More Travel Restrictions On the Way For Canadians? We Could Find Out Soon

April 17, 2021 Jim Byers

With COVID-19 variants on the rise across Canada and the country’s most populous province on a tough lockdown, calls for tougher travel restrictions are increasing by the day.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Friday said that, starting Monday April 19, provincial borders with Manitoba and Quebec will pretty much be closed to all but essential traffic. He also said he wants the Trudeau government to crack down on Canada’s borders with the U.S. and on international flights.

Ford said the virus is coming into the province from travellers.

“These variants aren’t swimming across the ocean by themselves,” he said.

Adrian Dix, the British Columbia minister of health, said Friday that stronger restrictions on domestic travel could be coming

“I don’t think travel restrictions are off the table,” Dix said in a report on the CTV News website. “We have taken action on travel restrictions more than any other province. We did it on international travel. We involved the whole public service to do that. We did it way before anyone else, and now we’re being emulated.”

“All actions have been on the table and continue to be on the table,” he added. “We’ll consider what they’re doing in Ontario and potentially other options here in B.C.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week said he would support travel restrictions if British Columbia brings them in.

“Every step of the way, I’ve been supporting premiers and territorial leaders on what they need to do to keep people safe,” Trudeau said.

“As we saw with the Atlantic bubble, as we saw with the the Arctic territories, they make decisions around closing off the regions. That is something that we are supportive of.”

There’s been little or no response from Ottawa to Ford’s request for tougher Canadian border rules.

Canadian provinces are limited in what they can do to stop travel, and they have no control over federal programs like the hotel quarantine plan. But provinces can set up tougher rules for entry, as Ford announced on Friday for road traffic into Ontario.

Under rules passed last year, the Atlantic provinces required anyone coming into the region to quarantine for 14 days. Ford, if he so chose, could require that for people driving into Ontario. But that would be difficult for essential traffic, which incudes needed medical workers and food and other needed supplies.

The CBC this week quoted Dr. Srinivas Murthy, associate professor at UBC’s faculty of medicine and an infectious diseases and critical care specialist, as saying that travel restrictions in Canada are a must.

“I would not be surprised to see ongoing spread [of P1] across the country outside of the Atlantic provinces [which maintain a strict travel bubble] as interprovincial travel remains,” he said.

Murthy said now is the time for provinces to limit travel to only the “absolutely essential,” and the federal government should consider limiting domestic flights.

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