Chamber relieved with removal of ArriveCan and other COVID-19 border restrictions
The CEO of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce says today is a good day.
Rakesh Naidu says the chamber along with businesses are relieved by the federal government's decision to remove COVID-19 border restrictions.
As AM800 news reported, the restrictions including mandatory vaccinations, testing and quarantine of international travellers, as well as mandatory masks on planes and trains will end as of Saturday, October 1.
The removal also includes the ArriveCan app, which the government says will not be mandatory when the cabinet order expires on Friday.
Naidu says area businesses have been impacted by the border restrictions.
"Whether it is support for downtown core, whether it's support for small or medium size businesses, whether it's tourism sector, winery industry, all of these got affected because of the restrictions at the border, on top of all the challenges that we had during COVID," he said.
Naidu says the chamber will be working with its partners to let everyone know the restrictions are being lifted.
"I'm meeting my counterpart today in Detroit. We'll be coming up with some joint information campaign and also locally we are hoping to get together with a few other agencies and give it a strong push in terms of communicating out that we are open for business, fully open for business."
Naidu says this is something they've been waiting for a long time.
"Hopefully as things move forward we will quickly get to a certain level of normalcy and hopefully our businesses will be able to see the numbers as we saw before COVID," he said.
Border restrictions have been in place since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ArriveCan app was launched in April 2020 and required all travellers entering Canada to provide mandatory travel and public health information before and after entry into Canada.
Federal officials say travellers can still use the app to submit customs and immigration declarations before they arrive at certain airports.
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