The federal government will ease its COVID-19 testing requirements at the border later this month for fully vaccinated travellers.
Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Tuesday plans to loosen border restrictions Feb. 28 are possible now that the country has “passed the peak of Omicron.”
Only fully vaccinated international travellers randomly selected upon arrival will need to submit to a PCR test. Those fully vaccinated travellers will not need to quarantine while awaiting test results.
Travellers will still need to get tested for COVID-19 prior to departing for Canada but they will have the option of submitting either a PCR test or the less expensive rapid antigen test.
The PCR test must be taken within 72 hours of departure, while the rapid antigen test will need to be taken within 24 hours of departure.
Meanwhile, children under 12 who are not fully vaccinated but are travelling with fully vaccinated adults will not be subject to testing requirements.
Unvaccinated travellers will still need to be tested upon arrival, as well as on day eight of their arrival. They will also need to quarantine 14 days.
Duclos said the measures are only temporary and will be reassessed in the coming weeks and months ahead.
He added further easing of restrictions would be considered if hospitalizations go down and more Canadians get their boosters. Such easing could include exempting all tests for trips under 72 hours.
Plans to loosen travel restrictions comes after the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time ever in response to the ongoing truck convoy protests that have stifled some cross-border trade and brought parts of downtown Ottawa to a standstill.
Many protesters have been calling for an end to all pandemic restrictions.
Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault said a complete lifting of all restrictions “isn’t good for Canadians or for Canadian businesses. We don’t want to have to snap back restrictions but we’re prepared to do so.”
Vaccinated international travellers will still need to submit their status ahead of departure via the ArriveCAN app.
Only 18 airports in Canada are currently allowed to accept international flights but Transport Minister Omar Alghabra revealed during Tuesday’s briefing that the ban on other airports will be lifted on Feb. 28
He said he would have more to say “very soon” about how testing will work at cruise ship terminals.
Canada tightened border restrictions December 21, reintroducing requirements for negative COVID-19 PCR tests for trips under 72 hours, as the Omicron wave took hold.
The country flirted with eased border rules in November for only a few weeks before restrictions were tightened once again at the end of 2021.
American authorities opened their border to fully vaccinated Canadian travellers on November 8, however, Ottawa still required all travellers coming over the land border to produce a negative PCR test. U.S. authorities have no such requirement for those arriving at their border.
Ottawa lifted that PCR requirement on November 30 before implementing it once more just ahead of Christmas amid surging cases of the Omicron variant, which is considered to be milder than the previously dominant Delta variant.
