The federal government will announce Thursday that travellers entering Canada will soon no longer have to take a pre-arrival COVID-19 test, CBC News has learned.
Sources with knowledge of the matter confirm Canada is removing the testing requirementsat airports and land border crossings. The ministers of health, transport and tourism will hold a press conference Thursday morning to announce the changes to border measures.
Currently, travellers entering the country must show proof of a negative antigen or molecular test prior to their flight or arrival at the border.
That testing requirement will be dropped by the end of the month for fully vaccinated travellers, the sources said.
The move comes two years into the pandemic as travel picks up and provinces and territories end restrictions involving vaccine passports, gatherings and masks.
The federal government will continue to randomly test travellers upon arrival in Canada to identify and track variants, the sources said. The government has been spending millions of dollars on randomly testing vaccinated travellers entering Canada.
WATCH | Canada to end pre-arrival COVID testing for travellers entering Canada:
Ottawa to end pre-arrival COVID testing for travellers entering Canada
2 hours ago
Duration 1:58
CBC News has learned that the federal government is set to end pre-arrival COVID-19 testing for travellers entering Canada. Random testing of arrivals is expected to continue to track the emergence of new COVID-19 variants. 1:58
Speaking in Alliston, Ont. on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not say when the testing regime would end but suggested that more COVID-19 measures will be rolled back.
“The federal government has eased some of the measures at the borders just a few weeks ago. We’re going to continue to look at what more we can do,” he said.
Zain Chagla, an infectious diseases specialist and associate professor at McMaster University, told CBC News that eliminating the testing is a wise move that could have been made some time ago.
“There wasn’t even really a need for this kind of testing back in February when I think the advocacy came in,” Chagla said.
“I’m glad that we’re aligning with many of our partner countries and dropping this type of testing in order to really make sure that travellers feel secure in their travel and aren’t necessarily subject to more expense or inconvenience.”
Chagla said that once the Omicron wave hit Canada, the disease was so widespread that testing at the border became essentially useless.
“All it did was create inconvenience, all it did was discomfort the traveller,” he said. “It really put an excess burden on the traveller without any significant yield locally.”
The hassle of getting tested in the U.S.
Some Canadians who have travelled south of the border told CBC News that pharmacies in the U.S. do not certify that someone tested negative for COVID-19 using a rapid antigen test.
Dax Wilkinson, the founder and president of Red Canoe, a clothing company, told CBC News that pharmacies would only provide documentation related to a nucleic acid amplification test, which cost $99 USD per person.
“It was a challenging and frustrating experience to jump through the hoops to get these tests,” he said. “We were under the impression that we could basically pick up a rapid antigen test anywhere at any pharmacy in the U.S. and bring that result to the border and come back into Canada.”
Wilkinson said that some pharmacies do not perform the test while others require an advance appointment that makes the whole process difficult, time-consuming and expensive.
Vaccine mandate for air, rail, ship travel remains in effect
The travel industry has been lobbying the government to ease these testing requirements. Consumers have complained that it’s expensive and a hassle to find approved testing facilities abroad. Some PCR tests cost upwards of $200, while antigen testing typically costs well under $100.
The Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable, an industry group, called the testing requirement a “non-science-based” obstacle undermining the sector and a “significant deterrent, discouraging international companies from resuming travel into Canada.”
The group pointed out that the United Kingdom, Denmark, Switzerland and Ireland were among the countries that had dropped the testing requirements already and urged Canada to do the same by April 1.
The government’s vaccine mandate for domestic and international flights departing from Canada, for VIA Rail and Rocky Mountaineer trains and for cruise ships will remain in effect for now, sources said. .
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
