Canada Is Ending Pre-Arrival Testing For Fully-Vaccinated Travellers In April
It's going to be a lot easier to come back to the country.🛬
Montréal-Trudeau International Airport with a Quebec flag in the foreground.
Canada's travel rules are easing again. On Thursday, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced the end of pre-arrival testing for fully-vaccinated travellers flying or driving into the country. The rule change takes effect on April 1.
Currently, travellers need to get a valid, negative molecular or antigen test before their arrival in Canada.
Random testing of travellers will continue beyond April 1, however, and it will still be mandatory to fill out the ArriveCan app.
Travellers who are not fully vaccinated will still have to undergo testing on arrival and on their eighth day back in Canada.
Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra clarified that cruise ship passengers will still have to take an antigen test "no more" than one day before boarding, but won't have to take a test before disembarking in Canada.
Duclos called the new measures "encouraging" but warned the government could modify them depending on the COVID-19 situation.
He said Canada is entering a "transition phase" in the pandemic with easier months likely ahead. "As the weather warms and people spend more time outside, we can expect to see transmission decline in the coming months."
The new border rule is just the latest in a quick succession of health measure relaxations nationwide.
In Quebec, the vaccine passport system and restaurant and bar capacity limits, among other measures, ended on March 12.
An end to mask mandates could be next. Quebec has said it plans to end the requirement in most public places, excluding public transit, sometime in mid-April. Obligatory face-coverings in public transit could end in May at the earliest.