Effective today (August 9, 2021), fully vaccinated American citizens and permanent residents of the United States can enter Canada and skip some of the quarantine rules. The rest of the world (i.e. other foreign nationals) will tentatively have restrictions eased on September 7, 2021. But it doesn’t work the other way around when Canadians want to enter the United States. The U.S. border is still closed to Canada until at least August 21, 2021.
Effective July 5, 2021, the Canadian will go from no exemption to some exemptions for fully vaccinated travellers (from land or by air) who meet specific conditions. There are no exceptions for partially-vaccinated travellers from testing, hotel stopover or quarantine for travellers who haven’t received the full series of a vaccine or a combination of vaccines accepted by the Government of Canada.
The last time we wrote (May 4, 2021) about this topic, the Prime Minister of Canada warn that travellers could see stiffer penalties for not following the quarantine rules. Exactly a month later, the Canadian Federal Government is set to increase the fines (effective June 4, 2021):
The Contraventions Act provides police (including RCMP, provincial and local police) the authority to enforce the Quarantine Act. Tickets with fines of up to $3,000 may be issued for non-compliance. As of June 4, 2021, these tickets carry an increased fine of $5,000.
So far, it seems like news agencies are able to report on what the government says, like: CTV reporting that the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) says hundreds of fines have been issued to air travellers arriving in Canada who refuse to quarantine in a hotel. However, it seems like there has yet to be any concrete examples of who these people are?
Since February 22, 2021, people entering Canada have had to quarantine at an approved hotel, however, there are exceptions to the rule (discussed below). This is an addition to the proof of negative COVID-19 test that needs to be presented at the border.
It has been a couple of months since all these rules came into effect, so I thought I’d put together a more comprehensive guide overall and provide any updates since then.
It is official, the February 22, 2021 hotel quarantine rules for incoming air travellers are now in effect and the list of approved hotels are out on the Government of Canada website.
Keep in mind that there are currently only 4 airports in Canada accepting international flights. This means that if you are flying into a different part of the country, you will probably have a connecting flight at one of these airports. Keep in mind that you will still need to quarantine in one of these hotels because being able to board your connecting flight several days later, as you wait for the test results.
CBC released an article about people finding ways to circumvent the hotel quarantine requirement, so I thought I’d chime in my thoughts into the matter since it seems to be a hot topic.
Quarantine Requirement
We have written an extensive post already on the hotel quarantine requirements.
See also: Covid-19 Updates
It’s official, the Federal Government announced new restrictions for incoming travellers that will come into effect on February 22, 2021. This announcement was made back on January 29, 2021, but with no start date till now. Some rules kick in on February 15, 2021 though.
Land Border Crossing
These warnings are becoming more of a reality as the Prime Minister announced today that travellers who are returning to Canada will soon have to quarantine in hotels … at their own cost. The point of this measure is to continue to discourage travel outside of Canada. The more recent one was the 72-hour negative test that came into effect on January 7, 2021.
We wrote up a post yesterday mentioning that the government is issuing warnings on the media that they may implement stricter travel restrictions. At the very least, they admit that it is being considered.
In my post, I mentioned that if the government “warns” us, chances are they will actually do it. They are just bracing us for the eventual news. I just wanted to mention a few reasons why I feel that more travel restrictions are coming.