Ontario border city mayors and Canadian tourism groups are asking the Trudeau government to abolish COVID-19 testing at Canada and 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 to discuss the issue today, the CBC reports. Starting Monday, February 28, fully vaccinated Canadians and visitors coming into Canada will be able to show a negative result from a rapid antigen test, rather than an expensive, PCR or molecular-style test. It’s an improvement, but tourism officials still worry it will keep Read more
