The other day we looked at the news that the United States was reopening its borders with Mexico and Canada for land travel. Of course, there were immediate caveats placed on the offer. Only those with proof of vaccination would be allowed to drive into the United States. As it turns out, however, there’s another side to this coin. Canada has placed their own restrictions on those wishing to cross in the other direction. In addition to having a vaccine passport, travelers seeking entrance to the Great White North will also have to provide a recent negative COVID test. That seemed like a bit much to some GOP members of Congress who serve border communities, so they sent a letter to our friends to the north, asking them to loosen up a bit and eliminate the testing requirement. (Times Union)

One day after the U.S. government reopened land borders to vaccinated visitors on Monday, several members of Congress wrote a letter to two of Canada’s top ministers requesting the dissolution of the country’s pandemic-era testing rule for travelers.

The letter, signed by four congressional Republicans — including U.S. Reps. Elise Stefanik and Chris Jacobs of New York — echoed concerns raised a day earlier by the mayors of several Canadian and American border communities, as well as Democratic U.S. Rep. Brian Higgins, that Canada’s testing rule is unnecessarily delaying a return to normalcy at the northern border.

“We believe this supplemental requirement to produce a negative molecular COVID-19 test to enter Canada creates unnecessary confusion and risks hindering the full benefits of the recent U.S. border reopening,” the letter states.

Elise Stefanik and Chris Jacobs both represent districts that border Canada, so it’s natural that they would take an interest in this subject. Both have towns and cities in their districts that rely on tourism and trade with Canada, and unnecessary impediments to travel can depress economic activity in those areas. The same goes for the various mayors and councils of those border cities that also protested the restrictions.

I’ll just start by saying that every country gets to set their own border entry rules (or not set them in the case of the Biden administration) so Canada is free to handle things how they see best. But it’s also worth remembering that when it comes to international diplomacy, turnabout is fair play. If Canada wants to make it more difficult to come into their country than we do for ours, that’s a policy that could still be changed on our side of the border too. Hopefully, it won’t come to that, though.

In a broader sense, however, what we’re seeing here is yet another example of how nobody can seem to agree on what “following the science” means despite all of the lectures we receive on a daily basis. And those gaps in understanding and implementation can stretch across international borders. If simply being vaccinated is good enough for Canadians to safely drive into the United States, how is it not safe enough for Americans heading in the opposite direction unless they’ve also had a COVID test in the previous 72 hours?

And while we’re on the subject, that brings up another good question. If you’re fully vaccinated, why would you need a test at all unless these vaccines aren’t all they’re cracked up to be? Does the Canadian government not believe that the vaccines are “safe, effective, free, and required to prevent the spread of the disease?”

Unfortunately for those hoping to change Canada’s mind on this matter, we in the United States don’t have much room to talk. We still have a checkerboard of mandates in place all around the country with some places requiring vaccinations and others allowing people to remain unvaccinated if they submit to testing. Also, while we now allow people who drive into our country to do so with only an immunity passport, anyone flying into America has to provide a negative COVID test just like the Canadians are demanding of drivers.

So I suppose we sound rather hypocritical on this issue since we’re not consistently leading by example. There’s been no word yet from the Canadian government on this request, but I won’t be holding my breath for them to make a policy change in the near future.