A well-known travel agents group is asking the Trudeau government to fix Canada’s airport mess. “As has been reported across nationally, travellers are experiencing significant delays at airport security and customs & immigration check points– and Canadians renewing passports in-person are experiencing day-long wait times, sometimes having to return day after day,” the Association of Canadian Travel Agencies said in a statement today. “These delays are caused by several factors, including labour shortages and increased administrative burdens due to legacy COVID-19 policies, as well as absenteeism.” Lineups have been particularly long at Toronto Pearson the last week or so. “Canada’s Read more
Trudeau
As COVID–19 restrictions are lifted and more and more Canadians look to travel abroad, the government of Canada says it’s making it easier to renew your passport. The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the Honourable Karina Gould, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, today announced the expansion of the simplified renewal application process for Canadian passports. Beginning today, March 31, Canadians in Canada and abroad can now use the simplified process to renew an expired passport as long as it was issued within the last 15 years. The Trudeau government said the simplified process Read more
The Coalition of the Hardest Hit Businesses is calling on the Government of Canada to take immediate action to save the tourism industry in Canada, which was the first hit by the pandemic and will be the last to recover. Businesses are urgently calling on the government to remove barriers at the border, maintain and extend the Tourism and Recovery Hospitality Program (THRP) support program and help the sector attract the workforce it needs to recover. The impact of the pandemic on these businesses has been relentless. The industry’s small business owners have depleted their savings, cut costs to the Read more
The Omicron variant delayed a potentially solid first quarter recovery for Air Transat, and the airline says it’s discussing an additional aid package with the Justin Trudeau government in Ottawa. Transat A.T. Inc. today announced revenues of $202.4 million but an operating loss of $73. 8 million for the quarter ended January 31, 2022. “While we were in the midst of a strong recovery, with November and December results matching our targets, the emergence of the Omicron variant brought our sales to a temporary halt between mid-December and early February,” said Annick Guérard, President and Chief Executive Officer of Transat. Read more
The government of Canada announced new COVID-19 testing rules for most Canadian airports on Tuesday of last week. Six days later, we still don’t know what’s really happening. The Trudeau government announced at the time that all passengers flying into Canada from destinations other than the United States would have to be tested upon arrival. Officials who said they were worried about the Omicron variant, said travellers will have to isolate while they wait for their results, and that those results might take three days. Those tests are in addition to the requirement that anyone flying to Canada show a Read more
