Canada will allow cruise ships back into its waters from November as the COVID-19 pandemic fades. However, the ships must comply with public health requirements.
As Reuters explained, Canada extended a ban on cruise ships until February 2022, in order to protect public health. Now, Transport Minister Omar Alghabra said that the restriction would now be lifted on November 1, 2021.
The news comes to please major operators who complained that Canada’s ban was damaging their business on the West Coast. As for U.S., its law obliges foreign-flagged cruise ships sailing from Washington state to Alaska to make a Canadian stop.
Canada, however, has not yet lifted a ban on non-essential travel with the US. For this reason, a Canadian government official said that the country would allow both countries to work on ways of safely managing the cruise sector.
However, there is no indication of when the border between the US and Canada would reopen to tourists. Under this light, Prime Minister Justin Trudeaumentioned that:
It would be catastrophic and heartbreaking to have to go back into lockdown, as some countries are now looking at with surges in the Delta variant, because we were overly eager to reopen by a few weeks
