sydneyracquelle

It will be interesting to see what hurdles they put, if any, on non-resident Cdns who would like to visit Canada.

The Lev

Given how unsafe the government seems to think travel has become, part of me hopes that Air Canada and Westjet unilaterally decide to shut down all passenger operations (domestic and international) while laying the blame firmly at Trudeau, Ford and Legault's feet. Let the government organize "rescue" flights. Watch people scream when they realize the repercussions. It's not like the airlines are making any money flying right now.

Crampedin13A

There has been no science put into it.

bambinomartino

I believe there would be a lot more compliance if people did not see, rightly I think, the current quarantine measures as overkill.

Take the Alberta program. You fly in, take a test at the airport and go home. For the next day you are sleeping off the jetlag or the hangover from your last day at your Cancun AI. No problem staying in. Next day you get your test result, 99% of the times negative. The ones that test positive, unless they are sociopaths and/or morons, will self-isolate. Those that are negative know that there is still a gestation period and are not out of the woods yet, but can still move about with caution. Maybe go for a drive (why on earth is that forbidden???). Six days later you get your second test result, and you are provably safer than your average neighbour who never left town.

A testing at arrival program would also help focus enforcement efforts on those few that test positive. For the life of me, I cannot understand why we don't have on-arrival testing at every border post. This includes truckers, why can't they get an antigen test once or twice a week?

rankourabu

Or more likely the dual citizen Canadian who had to travel to see their dying mother in the home country.

Where do you see all these sun vacationers? AC literally has a weekly narrow body to sun destinations that flies half empty. At most thats 500 people a week.

And those people are triple tested. On top of having to quarantine.


Meanwhile we let in 5 million+ people without quarantine or testing of any kind. Even if only a small portion of which are in non essential industries, they are a far bigger problem than the handful of sun vacationers.

mountainboy

And maybe they should refuse to sell the government such rescue flights. It would be irresponsible to sell the governement "unsafe flights".

Badenoch

It is up to the individual traveller to decide whether their reason to travel justifies meeting the testing and quarantine requirements. The airlines were complaining a few days ago that since the testing requirement was introduced there were 50,000 flight cancellations so clearly it is more than a "handful." We have no idea how many sun worshippers would change their plans due to the restrictions. I do know they have changed mine.

The argument about the people being let in without quarantine and testing does not support easing restrictions on non-essential leisure vacationers. It does however speak to a thorough review of "essential workers" to determine the validity of their claim.

tcook052

Yes but 50K over what period? The next 4 weeks or 4 months? That wasn't quantified when a staffer to incoming transport min. Alghabra mentioned it in recent days. 50K spread throughout the whole country over a 4-month period, for example, is a figurative handful.

mountainboy

When people don't get money back (just vague promise of a credit), some hold out hope for a change in refund policy, and won't cancel until immediately before departure.

In regards to route cancellations, WJ has gone further and asks passengers to not cancel of their own accord, but wait for flights to be cancelled, to end up in the refund queue rather than the credit queue. That further delays cancellations.

So I suspect a majority of 50K flights were next 4 weeks. Meanwhile the airlines know the cancellations will increase, as new bookings decrease.

bambinomartino

I don't know about that, I think the rest of us have asked many other good questions.

From where I sit, your position would only make sense if we concurrently locked the country down for a month. And I mean military in the streets, no one leaving their house until the virus is snuffed out. Would you be okay with that?

bambinomartino

Count me in that group. I haven't seen my 85-year old dad for going on 2 years, since my mom's funeral. Even with the slow vaccine rollout in Eastern Europe, there is a decent chance he'll get it by late spring, and I was already making plans for visiting this summer. There is no chance I could do that if I had to be locked up in a hotel room for 2 weeks upon my return.

If this hotel quarantine thing came to pass, how long would it be until it's rescinded? Dollars to donuts many many months longer than reasonable or necessary.

YZF_Elite

Given the PCR test restriction and this restriction used in the past, couldn't the government also put a complete ban on airlines transporting anyone into the country that doesn't have an essential designation from the government? Folks are free to travel, but the government could theoretically make it even more difficult for people to travel. Alternatively put in place a $1,000 surcharge to administer the quarantine program plus stay in a government facility for the 14 days. I'm not advocating for these measures, but there must be ways if they wanted to. Asking another country to ban Canadians seems like a strange way to effect policy change.

The Lev

This.

The most "at risk" population should be vaccinated within the next three months (unless Canada's vaccine incompetence continues). At that point we have passed the danger zone but governments probably will keep the quarantine requirement in place for all of 2021 because nobody wants to "own" making a decision that could go wrong.

tcook052

While I hear what you're saying, I'm less convinced.

Anyone with plans to travel this winter, “cancel your trip”, says Trudeau

I'd hope not as the we've repeatedly been told that everyone who wants to be vaccinated can do so by Sep. so the public will want to begin traveling again and will apply the same kind of pressure to remove or reduce any quarantine as it did in calling for travel bans in recent weeks. What should be done at that point it a roll-out to more Canadian airports of a permanent short-term rapid testing programs such as the pilot program at YYC and coming soon to YEG.

mountainboy

Around that time vaccine passports might become a thing, and cause the next level of travel / route decimation, not just slow return of demand, but many people unable to navigate & satisfy the mishmash of requirements being established. I fear this is going get worse well into 2022.