COVID-19 test requirement to get back into Canada cost prohibitive: Tourism advocate

WINNIPEG -

Despite the Canadian-U.S. land border reopening, some tourism industry representatives are still waiting for a change to a COVID-19 testing rule they say is costly and unnecessary.

The Canadian government currently requires citizens and permanent residents to provide a negative molecular COVID-19 test when coming back to Canada.

It's a rule which has some business experts and tourism advocates upset.

"It's just not needed," said Beth Potter from the Tourism Industry Association of Canada. "We know that from the expert advisory panel on testing that was released back in the spring. The PCR test is not needed if you are fully vaccinated."

Potter said a PCR test wouldn't tell border officials anything more than a much cheaper and quicker rapid-antigen test.

According to Potter, the biggest issue with the requirement is the cost to travellers.

She said PCR tests cost around $200 on average but can cost as much as $300 in some states.

"It's really proving to be prohibitively expensive," said Potter. "If you want to travel as a family of four, the test is costing you $200. A family of four, that gets up to $800 really quickly."

A PCR test can take several days to get results back, a fact Potter said doesn't make sense when only taking a weekend trip south of the border.

"A weekend across the border is just a couple of days, so if you were to do that, you would actually have to get a PCR test here in Canada before you left. So it kind of doesn't make sense to do that."

At a briefing on Friday, chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam said the testing policy is being "actively looked at."

"Just to reassure everybody, we are looking at that quite carefully," she said.

Tam warned that though the fourth wave is bending in the right direction, Canada is still vulnerable to another surge.

Potter, however, worries about what will happen to the tourism industry if something isn’t changed soon.

"Prior to the pandemic [the tourism] industry generated about a $105 billion a year in visitor spending. We're down to less than half of that right now," she said.

Potter said it could take until 2026 to return to pre-pandemic numbers if the test requirement isn't lifted.

Canadians can also take a Nucleic acid test (NAT) or Nucleic acid amplification test (NAATs) or Reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) to come back to the country too.

-With files from CTV's Maralee Caruso and The Canadian Press