Trudeau: Canada will not welcome unvaccinated tourists for “quite a while”
Justin Trudeau told CTV News on Thursday that it will be “quite a while” before Canada opens up to unvaccinated tourists.
Canada’s borders have been closed to “non-essential” travel since March 2020, over a year ago.
Nearly 70% of Canadians have been immunized from COVID-19 with at least one vaccine shot.
As of today, 27.5% of Canadians received two vaccine doses.
“In 2019, tourism was Canada’s number one service export, totaling 3% of total exports, generating $105 billion in revenue, and accounting for 1.8 million direct and indirect jobs in Canada”, according to the country’s own government.
With a population that is largely immunized, the decision to keep the borders closed is deemed nonsensical by numerous observers.
On Wednesday, 75 House members in Washington, D.C., both Democrats and Republicans, petitioned Joe Biden to lift the travel-related restrictions between the United States and Canada.
As the bipartisan pressure is mounting in the United States, prime minister Justin Trudeau has continued to ignore Canada’s largest ally, and refused to provide a roadmap to reopening the border.
Tourism industry players have criticized Trudeau’s government inaction on the border:
“What’s been frustrating and infuriating is being on the government regulated yo-yo, not knowing if you’re going to be open, when you’re going to be open. The people that are making these decisions do not have a clue how the real world works”, Koe Kowalski, founder of Wilderness Tours, told CTV News.
Originally reported on Westphalian Times.