The latest on the coronavirus outbreak for Oct. 14
CBC
As U.S. prepares to reopen border, some urge Canada to relax testing requirement
Members of the U.S. Congress are expected to send letters to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and members of Parliament asking Canada to drop the testing requirement for vaccinated travellers.
The hassle of getting tested will discourage people from taking advantage of the restored right to cross-border travel, said one member of Congress.
New York Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democrat, said proof of vaccination should be enough.
"Testing is redundant," he said Wednesday, one day after the U.S. confirmed it will reopen the border early next month.
These calls for ending test requirements have one key goal: attracting more Canadian travellers. Same-day trips represent a huge percentage of Canadian travel to the United States.
According to data from Statistics Canada, day trips comprised nearly half of all Canadian travel to the U.S. in 2019 — and two-thirds of trips taken by car.
Intelligence regarding foreign interference sometimes didn't make it to the prime minister's desk in 2021 because Canada's spy agency and the prime minister's national security adviser didn't always see eye to eye on the nature of the threat, according to a recent report from one of Canada's intelligence watchdogs.