OTTAWA –
The last of Canada’s COVID-19 border restrictions will disappear later this month with the expiration of a cabinet order affecting mandatory vaccinations, testing and quarantine of international travelers.
This expiration also means the end of insisting that travelers use the ArriveCan app to enter vaccine status and test results, although the app will continue as an optional tool for Customs and Immigration .
It does not yet deal with whether passengers must wear masks on national and international trains and planes because that rule is in a separate order issued by the Minister of Transport.
Two senior government sources with knowledge of the decision confirmed that the cabinet order maintaining the COVID-19 border measures will not be renewed when it expires on September 30.
The sources spoke to The Canadian Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Although the Liberal cabinet met Thursday afternoon, cabinet approval is not required to allow the order to lapse.
One of the sources said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, before the cabinet meeting, signed off on the decision not to renew the rules.
The change means that international travelers will no longer have to prove that they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Under the current rule, Canadians returning to the country who are not vaccinated must show a negative COVID-19 test result before arrival and undergo additional testing after arrival. They must also quarantine for 14 days.
Foreign nationals who are not vaccinated are simply barred from entering Canada unless they fall into specific categories, such as airline or ship crew members, those requiring essential medical treatment, diplomats and temporary foreign workers.
The Cabinet Order also specifies that vaccinated travelers will be selected for random COVID-19 testing and requires travelers to submit proof of vaccine and test results electronically.
The only way to do this is through the ArriveCan app.
All of this will end when the clock strikes midnight on October 1st.
Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault would not confirm the decision late Thursday, but said if the order is allowed to lapse, that would also remove the only mandatory component for the ArriveCan application.
“So the mandatory part is the vaccine part, and because that’s how people prove it through ArriveCan, that’s how the order is written, as I recall,” he said on his way to the cabinet meeting
ArriveCan has been transformed into a digitized border arrival tool, and people flying into certain airports can now use it to fill out their customs and immigration form instead of the paper version.
Boissonnault said this is in line with the digitization of border forms in several countries, including Europe, and will make for faster and smoother border experiences in the long term.
“If we want to go from 22 million visitors in 2019 to something closer to 30 million in 2030, we’re going to have to have a digital frontier,” he said.
The expiration of the order also means the health minister will no longer be able to quickly prevent citizens from specific countries facing outbreaks of COVID-19 from coming to Canada. This measure was used to ban people from India and certain African countries at various times, moves criticized by some as racist.
Canada’s COVID-19 border measures have been evolving since the pandemic began in March 2020.
For more than a year, Canada invoked a mandatory 14-day quarantine for all returning Canadians, and for a time required quarantine to be completed in whole or in part at specific hotels.
Between March 2020 and August 2021, foreign nationals could not enter Canada period with some exemptions for critical workers such as airline crew, healthcare workers and truck drivers.
In July 2021, once all Canadian adults and adolescents had access to vaccines, the government no longer required quarantine for fully vaccinated Canadian travelers.
In August 2021 they opened the border to fully vaccinated Americans, and in September 2021 the border was opened to fully vaccinated citizens of all countries.
The border measures have been heavily politicized, with conservatives demanding Trudeau lift them all, and Leader Pierre Poilievre made it a key policy in his recent leadership campaign.
Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman and Quebec party Lt. Pierre Paul-Hus said in a joint statement Wednesday that ending the measures just weeks after Poilievre won the leadership was appropriate.
“Since it was introduced, the ArriveCan application has killed jobs, stifled economies across the country and told visitors they were not welcome in Canada,” they said. “With unscientific vaccine mandates and mandatory random testing, ArriveCan created the longest delays ever seen at Canada’s airports.”
Delays at airports were partially attributed to ArriveCan, as some travelers who struggled to get it to work, or were unable or unwilling to use it, backed up lines. However, the delays have also been blamed on labor shortages affecting everything from airport workers to security and border guards.
Infectious disease specialist Dr. Zain Chagla has been arguing against mandatory vaccinations and testing at the border for months. In an interview Thursday, he said testing asymptomatic travelers at the border is expensive and not as useful as testing symptomatic people in the community.
He said that without testing everyone, the policy will not prevent further spread of COVID-19.
The government has long pointed to random testing as a way to detect the arrival of new variants, but Chagla said there are also better and more convenient ways to look for them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 22, 2022.