ACTA is joining other travel and tourism organizations in calling for the federal government to lift the mandatory arrival testing and quarantine requirement for fully-vaccinated, asymptomatic travellers, so these scarce resources can be used to support Canada's domestic testing needs.
"It is important that the Government of Canada remove these temporary measures - as well as others introduced over the past two years -- in a timely manner based on science, data and information gathered globally," said Wendy Paradis, ACTA president.
Nationally, provinces are reporting significant shortages of molecular tests, ACTA says, and sick Canadians are increasingly unable to access this tool.
"It does not make sense to use these precious resources to test arriving passengers, who are already fully-vaccinated and who already have negative molecular tests prior to departure," said Paradis.
"The mandatory arrival testing should be lifted in order to divert urgently needed testing resources back to communities to support sick Canadians."
In response to the Omicron variant of concern, the Government of Canada introduced mandatory molecular COVID-19 testing for all passengers arriving from any country other than the U.S.
Further, international travellers must quarantine until a negative result is received from the arrival test, which can now take well over a week due to backlogs.
"This is a significant barrier to travel, especially as testing systems are strained and delays in returning arrival test results occur," said Paradis. "We join in the growing appeals to stop mandatory arrival testing and quarantine requirements."
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