Canada: Growing pushback against Trudeau’s clinging to vaccine mandates as others discard them

In Canada, the unvaccinated are banned from all commercial airliners, passengers and crew member alike. But pressure is mounting against Trudeau. 

Trudeau’s American counterpart Joe Biden also has a “no logic” border policy, as border crossings from Canada to the US are restricted for the unvaxxed, even though Biden permits multitudes of illegals from Mexico to enter the US — a whopping half a million “during a 10-week period ending on May 15.” Also, refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine are entering America, many of whom are unvaxxed. So why keep Canadians out, people who could benefit both the Canadian and American economies? Something is clearly amiss.

Meanwhile, the omicron variant is highly contagious, affecting the vaxxed and unvaxxed alike, so neither leader is taking a logical approach, as the economies of both countries continue to dive.

“FIRST READING: Growing pushback against Trudeau government’s ‘no logic’ border policy,” by Tristin Hopper, National Post, June 2, 2022:

As the federal government continues to impose tight COVID-19 strictures long past the point that they’ve been abandoned by foreign governments, it’s beginning to spark something that was mostly absent in earlier stages of the pandemic: Industry pushback.

“Vaccine mandate for air travellers and employees needs to be dropped,” wrote WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech in a Tuesday tweet. “As vaccines are not preventing the spreading of the virus since omicron, there is no more logic to maintain it.”

The statement came the same day that Public Health Agency of Canada announced that COVID strictures at the border would be extended until at least June 30.

For another month, anyone entering Canada will be subject to random testing and will need to prove their vaccination status by uploading their immunization details (including type and date of the shot) to the ArriveCAN smartphone app.

In addition, the feds are still holding fast to mandates barring unvaccinated Canadians from stepping aboard a commercial airliner, either as a passenger or crew member.

The PHAC mandates were extended despite a chorus of industry groups begging Ottawa to back down on COVID strictures, in part because they were precipitating crushing wait times at Canadian airports….

Canada is fast emerging as an international outlier when it comes to COVID restrictions on air travellers. The United Kingdom, for one, has completely lifted all testing and vaccine requirements at its border. The European Union has dropped mask mandates on commercial flights. Even Australia has opened up domestic air travel to its unvaccinated….

As early as February, Canadian public health officials were beginning to signal that vaccine mandates had lost their utility in the wake of new and more infectious variants able to spread among the immunized — a key factor in the decision of all 10 provinces to roll back vaccine mandates on indoor spaces.