Should Canada / U.S. border restrictions be lifted to reunite families?

In this morning’s daily briefing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed Canada / U.S. border restrictions and the notion of lifting them to allow the spouses, parents and children of Canadian citizens, who are in the U.S., to reunite with their families in Canada.

“We have taken unprecedented measures at the U.S. border to prevent nonessential travel,” Prime Minister Trudeau said. “We continued with our supply chains for essential travel and of course Canadians coming home, who then need to quarantine for two weeks. But there have been a number of stories in the media over the past weeks, and things we’ve heard directly from MPs, on families who have close family members who are separated because of citizenship at the Canada U.S. border. We have been looking at ways of perhaps allowing children, spouses or parents of Canadian citizens or permanent residents to be able to reunite with their families under strict conditions through a slight modification of the restrictions for the Canadian border services agency. This would not change the approach on closing the borders until the end of June, depending on discussions beyond. But it is looking at, ‘Can we support families that are going through extremely difficult times?’

“However, the borders are an issue that deeply concern all the provinces. I have made many commitments to them over the past weeks that we would always bring up any issues or concerns that we had around changes at the border and we had a good discussion on it last night. There are a number of premieres who feel that for reasons of compassion, we would and should move forward with this measure. There are others who expressed a certain amount of concern about it. We will continue to engage with them, we will continue to look into this matter and ensure that no matter what we do, we are keeping the safety and well being of Canadians at the forefront of any decision.” ■

Please visit our News section for more updates on COVID-19 / Coronavirus.

To read the latest issue of Cult MTL, click here.

For official info from the Government of Canada on COVID-19 / Coronavirus, click here.