Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Justin Pierre James TrudeauBlinken receives the first calls while Biden’s secretary of state Canadian lawmakers vote to label Proud Boys as a terrorist organization. Biden talks about NATO, climate change in the first presidential call with Macron in France on Friday revealed new restrictions on international travel in the country.
Trudeau told a news conference that Canada’s major airlines – Air Canada, West Jet, Sunwing and Air Transit – are suspending flights to all Caribbean and Mexican destinations from Sunday until April 30.
Airlines “make arrangements with customers who are currently on a trip to these regions to arrange their return flights,” Trudeau said.
In addition, international flights are due to land at one of the country’s four airports – Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal – starting next week.
Trudeau said Canada would introduce mandatory PCR testing at the airport for travelers returning “in the coming weeks.” Travelers will then have to be quarantined at an approved hotel for up to three days, while waiting for the results at their own expense.
Passengers who give negative results will then be quarantined at home “under significantly increased supervision and enforcement”.
Those who test positive will need to be quarantined at designated government facilities to ensure that they do not have any of the new, more contagious variants of COVID-19.
Trudeau also said the nation will soon require non-essential travelers to take a negative COVID-19 test before entering the US land border, and said Canada is working on additional testing requirements for land travel.
Canada currently requires air travelers test negative before boarding international flights to Canada, and all those entering the country must be quarantined or isolated for 14 days.
“With the challenges we are currently facing with COVID-19, both here and abroad, we all agree that now is not the time to fly,” Trudeau said.
There have been 770,427 coronavirus infections in Canada since the pandemic began, according to a number from Johns Hopkins University and more than 19,000 deaths.