When will the United States border open to nonessential travel? It’s the question on many people’s lips as vaccination rates hit new highs and case counts hit new lows on both sides of the 49th parallel.
A better question might be: when will the U.S. border open for the non-rich? Because, frankly, the border isn’t closed and has never been, so long as one can afford a plane ticket. Understandably, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau likes to gloss over this little detail when he touts his government’s supposedly strong border controls.
Canada’s public health measures have adhered to class lines more than they have actual science. For a while, it was possible to view some of the discrepancies as loopholes, but the longer they drag on, the harder it is to conclude that the freedoms of the unmoneyed majority aren’t being unjustly sacrificed for the freedoms of the moneyed few.
As travel resumes around the world, Trudeau’s Liberals are taking an absurdly cautious approach. Last month, officials said a significant majority, a minimum of 75 per cent, of Canadians need to be double vaccinated before they ease border restrictions.
“I wish there was a more artful way to say this, but this is bulls–t,” said Rep. Brian Higgins, a Democratic congressman from Buffalo, N.Y., when the decision was announced. “It’s arbitrary. It doesn’t follow the science, it doesn’t follow the facts, it doesn’t follow the data.”
If Higgins was upset in June, he must’ve been absolutely fuming on Friday. In what would be an epic troll if it didn’t adversely affect so many people’s lives and livelihoods, Trudeau suggested he may actually require 80 per cent of Canadians to get two doses before further relaxing border controls.
The best-case scenario sees us passing this threshold at the end of August. So there will be no U.S. summer vacations for average Joes and Janes while those with money to throw at plane tickets freely jet to and from the Hamptons, or Miami or Los Angeles.
But it’s not just about vacations. Big corporations are now well-versed at getting their cross-border workers classified as “essential” in the rare instances that they don’t spring for a plane ticket. Extending the border closure won’t touch their bottom lines. However, small businesses in the tourism, restaurant and retail industries that rely on summertime visitors will be out of luck, just as COVID supports come to an end.
Low-wage workers in service and hospitality, already disproportionately affected by lockdowns, will also continue to suffer. Trudeau’s government claims to be feminist, yet it betrays sectors that are heavily staffed by women time and time again.
“In Niagara Region alone, 40,000 people count on cross-border tourism to put food on the table. Eighty per cent of Niagara Falls’ tourism revenue comes in 20 per cent of the time. July through Labour Day is disproportionately important to sustain our community … cutting that period short even a little bit will significantly impact their likelihood of survival,” reads a press release from the Canadian Tourism Roundtable.
Either nonessential travel to the U.S. is safe enough to allow or it isn’t. If it’s permitted by air, there’s no good reason it shouldn’t be permitted by land. Canada’s plainly hypocritical policy can only be explained by a government that wants to have its cake and eat it, too. The Liberals hope to keep wealthier constituents happy while maintaining restricted land crossings in their back pocket as evidence of their vigilance if things go south.
When Trudeau posits moving the goalposts, is it because his government has access to some special science that other countries lack? Or is it because it’s in his interest (and his party’s) to hedge his bets on border openings, with voters and businesses he considers less valuable paying the price, until a rumoured fall election?
If it’s the former, let’s see the evidence that shows air travellers are less likely to carry and transmit the virus than land travellers. If there isn’t any, the border needs to open and, when election day comes, average Canadians should show Trudeau exactly what they think of using COVID to play political games.
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