Canadian Government Brings Testing Back To Airports

Byadmin

Jul 16, 2022

All testing for air travellers, for both those who qualify as fully vaccinated and partially or unvaccinated people, will be completed outside of airports, either via an in-person appointment at select testing provider locations and pharmacies, or a virtual appointment for a self-swab test. Travellers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, unless exempt, must continue to test on Day 1 and Day 8 of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Government of Canada is re-establishing mandatory random testing
offsite of airports for air travellers

News release

July 14, 2022 | Ottawa, ON | Public Health Agency of Canada

Keeping Canadians safe has been our number one priority since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Government of Canada set up entry restrictions, testing, and quarantine requirements to manage risks at the border. Testing was and remains an important part of our surveillance program to track the importation of COVID-19 virus into Canada and identify new variants of concern.

https://strongandfreecanada.org/

The Government of Canada had paused mandatory random testing for those entering Canada by air on June 11, 2022, as part of a broader strategy to transition testing for air travellers outside of the airports.

Mandatory random testing will resume as of July 19, 2022, for travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated, arriving in Canada by air to the four major Canadian airports, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. To qualify as a fully vaccinated traveller to Canada, travellers must have been vaccinated with a primary series of a COVID-19 vaccine accepted by the Government of Canada for the purpose of travel at least 14 calendar days before entering Canada.

All testing for air travellers, for both those who qualify as fully vaccinated and partially or unvaccinated people, will be completed outside of airports, either via an in-person appointment at select testing provider locations and pharmacies, or a virtual appointment for a self-swab test. Travellers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, unless exempt, must continue to test on Day 1 and Day 8 of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.

Moving testing outside of airports will support testing for travellers arriving by air while still being able to monitor and quickly respond to new variants of concern, or changes to the epidemiological situation. Mandatory random testing continues at land border points of entry, with no changes.

Border testing is an important tool in Canada’s detection and surveillance of COVID-19 and has been essential in helping us slow the spread of the virus. Data from the testing program are used to understand the current level and trends of importation of COVID-19 into Canada. In addition, these data have and continue to inform the Government of Canada’s safe easing of border measures.

Air travellers who qualify as fully vaccinated and who are selected for mandatory random testing, as well as air travellers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated, will receive an email notification within 15 minutes of completing their customs declaration. The email will contain information to help them arrange for their test with a testing provider in their region. Unvaccinated travellers can complete their tests by a virtual appointment or an in-person appointment with the test provider at their store or at select pharmacies and still respect their quarantine requirements.

All travellers must continue to use ArriveCAN (free mobile app or website) to provide mandatory travel information within 72 hours before their arrival in Canada, and/or before boarding a cruise ship destined for Canada, with few exceptions. It is the fastest, easiest and most secure way for travellers to show they meet public health requirements. Additional efforts are being undertaken to enhance compliance with ArriveCAN, which is already over 95% for travellers arriving by land and air combined.

All vaccinated travellers who are randomly selected for the border testing surveillance program must complete arrival mandatory testing requirements.

If your arrival test result is positive, you must go into isolation and follow the federal requirement to isolate for 10 days from the date of the test result. Your 10-day isolation is required, even if the isolation requirement is shorter in your province or territory.

Mandatory random testing and information in the ArriveCAN app are necessary tools that help inform public health advice to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

Quotes

“As we have said all along, Canada’s border measures will remain flexible and adaptable, guided by science and prudence. We need to keep border testing measures in place because that is how we track importation of the COVID-19 virus, and of new variants of concern. We will keep adapting our border measures to balance the need to protect Canadians while supporting our economic recovery.”
The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos
Minister of Health

“As demand for travel increases across the world, today’s announcement marks an important step in our progress to streamline testing processes outside our airports while preventing the further spread of COVID-19. The Government of Canada will continue to protect travellers and employees and ensure our transportation system is safe, reliable, and resilient for the long term.”
The Honourable Omar Alghabra
Minister of Transport
“The safety and security of Canadians remains our top priority. As more people continue to travel again, we’re working hard and adding resources to keep things moving. The CBSA is hiring new people – including retired officers and student border services officers – making additional kiosks available and improving ArriveCAN so it is faster and easier to use. As the situation evolves, we’ll continue to make adjustments and enhancements at the border because that’s what Canadians expect.”
The Honourable Marco Mendicino
Minister of Public Safety

Quick facts:

Pausing mandatory random (MRT) testing for air travellers was a temporary measure and part of a broader strategy to transition traveller testing for air travellers into the community. MRT continued during this period at land points of entry.
Mandatory random testing for travellers who qualify as full vaccinated remains a critical part of the Government of Canada’s ability to monitor the level of COVID-19 importation associated with international travel. It is also a cornerstone of Canada’s ability to monitor for new COVID-19 variants of concern that could pose a risk to the health and safety of people in Canada and to Canada’s ongoing recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arrival, Day 8 and mandatory random COVID-19 molecular tests must be completed with a Public Health Agency of Canada approved test provider. Test providers vary based on where travellers enter the country.
Travellers selected for mandatory random testing or who are required to take a test on arrival should complete their test by the end of the next calendar day.
Travellers arriving at Toronto Pearson International Airport or Vancouver International Airport can save time by using the Canada Border Services Agency Advance Declaration optional feature in ArriveCAN to submit their customs declaration. Early usage data shows that it is 30 percent faster at the kiosk when travellers use ArriveCAN to declare in advance, instead of paper – saving approximately 40 seconds off a 2-minute transaction.
Frequent travellers can take advantage of the “saved traveller” feature in ArriveCAN which allows a user to save travel documents and proof of vaccination information so that they can reuse it on future trips. The information is pre-populated in ArriveCAN the next time the traveller completes a submission, which makes it faster and more convenient.

Associated links

Contacts

Marie-France Proulx
Press Secretary
Office of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos
Minister of Health
613-957-0200

Media Relations
Public Health Agency of Canada
613-957-2983
media@hc-sc.gc.ca

Laurel Lennox
Press Secretary
Office of the Honourable Omar Alghabra
Minister of Transport, Ottawa
laurel.lennox@tc.gc.ca

Media Relations
Transport Canada, Ottawa
media@tc.gc.ca
613-993-0055

Public Inquiries:
613-957-2991
1-866-225-0709

shared from https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2022/07/government-of-canada-is-re-establishing-mandatory-random-testing-offsite-of-airports-for-air-travellers.html

Canada highlighted its commitment to the 2030 Agenda at the United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development

From: Employment and Social Development Canada

News release

July 18, 2018 New York, New York Employment and Social Development Canada

Canada strongly supports the efforts of the United Nations and is committed to working together with its national and international partners to advance the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and to build a more peaceful, inclusive and prosperous world. The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development is proud to lead the development of a Canadian implementation strategy in collaboration with other Ministers and their departments.

In support of Canada’s commitment to the 2030 Agenda, the Minister traveled to New York for the 2018 United Nations High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development to present Canada’s first Voluntary National Review (VNR) report which highlights Canada’s progress to date on the 2030 Agenda both at home and abroad. Minister Duclos was joined by Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, by Adam Vaughan, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development (Housing and Urban Affairs) and by representatives from provinces and territories, municipalities, Indigenous peoples, youth and civil society.

Throughout the HPLF, Canada made meaningful contributions to global discussion on the path forward to implement the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. Canada is a strong advocate for equality, empowerment and the inclusion of under‑represented groups, including women, Indigenous people, newcomers, people with disabilities and the members of the LGBTQ2 community. For too long, these groups have faced barriers that hold them back from fully participating in Canada’s economic and social prosperity that benefit all Canadians.

Minister Duclos also highlighted that to accelerate action on the 2030 Agenda across the country, the Government of Canada will develop a National Strategy in partnership with all levels of government, civil society, Indigenous peoples, the private sector and other stakeholders. Consultations on the development of the National Strategy will inform the selection of national indicators to complement the global SDG indicators. Indigenous traditional knowledge will hold a significant place in this process and will reflect the Government of Canada’s commitment to a renewed relationship with First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

To further support Canada in its efforts to achieve the SDGs, a unit will be established within Employment and Social Development Canada.

Quotes

“We are committed to moving the 2030 Agenda forward, and through the efforts at home and abroad, we are working hard in order to continue to deliver real change for Canadians. Together we will ensure that everyone can share in Canada’s economic, social and environmental prosperity. Canada will leave no one behind.”
– The Honorable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

Quick facts

During the forum, the Minister Duclos and Parliamentary Secretary Caesar-Chavannes highlighted that Canada is making progress in implementing the 2030 Agenda both at home and abroad. The Government of Canada is working to advance all 17 SDGs, with a particular focus on five key themes: eradicating poverty, advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, growing the economy and narrowing the socio-economic gaps that exist between different groups, advancing self-determination and improve relationships with Indigenous peoples and advancing action on climate change and clean growth.

Associated links

Contacts

For media enquiries, please contact:

Michael Brewster
A/Press Secretary
Office of the Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Families, Children and Social Development
819-654-5546

Media Relations Office
Employment and Social Development Canada
819-994-5559
media@hrsdc-rhdcc.gc.ca
Follow us on Twitter

Shared from https://www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/news/2018/07/canada-highlighted-its-commitment-to-the-2030-agenda-at-the-united-nations-high-level-political-forum-on-sustainable-development.html

Minister Duclos announces investment in women’s entrepreneurship

From: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada

News release

Government of Canada invests up to $100,000 to facilitate expansion projects of a woman-owned company in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures

July 4, 2019 – Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Quebec

The Government of Canada is advancing women’s economic empowerment with the first ever Women Entrepreneurship Strategy, a $2-billion investment that seeks to double the number of women-owned businesses by 2025.

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, has been touring the Capitale-Nationale region and meeting with local woman entrepreneurs and business leaders to celebrate women’s entrepreneurship in Canada and share how the federal government is helping women succeed.

Today, during his visit to Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Minister Duclos, on behalf of the Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion, announced an investment, through the Women Entrepreneurship Fund (WEF), of up to $100,000 in 10th Ave Productions, a woman-owned and ‑led film and television production company. This investment will help the company expand and export its entertaining, captivating productions to international markets.

The Women Entrepreneurship Strategy complements the Government of Canada’s efforts to advance gender equality. These include addressing pay equity, providing more affordable child care and putting an end to gender-based violence.

Quotes

“Our government believes that women’s economic empowerment is not just the right thing to do; it’s good for the bottom line. That’s why we launched the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy, a strategy that seeks to double the number of women-owned businesses by increasing their access to financing, networks and advice. It’s a smart investment with an economic and social return.”
– The Honourable Mary Ng, Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion

“The women entrepreneurs and business leaders of the Capitale-Nationale region play a major role in our economy and our communities every day. I am proud to be part of a government that is serious about the economic empowerment of women. From pay equity to improved parental leave, the government is taking the actions required to improve gender equality. This is good for Canada and for Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures. When women succeed, everyone succeeds.”
– The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development
Shared from https://www.canada.ca/en/innovation-science-economic-development/news/2019/07/minister-duclos-announces-investment-in-womens-entrepreneurship.html

WEF: “What has a year of experiments taught us about basic income?”

As a long-time proponent of basic income, and as someone who has been involved in pilots in four continents, the past year has been a roller coaster, perhaps summarised as two steps forward, one step back, with marks for progress as six out of 10. It will take acts of courage to move forward decisively in 2019, but more doors are opening.

There has been a ferment of activity. Perhaps what has happened in Canada and the United States captures the contrasting fortunes best, though events in Europe and elsewhere are encouraging too. A highlight was the 18th international congress of BIEN https://basicincome.org/ (Basic Income Earth Network) in Tampere, Finland, which brought hundreds of academics and activists from around the world to discuss developments. There were also several significant books, and the World Bank endorsed basic income as a development tool in its World Development Report.

North America

The debate in Canada and the USA has gone in two directions – the introduction of basic income as an alternative to existing social policies, paid from direct taxation, and the development of capital funds with dividends. The first have been implicit in pilots and demonstration projects.

At the outset of the year, basic income pilots were underway in three communities of Ontario (Hamilton, Lindsay and Thunder Bay), covering 4,000 individuals. Though, like most other experiments, these were not tests of a full basic income, they had many features of a proper basic income. Early reports were uniformly favourable, and polls showed it was popular, so much so that the Conservatives contesting the Provincial election said the pilots would be continued if they were elected.

However, on taking office, Doug Ford terminated the pilots and ordered that data collected for the evaluation be surrendered. Undaunted, videos circulated on social media reporting on how participants had been responding.

There was also an unexpected postscript. In December, the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the social development minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, said in interviews that a guaranteed national minimum income could be an option as they sought ways to support Canadians to adapt to an unsteady, shifting labour market. Duclos predicted it would come.

In the USA, Barack Obama, in a reflective speech in South Africa, mused that basic income would figure prominently in the years ahead, and prominent corporate folk endorsed it again, including Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. But mainly it was a year of positioning by potential Democrat presidential candidates, with contenders offering proposals with elements of basic income. One, Andrew Yang, has made it his core policy proposal.

There was an encouraging buzz around the pronouncements of the young mayor of Stockton in California, who has taken a different route, launching a demonstration project whereby – thanks to a grant of $1 million from Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes – 100 individuals from low-income areas will be provided with a monthly basic income of $500 for 18 months. The project was held up by the process of sending invitations to 1,000 randomly chosen individuals from which the 100 are to be selected. But it should go ahead in February 2019.

In Chicago, a large group of legislators has proposed a pilot, and at the end of the year the proposal was awaiting the approval of the mayor. If it takes off, it will be the largest such pilot in the USA. Also encouraging is the pilot launched in four American cities, in which 1,000 low-income mothers will receive an unconditional $333 a month for 40 months from their child’s birth, in a project named Baby’s First Years, because the focus is on the link between basic income security and brain development. In another pilot, also best described as a demonstration project, the Magnolia Mother’s Trust started to provide 15 low-income African-American women in Mississippi with $1,000 a month, unconditionally, in December 2018.

Although it took place in 2017, another development that crystallised in 2018 that could become a harbinger of responses to natural and social disasters was the response by Dolly Parton, the country music star, to the wildfire devastation of her hometown of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. She put millions of dollars into My People’s Fund, from which $1,000 per month was to be paid to about 900 families for six months. So many other donations were made that this was increased to $5,000 in the final month. An analysis showed that the money not only enabled people to acquire housing, but led to increased work, not less.

Meanwhile, leading Democrats were tumbling out proposals. Senator Cory Booker introduced a bill proposing that lower-income children receive $1,000 each year, paid into special savings accounts, with the amount rising to $2,000 if their families are poor, paid by higher capital gains and estate taxes. The accounts would be blocked until they reached age 18, when they would be permitted to use the money for “asset building” purchases. This deviates from a basic income, being paternalistic, not trusting people with the ability to decide what was best for themselves, would require costly bureaucratic monitoring, and would raise the problem of “weakness of will”, as is the case with all capital grant schemes. But it reflects the realisation that the distribution system has broken down.

Senator Kamala Harris put forward a bill to subsidise rent through a refundable tax credit on federal income taxes, which was quickly seen as more likely to enrich landlords than give basic income security to low-income tenants, critics pointing out that a basic income would do more to help those tenants. Harris proposed the LIFT (Livable Incomes for Families Today) the Middle Class Act, offering $250 a month for singles, $500 for couples, phasing that out as earnings rose. A drawback is that somebody earning nothing would receive nothing, while somebody would need to earn at least $3,000 to receive the full benefit.

Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman proposed a bill designed to overcome one regressive failing of the Earned Income Tax Credit scheme that currently eats up $65 billion a year. It would extend EITC benefits to family caregivers and students. Like tax credits elsewhere, the EITC has rested on an arbitrary conceptualisation of what is work and what is not. Recognising that is at least a step in the direction of a basic income. Tax credits are regressive, depressing wages and subsidising low-wage employers.

Meanwhile, there have been developments around the second route to basic income, around social or common dividends. Again, there has been one setback. The starting idea is that natural resources are part of the commons; they belong to everybody, the commoners. If anybody or a corporation exploits them for commercial gain, they owe a “rent” to the commoners.

This view goes back through the centuries, epitomised by the thinking of philosophers such as John Locke and the founding fathers of the United States, such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, and through the writings of Henry George and later economists. This has led to renewed interest in land value tax, eco taxes or levies and digital levies. But the main examples in practice have been based on royalties on oil.

The leading scheme where royalties are channelled into a permanent capital fund from which equal dividends are paid is the Alaska Permanent Fund. Set up in 1976 and paying annual dividends to every Alaskan resident since 1982, this has proved remarkably popular. Until 2011, the value of the dividends rose steadily. But successive Republican governors had imprudently cut income tax to zero. So, when oil prices fell, government debt rose, leading to the most recent governor raiding the fund to pay government operating costs, leading to a collapse in the annual dividends. This was rightly seen as a tax hitting low-income people, and led to a dive in the governor’s popularity and withdrawal from his re-election campaign in October 2018. The revival of Alaska dividends will depend on who succeeds him.

But the idea of capital funds is gaining ground. The major development in 2018 was rising support for taxes on greenhouse gas emissions. The global scientific community is unanimous that climate change is a giant threatening humanity and nature, and that radical action is required to tackle it. Among other measures, that requires big taxes or levies on C02. There are two problems: taxes are unpopular, and carbon tax is regressive.

In 2018, Canada moved to confront both problems, by combining a carbon tax with the promise of dividends to be paid to all, under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, starting in 2019. The carbon tax is too modest to bring down emissions substantially, but the act has established a principle, although the oil industry is contesting it and, predictably, the right-wing Ontario premier Doug Ford has called it “the worst tax ever”.

The new tax will increase gasoline prices by 42 cents a gallon (11 cents a litre), or by 8%. But cleverly the act is intended to be revenue-neutral, with all revenue returned to the provinces from which it is generated, and with 90% given back to individuals as rebates, the remaining 10% going to organisations affected by the tax, such as schools and hospitals. The rebates will mean that about 70% of Canadian households will receive more back than they pay in tax. This is, in all but name and certainty of amount, a basic income, and it is progressive.

In November 2018, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives introduced a bill similar to the Canadian reform, proposing to tax emissions and redistribute the proceeds as dividends. It will be doomed as long as Donald Trump’s fellow climate-change deniers control the Senate. But it too offers a promising route into funding a basic income system. A similar plan has been promoted by former government officials backed by major corporations such as AT&T, P&G, Johnson & Johnson, GM and PepsiCo, and financially backed by ExxonMobil.

So, in North America the idea is taking hold that revenue can be raised from commercial uses of the commons, or natural resources, and from commercial deductions from the commons in the form of pollution. Observers should note related proposals. In Chicago, the innovative alderman Ameya Pawar floated a plan to ‘public-tize’ Chicago’s water system, giving shares to all city residents and paying them dividends that would be a sort of basic income. According to him, as Chicago has a lot of fresh water, it should be seen as a public resource just as oil is treated in Alaska.

Finally, the US debate has been accentuated by the proposal by newly elected New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, backed by at least 40 members of Congress, for a Green New Deal, which includes a monthly basic income. No doubt the deal will prove controversial in its original form. But it surely points in the necessary direction.

Shared from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/trial-phase-2018-in-basic-income-in-review/

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