QUESTION PERIOD — Ministry of Health
Mandatory Quarantine
February 9, 2022
Thank you, minister, for being with us today. There have been changes in the rules in the administrative procedures throughout the past two years dealing with what is truly a fluid COVID situation.
Minister, my question is focused on one administrative procedure that creates perhaps unnecessary confusion for Canadians returning to Canada from the U.S. at our land border crossings.
Currently, a Canadian entering at a land crossing must fill in ArriveCAN within 72 hours before arrival to Canada. If not submitted, then that Canadian must quarantine for 10 days. But if that same Canadian, in short order, returns to the United States, they can again arrive at the border crossing and enter Canada without quarantine for that 10-day period.
Rather than creating this workaround situation, can the government not create a rule that would allow the returning Canadian to fill in the ArriveCAN at the border crossing or perhaps within a short period after entering Canada?
Thank you, Senator Quinn. You allude to and describe quite well some of the various features of the border measures. Border measures obviously are part of a broader agenda to protect the health and safety of Canadians. What you’re signalling now is obviously the joint outcome of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s expert advice and transportation and public safety in that particular context with the Minister of Public Safety being responsible for the ArriveCAN application.
We know it’s quite complicated. It’s difficult for many people who want to travel abroad. Now is still not the time to travel abroad, not with the level of infection of Omicron; the world is at a historic high. Our hospitals are still obviously overloaded in Canada. People returning or intending to return to Canada are often infected with the virus, which complicates either their departure from hotels or other places in the world or their return to Canada. We understand it is complicated.
The Public Health Agency of Canada is continuously reviewing the measures in support of others in the government, Transport and Public Safety in particular.
