OTTAWA – The federal government is ready to tighten Canada’s borders again, discourage Canadians from all non-essential travel and prepare to step up border testing and quarantine measures, the star has learned.
This includes requiring Canadians traveling abroad to return negative PCR tests again, even on short trips outside the country of 72 hours or less – a condition that was temporarily lifted before the Omicron variant began.
The government had weighed a broader border closure with a ban on foreign nationals who are not vital workers, which would have prevented travelers including the US from entering Canada at all entry points, including land and air. But the Liberals appeared to be abandoning that plan after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Prime Ministers on a conference call Tuesday evening.
Entrants who are fully vaccinated must be tested on arrival and must be quarantined at home while waiting for negative test results.
After the phone call between Trudeau and the prime minister on Tuesday evening, several sources said the federal government would announce on Wednesday when the travel measures should take effect.
Ottawa is expected to reintroduce travel advice at level three, essentially where the country was until October when it began lifting restrictions on coming and going of fully vaccinated travelers.
Canadians, permanent residents, their loved ones, refugees and those entering with family reunification permits will continue to have a right of entry, said a source familiar with the measures.
On the call, Trudeau told prime ministers that it was important to cut back on travel for non-essential reasons, but did not provide what the specific border measures would be, a provincial source said.
Two sources told the star that Alberta Premier Jason Kenney had pushed back federal agencies and questioned the need for travel measures if the variant was already in Canada.
Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam is said to have stated that the border restrictions will minimize the impact in the short term.
The measures, including the proposed ban on foreigners, should drastically stop inbound traffic and give provinces and territories time to deal with Omicron.
But it seemed after the call that the ban was being reconsidered.
Last week, Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos told reporters that, despite the decision to test all incoming travelers, airports have only been able to test about two-thirds of arrivals.
The main effect of the two measures under consideration would be “to significantly reduce the volume of travel at the border, both by air and land, since we also operate in the US,” an unauthorized source said publicly of the pending announcement to speak. This would then allow more, if not most, of the people to be tested upon arrival.
Some health authorities have already reported a transmission of the Omicron variant in Canada (unrelated to known travel cases).
That includes Ottawa – where Deputy Prime Minister and Treasury Secretary Chrystia Freeland had to deliver a personal financial update speech in front of the House of Commons because employees tested positive for COVID.
Canadians expect all governments to “use all the levers at their disposal so that we do not end up in the same situation as Britain, Denmark or Sweden,” said an insider.
“If fewer people come in now, we can do more tests. As we do more testing, we can do more contact tracing. If we do more contact tracing, we can better control and limit the spread of the variant. We can identify a case more easily and quickly, isolate that case and help that person avoid mass diffusion in the community even though we already have community diffusion. “
“The whole idea is to protect our health system because, unlike in March 2020, we have no human resources. There is a shortage of staff in hospitals across the country. Nurses are burned out. “
A provincial source told the star that Trudeau acknowledged the difficulties they all face and recognized that with people fully vaccinated, “we don’t want to cut down on Christmas celebrations for the sake of people’s mental health.”
During the call with the prime ministers, doubts were raised that the federal government can implement its plan to step up border testing and quarantine measures with at least one province, Quebec, and Trudeau said they did not have the staff to dispatch it to border checkpoints raise.
With files by Robert Benzie, Susan Delacourt, Althia Raj
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