'It’s about time': Albertans react to plans to reopen Canada-U.S. land border

CALGARY -

After a record long 19-month closure, many Albertans are excited to hear the United States will reopen its land and sea borders to fully vaccinated Canadians in early November.

The White House confirmed Tuesday night that Canadians and Mexicans will be welcome again for non-essential travel, though officials did not specify a date.

“The potential we’re going to see an opening in early November has everybody excited,” said Coutts mayor Jim Willett. “If they knew when there’d be a countdown clock on the Main Street. It’s a big deal!”

The small village is a port entry into Montana and was one of the busiest border crossings on a typical year before COVID-19 concerns resulted in travel restrictions.

“I would guess that we’ve seen maybe 10 percent or less of normal traffic,” said Willett. “You’d have lineups of traffic halfway from here to Milk River it would seem like, and that hasn’t happened.”

The restrictions on non-essential travel at the U.S. border have been in place since March 2020, when the pandemic was spreading worldwide.

Tyler Nickel is a Calgarian who currently lives in Washington and has been eligible himself to fly into Canada but his parents haven’t been limited on their abilities to travel to see him in the U.S.

“Before I would drive with no issues obviously but I wasn’t even able to fly for a little bit so I couldn’t come across the border. So, as soon as the border opened up I was able to fly up and see my parents and now we’re just trying to go trip by trip and try to figure out what it looks like in a month, six months, in a year.”

Canadian vacationers and day-trippers have perhaps been the greatest casualties of the land-border closure.

“It’s about time,” said Sandra Beattie in Calgary, who is anxious to visit her sister who lives in San Francisco. “It has been a long time yes it has, so it’ll be wonderful to open up and see her.”

JUST IN TIME FOR SKI SEASON

John Walton, the president of the Calgary Ski Club, said the reopening arrives just in time for ski season.

“A lot of them are itching for something a little different and it’s always nice to have a variety of hills to ski and it adds a few more to the repertoire of where you can ski,” he said.

The reopening is designed to dovetail with the U.S.’s existing plan to allow international travellers from further afield to resume travelling to the country.

VACCINATION REQUIREMENTS

There are still several questions about vaccine requirements as the U.S. prepares to reopen its land and sea borders to travellers next month.

Officials have yet to confirm which vaccines will be accepted or if mixed doses will meet eligibility tests.

More than 3.9 million Canadians have two different doses of Health Canada approved COVID-19 vaccines, not including Quebec which doesn’t categorize data by vaccine product. Of those, around 1.6 million people have had a dose of the AstraZeneca formula followed by an MRNA vaccine.

In Alberta, a third or additional dose of an mRNA vaccine such as Pfizer and Moderna are being offered to eligible Albertans who originally received an AstraZeneca shot, which has not yet been approved in the U.S. (https://www.alberta.ca/covid19-vaccine.aspx)

Michelle Noble with the AMA says there are a lot of unanswered questions and reminds travellers that Canada still has a level three, non-essential travel advisory to the U.S.

“A lot of snowbirds that will be driving across will certainly be looking to take that trip and it’s getting late in the season for them, so we should see a boost when those borders open,” she said. “We have seen an increase of requests to travel by air and we expect the same when land borders open and people who’ve been waiting to travel by car.”

Noble said it’s important that travellers make sure they have adequate insurance to ensure they’re protected heading to the states, and to ensure that insurance covers COVID-19 concerns.