Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada and other countries are "actively exploring" vaccine passports for international travel.
The Canadian government has criticized the idea in the past, but there appears to have been a significant change in the past couple of weeks. Health Minister Patt Hajdu recently was quoted as saying that discussions on the issue are "very live."
Trudeau on Friday went a step further.
"There are countries in the world where you shouldn't go unless you can prove you've been vaccinated against certain tropical diseases. That's well established," he said during a media briefing.
Some kind of vaccine passport or vaccination form for international travel ""is something that countries are actively exploring and we're among those countries," the PM said in French.
Israel has a special "green pass" that residents must have to get into theatres, gyms and other public spaces. But Trudeau doesn't like the idea of a kind of vaccine passport for domestic purposes.
"The idea of certificates of vaccination for domestic use does bring in questions of equity. There are questions of fairness and justice. There could be discrimination," he said in French.
"There are some people who, because of medical conditions or other reasons, will not be able to get vaccinated.
Trudeau said. "There are others who are not on priority lists who will have to wait much longer before getting vaccinations. These are things that we have to take into account."
British Columbia Premier Frank Horgan says Canada's premiers were on a call with Trudeau on Friday and that they all agreed that "having a validation of vaccination is absolutely imperative international travel."
But Horgan said such a program for domestic purposes, such as going to the theatre or attending a sportingevent, "strikes me as counterproductive at this point."
Hajdu on Friday said it's important that Canada is at the table when its allies are discussing vaccine passports.
"It's very important that we're involved in those conversations," she said at a Friday press conference.
Hajdu recently said that it would be up to individual provinces to implement any kind of domestic vaccine passport.
She noted that some provinces already require kids to be immunized for diseases such as measles and polio before they begin school.
Some provinces already require that children be vaccinated against certain diseases before attending school - a model that could serve as a template for a vaccine passport program.
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