Trudeau Resists Pressure to Open Canada-U.S. Border, Best-Case Scenario Might Be June

April 7, 2021 Jim Byers

The pressure to open the border between Canada and the U.S. is growing day by day.

The Globe and Mail ran an editorial on the weekend from a U.S. professor who argued that the time is near.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a visiting professor of U.S.-Canada economic relations at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., said it was one thing for Canada to resist when Trump was in charge and COVID-19 was running wild in the U.S. That, however, is no longer the case.

“What is indefensible is that more than a year later, with Americans having thrown out Mr. Trump for a responsible leader in President Joe Biden, Canadian officials are still refusing even to discuss plans for reopening,” he said.

The head of the U.S. Travel Association, Roger Dow, recently said Americans need Canadians heading south to keep their tourism economy going.

But, like a strong-willed dieter looking at a juicy piece of cheesecake, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is resisting the urge.

Trudeau was asked about the border on March 15.

“I think we’re all going to wait patiently until such time as the health situation allows us to loosen border restrictions internationally,” he said. “That’ll be eventually, but not for today.”

It looked like things might improve in late March, but a surge in variants in British Columbia, Ontario and other parts of the country has doused most of that optimism.

Asked about the border again this week, the Prime Minister replied, “We’re not there yet.”

But things can change quickly in this world. New Brunwick Premier Blaine Higgs appeared on CBC Television on Wednesday night and said he and other premiers had spoken with Trudeau earlier in the day.

With U.S. officials eager to have the border reopened, Higgs said Canada might be able to leverage that by getting the U.S. to cough up extra vaccines it should soon have.

Higgs said he thinks Canada would be first on the list for any surplus vaccine doses the U.S. might have. If Canada can increase its vaccination rate, that could help open the border and perhaps provide Canadian tourism operators with an “almost normal” summer.

Click here for a full story on Higgs’ comments.

The Toronto Star is conducting an online survey about the border, and it’s showing overwhelming support for allowing folks to go back and forth between the two countries. That’s only one sample, but it’s a huge swing from polls taken earlier that showed overwhelming support for a closed border.

Of course, those polls were taken when Canada was doing okay and the U.S. perhaps not so hot. Now the needle, so to speak, is in the other arm. Some COVID numbers are still high in the States, but Canadians turn on the TV and see 38,000 people at a Blue Jays game in Texas. They turn on the news and see that 20 million of the 32 million Californians eligible for a vaccine have one, and that that number will reach 30 million by the end of month.

We’ve definitely got a case of vaccination envy, and it’s easy to see why.

The bad news is Ontario today is going into a lockdown. The good news is this might just put enough of a clamp on the virus to allow governments to ease travel restrictions, such as the controversial quarantine hotel plan.

Still, even if we finally get it right, this will take time. I can’t see any numbers taking a serious dip in Canada for another few weeks. Which takes us to the end of April.

If our case numbers are down by early May and vaccinations are up, governments will still want to wait a couple of weeks to make sure. That takes us into mid-May.

If both equations, virus and vaccine, are trending the right way, Trudeau MIGHT decide in mid-May to ease travel restrictions. But that would probably take a couple weeks to come into effect, which means the best-case scenario is likely a border opening, perhaps limited with testing and other precautions still in place, by early June.

That’s not great for those of us who are waiting to visit family and friends (I haven’t seen my Dad in California, who’s 89, since January of 2020). But it might allow a trickle of Americans or even overseas visitors into Canada for the critical summer travel and tourism season.

We’ve got a chance. But we have to get the next month right. It’s not just important, it’s critical.

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