Trudeau Holds Out Promise of Summer Travel for Canadians

Canadians might be hitting the road come summer time if all goes well.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday said summer travel for Canadians might be possible if vaccinations continue and Canada’s COVID-19 numbers continue to drop.

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He also said Canada is prepared to adopt some kind of vaccine passport for international travel, even if the U.S. doesn’t do the same thing.

Trudeau again said that now is not the time for Canadians to be heading to the airport.

“We are all hopeful we’ll be able to get back to normal in the coming months, and start travelling again,” he said. “But the reality is we’re not there yet. We need to get more and more people vaccinated across this country and bring the numbers down.

“However, we also know that as people start to travel again, perhaps this summer if everything goes well, it would make sense for us to align with partners around the world on some sort of proof of vaccination or vaccine certification. We are now working with allies, particularly in Europe, on that.

“But ultimately it us up to every country to determine what requirements they expect from incoming travellers. We are looking very carefully at it, hoping to align with allied countries, but I can’t speak for the United States and the choices they might make around who they might welcome into their country.”

Speaking to the media in Ottawa, Trudeau said the Canadian government is working with allies, especially those in Europe, on such passports or certificates.

“We have seen from the outset that we are trying to align ourselves with our partners, particularly the United States. That’s what we’ve done with the land border from the outset,” the prime minister said. “Ideally we’d have similar measures, but our responsibility is to do everything necessary to protect Canadians and we are gong to do that, even if there isn’t automatically symmetry with other countries.”

Trudeau said again Tuesday that vaccine passports or vaccination certificates are nothing new, noting that many countries require visitors to be inoculated against cholera or yellow fever.

“For us and European countries as well, we’re looking at the question of vaccine certificates as to whether they’d be useful or necessary in order to travel once we are through the pandemic,” the prime minister said in French.

Asked if Canada might require a certain number of Canadians to have both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine before bringing in such questions, Trudeau said his government will follow science experts. But he also said Ottawa has to make sure the system is “fair for everyone.”

Speaking on the weekend, Health Minister Patty Hajdu said Ottawa is working on the idea.

“Canadians need to be able to have the right kind of certification for international travel because, as we know, Canadians will want to travel internationally, and they will want to make sure they have the right credentials to do that from a vaccination perspective,” she said.