There is pressure, largely south of the border - including from the U.S. congress - to reopen the border between Canada and the U.S. I understand the sentiment, because I was originally planning a trip to Texas in September and that sounds a lot more fun than what we’re actually doing during this scheduled time off, which is painting a bedroom. I will have in-laws down there and I’d like to visit them, especially the ones I haven’t met yet.
However, as much as I understand a desire to reopen the border, I have to make it clear that there is no question that the border needs to remain firmly closed, and it can’t re-open until America has its act together when it comes to COVID-19.
The thing with living in Yorkton is that we’ve been largely spared from the effects of the virus, and while part of that is pure luck, part of that is doing what we can to minimize the risk overall. The gradually lifting lockdowns have been a massive hassle for everyone, but they’re also a big reason why there are relatively few cases here. And a great example of why they were necessary can be seen just by taking a glance down south.
America is not doing well, to put it mildly. The state of Arizona has the highest per-capita infection rate in the world. Florida recently announced the largest one-day jump in cases yet, with over 15,000 cases. There are over 3 million cases and over 130,000 deaths, and that’s just as I type this. It’s going badly, in other words.
The only way to keep Canada’s infection rates reasonable is to limit the potential sources of infection. Among Canadians, we’ve been pretty good at that, and part of that is limiting travel to places where they haven’t had nearly as much success.
One could argue for protocols and best practices for travel to allow the border to reopen, but let’s be blunt. That hasn’t happened in America, and because of that we can’t trust the country to enact them before their residents cross the border.
There is something ironic about the increasingly protectionist U.S. trying to pressure others into opening their border. If the tables were turned, if Canada was heavily infected while America had infection rates at a more manageable level, they wouldn’t be nearly as eager to open the border. This is the country that elected a President who promised to build a wall on their southern border, demanding an open border is pretty rich coming from them.
Right now, the priority needs to be on Canadian people, and that means, to be blunt, we have to keep the border as locked down as possible to ensure we don’t put our people at risk. We can start the reopening process among ourselves, of course, depending on the level of infection. Saskatchewan, for example, has been pretty good about keeping rates down.
But that also puts us more at risk when encountering people who haven’t had any success limiting the rates of infection themselves. That makes it even more important to keep border traffic limited, because a rogue infected American could actually do a ton of damage as we open up. We can’t safely open the border until they get a handle on the virus south of it. Since there’s no indication they’re taking it seriously yet, there’s no way the border can open.
