Federal Travel Guidelines | “People are still really confused”

by time news

Confusion, decline in interest, impacts on sales: the “vagueness” surrounding the implementation of mandatory COVID-19 screening tests for all travelers arriving in Canada by plane from all countries except the United States mine the morale of many players in the travel industry. Ottawa, for its part, ensures that it has a clear plan that takes into account the “capacity” of the various airports.


Henri Ouellette-Vézina

Henri Ouellette-Vézina
Press

“The phones have stopped ringing. It was a direct and immediate effect. And we also had a lot of cancellations, ”says Anthony Cirino, president of the Club Voyages Universitaire Agency.

For him, the federal directives surrounding screening on arrival have created general confusion among the population. “People are still really confused, they don’t understand. Several people ask us if they will have to isolate themselves for two weeks, in short, it lacks clarity. And there, people just stopped booking, although we had a good movement in recent weeks, “continues Mr. Cirino.

At CAA-Quebec, the director of public affairs, Nicolas Ryan, also confirms that the instructions have created a certain “uncertainty” in the clientele, especially for shorter-term trips. “Right now, with the way the measures have been put in place, there is still a bit of vagueness around that. But it is our role as an agency to disentangle it, because indeed, communication has not always been extremely clear, ”he continues.

Traveling is still a choice, but it’s not always easy to understand all that that entails at the moment. So we take a little more time when we take calls, people have a lot of questions.

Nicolas Ryan, from CAA-Québec

The same goes for the co-founder of the Dessine-moi un voyage agency, Isabelle Eon. “It seems blurry to a lot of people. Even for us, sometimes it’s not easy, especially since no two countries have the same conditions or the same standards and that can change from week to week. In short, it blew everyone away. It froze our activities again, ”laments the businesswoman.

At the School of Public Health of the University of Montreal (ESPUM), Professor Roxane Borgès Da Silva affirms that the directive “was decreed quickly, in an emergency, without thinking about operationalization”. “It makes it so that there is nothing quite clear for people. We should have thought about the strategic dissemination of the message upstream, ”she observes.

Various scenarios

In the office of the Minister of Health, Jean-Yves Duclos, we deny lack of clarity, referring instead to “four return scenarios”, depending on his country of origin and his vaccination status. If a citizen first returns from one of the 10 countries affected by the travel ban attributable to the Omicron variant, they will have to be tested at the airport upon arrival, whether or not they are vaccinated. Whether his result is positive or negative, he will still isolate himself for 14 days at home or in a quarantine hotel.

Border measures by air

  • INFOGRAPHIC PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY OF CANADA

  • INFOGRAPHIC PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY OF CANADA

  • INFOGRAPHIC PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY OF CANADA

  • INFOGRAPHIC PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY OF CANADA

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For all other countries it is slightly different. Someone returning from France, for example, will be tested either at the airport or at home, depending on the “testing capacity” of each of the airports. To carry out his test at home, he will be given the necessary equipment and a subcontractor will then come and collect everything to bring it to the laboratory. If a traveler needs to connect on Canadian soil before returning home, they will be able to undergo screening upon arrival at an airport in the country, ideally, before continuing their journey to their final destination. In all cases, the traveler must remain isolated at home until obtaining a negative test. In the case of an unvaccinated person, however, the 14-day quarantine will apply, even if the test result is negative.

When he was asked if he knew when and how these mechanisms would be implemented, Minister Duclos was cautious on Monday. “Between last Wednesday and last Friday, we already had a 60% increase in testing capacity across the country. There are regional differences, of course. We are encountering situations with local airports, but things are going well and over the next week, the next few days, we will have other announcements of additional capacity increases, ”he replied to the media.

SOLUTIONS FOR ARRIVECAN

Public Security Minister Marco Mendicino said on Monday he had asked border officials to allow travelers to provide their travel information at the border if they forgot or could not use ArriveCAN of the government. Until now, all Canadian travelers had to enter their information in the app, on the web or through the app, up to 72 hours before returning home, even for a day trip. . The Dr Emmanuel Dingemans, anesthesiologist at Jean-Talon Hospital in Montreal, learned the hard way last Thursday. “I returned to the United States with a friend overland to empty my cabin that I sold a year and a half ago. We checked all the boxes to have the right to return to Canada, without quarantine or testing. And we had no human contact, ”he explains straight away. Once at the border, Mr. Dingemans realized he had not updated his app. The agent then automatically imposed a quarantine of 14 days. “I tried to explain that I was an essential worker, that it could cause cancellations of surgeries, but there was nothing to be done”, says this health professional, who deplores that this directive is not not “communicated more aggressively”. “It’s a huge cost to me. I have colleagues who bend over backwards to fill the hours I miss. My girlfriend has to manage everything on her own even though we have a little 2 month old baby. But no, I’m at home with nothing to do. Quarantine should be there to protect us, not punish us, ”he concludes.

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