by Jim Byers
Last updated: 3:05 PM ET, Tue January 26, 2021
Tougher travel restrictions for Canada are on the way, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday. But Canadians will have to wait a bit to find out exactly what he has in store for the travel and tourism sectors.
Trudeau said tougher measures are on the way, even though he admitted that travel contributes very little to the spread of COVID-19 in Canada.
""Even with a very small level of importation of cases, one case is one too many," he said in French. "And the concerns we have now with the variants that are everywhere in the world that we want to prevent from taking hold here in Canada, we are now looking for ways of once again improving the measures we've already implemented."
"We will be coming up with new measures soon," Trudeau said. "There will be other opportunities for you to travel when the pandemic is more under control."
Speaking with host Matt Galloway on CBC Radio's The Current, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa needs "to bring in even tougher border measures than the ones we have right now. I think Canadians are rightly concerned about these new variants and we need to do everything we can to keep them from getting into the country.
"Precisely how we do that is something the government is discussing and looking at very urgently right now," she said.
Among the plans under consideration are a mandatory, 14-day quarantine in a hotel (at the travellers' expense) for all arriving passengers, as well as COVID-19 testing at land crossings.
Trudeau hinted at the latter on Tuesday but said Ottawa has to be careful not to disrupt the shipping of food and medical supplies that Canadians need.
There was talk on the weekend that Canada might invoke an outright international travel ban, but that likely would require emergency action by Trudeau's Cabinet, and it's not clear that the Liberal government has the stomach for the fight that might take place if it tried.
Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford continued to harangue Trudeau about travel restrictions on Tuesday. Speaking to the media from Toronto Pearson Airport, Ford said he's livid that Canada isn't testing everyone who flies into the country.
Ford helped set up a COVID-testing program at Pearson earlier this month, but it's a voluntary program that appears to have had very little pick-up.
"Please get mandatory testing" he implored Trudeau. "It's absolutely critical that we protect our borders."
Canada has passed a law requiring visitors who fly into the country to get a test within 72 hours of their scheduled departure, but critics worry the test could be inaccurate. They also worry that someone could develop COVID-19 between the time they take the test and the time they get on the plane.
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