Warning to travellers: More restrictions at Canada-U.S. border on the way, Trudeau urges

Elisabetta Bianchini
·2 min read

For more on today’s top stories and the spread of the novel coronavirus across the country, please refer to our live updates below throughout the day, as well as our COVID-19 news hub.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians can expect an announcement around the country’s border measures “in the coming days.”

“When it comes to protecting you and your family nothing is off the table,” Trudeau said. “We will not hesitate to take even tougher measures if and when they’re needed, and we’ll be making an announcement in the coming days.”

“The bad choices of a few will never be allowed to put everyone else in danger.”

The prime minister said that existing measures like restricting incoming travel for non-Canadians or permanent residents, the 14-day quarantine rule and the pre-departure COVID-19 test requirement are working and are “saving lives.” He added that the federal government is looking further restrictions on travel “very carefully.”

“Extremely low is still not zero and one case is too many, if we’re importing, particularly given the variants out there,” Trudeau said.

“We are reliant on supply chains from around the world for food, for goods, for essential medicines and we do not want measures that we are going to be bringing in to further restrict non-essential travel to have an impact on those essential supply chains.”

Concerns about COVID-19 vaccines from the EU

The prime minister also commented on the European Union threatening to introduce export controls over COVID-19 vaccines produced in the EU. Trudeau stressed that Canada has worked “extremely closely” with European partners on vaccines.

“The close working relationship between Canada and Europe gives me reassurance that the contracts that we’ve signed and the supply chains that we have established with European manufacturers are in good shape,” the prime minister said.

“The preoccupation seems to be a little more around AstraZeneca... We do not have, at this point or in the near future, sourcing of AstraZeneca coming from the European manufacturers but we will continue to work very, very closely.”

Trudeau said that he spoke to Moderna earlier on Tuesday morning and he has been reassured that deliveries will proceed as expected, totalling two million in the first three months of 2021. He added that Canada still expects to receive four million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by the end of March.

Check out our COVID-19 in Canada topic page for latest news, tips, health updates, cases and more.

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