by Jim Byers
Last updated: 5:31 PM ET, Tue June 22, 2021
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says we may be weeks away from an open border.
"We're talking about weeks and not months anymore," Trudeau said in a press briefing in Ottawa. "We certainly hope that we will have more good news about reopening in the coming weeks but, of course, it depends on the vaccination rate, the COVID situation, the variants of concern and what's happening elsewhere."
The Prime Minister again said that allowing fully vaccinated Americans over the border isn't a cut-and-dried proposal.
"The issue is, being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 protects you from the worst impacts but it doesn't necessarily protect you from transmitting COVID-19 to someone who is partially or not vaccinated," Trudeau said.
"Nobody wants to see new restrictions brought in in the summer because the volumes were too high because we were a little too rushed," he said.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc on Tuesday suggested there could be changes to Canada's border rules in the next few weeks.
LeBlanc said Canadians can expect a "series of phased approaches to diminishing or relaxing these measures," and that the details will be based on advice from public health experts, scientists and doctors.
"There is again, a difference of opinions, among some scientific experts about the pace at which these changes should come into effect," he said. "Obviously, as we approach that date (July 21, the day the current border closure expires) in three or four weeks, we'll be looking to see what is the prudent approach to have in place after that."
Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, said more than a month ago that Canada could relax travel restrictions once 75% of adult Canadians had one vaccine dose and 20% had two doses. She said today that those figures were only for domestic travel purposes and not for opening the U.S. border.
Public Safety Minister Bill Blair this week said Canada needs to have 75% of Canadian adults fully vaccinated in order to open the border. But that appears to leave some wriggle room for fully vaccinated Americans to come before that figure is reached.
Canada likely won't get to that level of vaccination until mid-to-late August, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, a member of the federal government's COVID-19 Testing and Screening Expert Advisory Panel, said on Tuesday.
The Trudeau government on Monday announced that, beginning July 5, fully vaccinated Canadians will be able to return from trips abroad without having to quarantine. That privilege was not extended to visitors from other countries.
But Bogoch told TravelPulse Canada that fully vaccinated visitors from other countries pose very little risk to Canadians.
Asked if it would be safe to allow fully vaccinated Americans or two-dose visitors from other countries to visit Canada by July 21, when the next border closure deal runs out, Bogoch suggested he doesn't see a problem.
"From a medical and public health point of view, fully vaccinated individuals don't pose a significant threat to Canada. They just don't," he said in a telephone interview. "It's not zero, but it's very, very low risk."
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