Canada’s Prime Minister has announced new travel restrictions and protocols to prevent new variants of the coronavirus from entering the country.

The government has negotiated with Canada’s main airlines (Air Canada, Westjet, Sunwing and Air Transat) to suspend service to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico starting Sunday, January 31, 2021 up until April 30, 2021. The airlines will be making arrangements with their customers who are currently in those regions to bring them back to Canada.

Starting next week all international passenger flights must land at Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Montreal airports. In addition to the pre-boarding COVID test that is currently required, in the coming weeks the government will be introducing mandatory PCR testing at the four designated airports for people returning to Canada. Travellers will then have to quarantine up to 3 days at an approved hotel while waiting for their results. This hotel quarantine is expected to cost approximately $2000 per traveller, which they must cover at their own expense. If they receive a negative test result, they can continue to quarantine at home under significantly increased surveillance and enforcement for the remainder of their 14-day quarantine. Anyone with a positive COVID-19 test will be immediately required to quarantine in a government facility for the remainder of their 14-day quarantine to ensure they don’t have one of the variants. This stay at the government facility will not be at the traveller's expense.

In the coming weeks, non-essential travellers will have to show a negative COVID-19 test before entry Canada at the land border with the US and the Government of Canada is working to create stronger measures for land travel.