Ottawa mulls exempting more workers from border quarantine: Garneau

The Canadian press

OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau says Ottawa is looking at expanding the categories of essential workers allowed to travel across the Canada-U.S. border.

He told a parliamentary committee today that could mean allowing technicians in the integrated auto industry to be considered essential workers for cross-border purposes.

The Canada-U.S. border has been closed to people travelling for vacations and other non-essential visits since March 2020 to help limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Garneau told MPs on the special committee on the economic relationship between Canada and the U.S. that the flow of goods across the shared border has slowed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions.

More than $2 billion worth of goods and services still cross the border every day, and roughly three quarters of Canada's exports go to the United States.

Garneau says the number 1 factor in evaluating border policy is the health and safety of Canadians, but the government should be sensitive to the need to recover the economy.