Leaders from communities on both sides of the Canada/US border, along with the Frontier Duty Free Association and affected industry representatives, today called on the federal government to remove testing requirements at the land borders.
Last week the federal government announced that travellers will no longer need for a PCR test for entering Canada but would still be required to take a pre-arrival antigen test.
Although they all believe that is a step towards opening the border fully, it's still too small a step which remains a barrier to the flow of traffic over the border, to re-uniting families and to business recovery.
Executive Director of the Duty Free Association, Barbara Barrett, took time at the beginning of the event to speak to the plight the duty free stores have endured during the pandemic.
"We only sell to cross border travellers and we have been either closed or over 95 per cent down in revenue with the two year border closures and chaos. All while plans have flown over the border, change is needed now. Not a month from now, now," she stated.
The Mayor of Niagara Falls on the Canadian side, Jim Diodati, says the current rules were put into place to keep COVID-19 out of the country but we now know that community spread is responsible for 99 per cent of infections.
"Travel restrictions have now become obsolete," he continued. "We're now going into our third tourism season with COVID-19, and having mixed messages and half steps at the border has been confusing and it's very frustrating."
His counterpart on the American side of Niagara Falls, Mayor Robert Restaino, says the continued enforcement of these outdated rules have made simple things for many families much more complicated.
"The idea of attending a wedding, a baptism, a funeral, some of the simple things and the stuff we took for granted of families getting together now become complicated equations. How to make sure that we do things in a way that's not going to be in violation of rules, which by the way may change from Monday to Friday."
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens says the recent changes still come with a number of challenges, including finding available pharmacies on either side of the border to have your test results validated.
"And let's not forget that on the rapid antigen test side, although it is a marked improvement I suppose in terms of the cost one has to pay for it, these are not readily available," Dilkens continued. "So the practicality of the loosening of the restrictions really means nothing to the average traveller."
He says Canada has among the highest vaccination rates of any country in the world against COVID-19, and believes it's time at least at the border to trust Canadians to do the right thing in protecting themselves and others.
"They know we're in a global pandemic and they want to get to the other side of it. So let's help them get to the other side, let's get our folks back to work," Dilkens said.
"Let's give the hotels a chance to succeed, the bar owners, the restaurant owners, the small businesses that rely on these services. We've got to keep moving forward here, and we can't have this half step in place with a move from PCR to rapid antigen because at the end of the day it really means nothing."
The federal government has committed to constantly re-assessing these regulations, and the message today was clear that the time is now to get the border back to normal because border cities and businesses have already lost too much.