While Ontario applauds the move to ban commercial and passenger flights from India and Pakistan, a letter to the Prime Minister said it is not enough.
The letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, signed by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Quebec Premier Francois Legault, calls for more restrictions at all land and air borders.
Associate Minister of Small Business and Red Tape Reduction Prabmeet Singh Sarkaria told BlackburnNews.com it is too easy for travellers to take advantage of loopholes.
"Even with the direct banning of flights from these two hot spot countries, you can still take a connecting flight into Ontario," he said. "It's not the planes that carry the variants. It's the people."
© Can Stock Photo / woodygraphs
Ontario and Quebec are also concerned about those who flout COVID-19 rules at airports, including paying the fine instead of quarantining and false documents stating the traveller has tested negative for the virus. Even those who do quarantine for three days in a hotel upon arrival, Sarkaria said some are not staying home the full 14-days afterwards.
Health Canada said on more than 100 flights over the past two weeks from India and Pakistan, at least one passenger has tested positive for COVID-19. On Thursday, India broke a world record for daily cases with over 314,000.
Sarkaria fears the ban comes too late.
"I think the federal government has dragged its feet on securing our borders," he said. "Twenty per cent of air travel into Ontario right now is from both of these countries, and they account for 50 per cent of positive travel-related COVID cases at our airports."
The associate minister also pointed out Ottawa did not implement testing at airports until the Ford government put its resources into it.
Meanwhile, scientists in India sequenced a new strain of the virus, B.1.617, which contains two distinct mutations. Quebec reported its first case on Thursday. B.C. has 39.
"We don't know what some of these variants really entail," stated Sarkaria. "I definitely think the federal government needed to this earlier, and I hope that by acting so slow that Trudeau didn't allow the fourth wave to fly into Canada."