Canadian Broadcasting Corp news tonight is running two stories about the one-way closure of Canada’s border to Americans — one story reports Canada has again extended the closure another 30 days. This is the sixth monthly extension since the border was first closed in March, and extends the lockdown from Sept 21 to October 21.
The ban allows “essential travel” — mostly the two-way truckers who keep both national economies humming with the movement of goods and food in both directions. It also allows American citizens to visit spouses, sons, daughters and parents in Canada.
Both these exceptions to the travel ban are tightly regulated — truckers must take “the most direct route,” and confine themselves to motels and to their dropoff and pickup locations. Americans visiting family must observe a 14-day self-quarantine — and are subject to snap inspections with violators facing $700,00 fines, jail and permanent deportation.
There is also a highly regulated “direct route” exception for Americans who can show they have a legitimate reason for driving either way between Alaska and the lower 48. (I call this the “nice-guy-Canadian” exemption.)
The other CBC story reports on new polling with an overwhelming 90% of Canadians supporting the ban on American visitors. The story interviews mayors of Canadian tourism towns near the border (like Niagara Falls, Ontario), and the message is “Yes… it’s costing us billions of lost tourist dollars, but, with the way they are managing COVID south of the border, we need to do this to keep our people safe.”
Canada has many conservative mayors, but it doesn’t have any Republicans — that is a uniquely American affliction. I live in Canada and I have not heard of a single Canadian politician claiming COVID is “a hoax” or to otherwise contradict the science. There may be a few who do, but they are kept on the margins.
Canada’s more generous safety net also makes it easier for politicians to support “go-slow” opening up — Canadians do not lose their no-copay universal health insurance when they lose their job because health insurance is based on citizenship, not on workplace perks. In addition, Canada continues to provide generous unemployment benefits to laid-off employees and self-employed who lost work because of the virus. Slow opening up does not ruin nearly as many lives in Canada, and that reduces pressure on politicians to push for premature opening up.
One further measure of public support for the border closure reported in the CBC story is the way recreational boaters in Canadian ocean waters north of Seattle have — in a departure from the normal cross-border fraternity of boaters — organized themselves to do real-time reporting of American pleasurecraft and fish boats that have crossed into Canada.
American boats are not at all allowed north of the border, and they are clearly not welcome as well… even if they might bring Yankee dollars to marinas and other COVID-slumping tourism facilities in Coastal British Columbia.
(By the way — the American boats are reported to the Canadian Coast Guard, Canada Customs or the RCMP, not to any self-appointed “Canadian patriots” with guns or to unregulated militias.)
Here are the links again:
www.cbc.ca/…
www.cbc.ca/...
ADDENDUM
Percentage of total Canadian exports (2019).
- United States: US$336.8 billion (75.4% of total Canadian exports)
- China: $17.5 billion (3.9%)
- United Kingdom: $14.9 billion (3.3%)
Year-to-date (2020) Amrican exports (billions)