Changes to border measures will be shared next week, says Health Minister Duclos

“With the worst of Omicron now behind us,” the Canadian government is actively reviewing its measures at the border and will have changes to share as early as next week, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said Friday (Feb. 11).

“We would all like to know what the next few weeks and months have in store for us, but after two years of this pandemic, we know that this virus will always find a way to surprise us,” Minister Duclos said, speaking at a press conference.

With that, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that Canada is “past the peak” of its Omicron wave.

“Although the latest national seven-day average remains above 11,000 new cases reported daily, weekly declines were reported by all jurisdictions across Canada,” Dr. Tam said, speaking in French.

COVID-19 transmission from international travel has remained low during the pandemic.

However, the Omicron wave did cause a “very high” positivity rate among travellers recently, Dr. Tam said.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) recorded a higher than usual positivity rate – between six to nine per cent – among travellers entering Canada from December 2021 to the beginning of January 2022.

This could also be due to the fact that more testing was being done at airports as the federal government ramped up its on-arrival test and home quarantine program during that period

The number of positive COVID-19 cases linked to travel, now, is “just beginning to come down,” Dr. Tam said.

Testing and quarantine measures travellers entering Canada currently face are meant to reduce community spread, she said.

“But we know that that’s not a perfect system, and because of the nature of Omicron, and how infectious it is, it is very difficult to prevent every case of importation,” Dr. Tam said.

Border measures need to adapt as the pandemic evolves, Dr. Tam suggested, “but we do still have to look out for other variants and new variants and try to detect them as early as possible. Or at least slow them down so we can understand them better,” she said.   

Under pressure

The update comes as Ottawa faces renewed pressure from the travel industry to eliminate obstacles to international travel, such as the requirement for travellers to obtain a negative PCR test for re-entry into Canada and the on-arrival test-and-quarantine program.

Yesterday (Feb. 10), the Canadian Travel and Tourism Roundtable, which has long called on Ottawa to remove non-science-based barriers to international travel, held a press conference at Toronto Pearson airport to reiterate its message: that the pandemic, vaccinations and science has evolved and so too should the government’s response to keep Canadians safe while also allowing travel to re-open.

The Roundtable is also requesting Ottawa provide a “swift re-opening timeline for the sector,” as all other industries across the country have received.

Two doctors – Dr. Zain Chagla and Dr. Dominik Mertz of McMaster University – spoke at yesterday’s press event and made cases for the removal of obsolete testing measures at the Canadian border – specifically pre-departure and on-arrival PCR tests for fully vaccinated travellers – and highlighted flaws and inconsistencies with both measures.

"COVID-19 testing at the border does not make any sense; travel is no more risky than other activities and there is no scientific reason to single it out," said Dr. Chagla, an infectious diseases physician and associate professor. "When first put in place, Canada's travel rules were designed to keep COVID-19 out of the country.”

“Now that the virus is here and community spread is responsible for approximately 99 per cent of all infections, the rules governing travel are obsolete.”

Earlier this week, the Association of Canadian Independent Travel Advisors (ACITA) launched a federal e-petition calling on Ottawa to drop pre-departure testing.

Surveying its own membership, ACITA says 65 per cent of travel advisors believe that PCR testing in destination is the “single greatest deterrent for consumers to book new travel.”

The petition, which is open to both the travel industry and general public, has so far generated more than 11,000 signatures as of Friday afternoon.

Click here to view and sign it.

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