No fooling. The Canadian government is dropping the requirement of a pre-arrival COVID-19 for arriving travellers effective April 1.
While travellers arriving in Canada will no longer need to present test results, they will still need to be fully vaccinated and will also still have to use the ArriveCan app. Arriving travellers will also be randomly selected for testing.
Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated travellers will still have to test and quarantine as currently required by the federal government's border rules.
The announcement of the removal of the pre-arrival testing requirement was made by federal health minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, transport minister, Omar Alghabra and tourism minister, Randy Boissonnault.
"Adjustments to Canada's border measures are made possible by a number of factors, including Canada's high vaccination rate, the increasing availability and use of rapid tests to detect infection, decreasing hospitalizations and growing domestic availability of treatments for COVID-19," said Duclos.
"As vaccination levels and healthcare system capacity improve, we will continue to consider further easing of measures at the borders -- and when to adjust those measures -- to keep the people in Canada safe."
Air Canada welcomed the news.
"Today's announcement by the federal government is excellent news for the entire travel and tourism industry, which are important contributors to the Canadian economy," said David Rheault, AC's Vice-President, Government and Community Relations.
"People are eager to travel and reconnect with their loved ones, and the end of pre-departure testing will provide travellers with more certainty, allowing them to plan their next trip with more confidence and without the worry of incurring additional costs."
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