CLARIFIED, Jan. 13 — Ottawa/Washington | Reuters — COVID-19 vaccine requirements for foreign truckers at the U.S.-Canada border still could cause supply-chain disruptions if both countries do not decide to allow exemptions, the head of the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) said Thursday.
Canadian truck drivers who aren’t vaccinated may enter Canada by right — but starting Saturday (Jan. 15), unvaccinated Canadian drivers will need to meet requirements for pre-entry, arrival and Day 8 testing, as well as quarantine requirements, Canada’s federal health, transport and public safety ministers said in a joint statement Thursday.
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However, also starting Jan. 15, unvaccinated or partially vaccinated foreign national truck drivers who try to enter Canada from the U.S. by land will be directed back to the United States, the ministers said.
Information released late Wednesday suggesting any exemptions from the new requirements would be granted to unvaccinated truckers was “provided in error,” the ministers said Thursday. The rules taking effect Saturday, as announced Nov. 19, have “not changed.”
The United States has signaled, without providing details, that foreign truck drivers will have to show proof of inoculation to enter the United States starting on Jan. 22.
So if both countries keep their respective bans on unvaccinated foreign drivers, thousands will be taken off the roads, creating the first policy measure since the pandemic began that could limit cross-border trucking traffic.
Canada’s rules “will prevent (unvaccinated) U.S. drivers from entering Canada, and our proposed rules will prevent unvaccinated Canadians from entering the U.S.,” said Bob Costello, a senior vice-president and the chief economist at the American Trucking Associations (ATA).
Costello said he fully expects both countries to enforce the mandates, but he urged “leaders in Ottawa and Washington to reconsider these mandates so we can avoid any further economic disruptions.”
“We’re asking both countries to work together to remove their foreign national (vaccine) mandate and look for a better date to put this in place,” CTA CEO Stephen Laskowski told Reuters.
The trucking industry carries more than two-thirds of the $650 billion in goods traded annually between Canada and the United States.
The CTA estimates 10-20 per cent, or between 12,000-22,000 of Canadian truck drivers, and 40 per cent, or some 16,000, of U.S. truck drivers traveling into Canada would be sidelined by mandates.
Supply chain disruptions drove Canada’s headline inflation to an 18-year high in November, and the Bank of Canada has signaled that it could raise interest rates to counter rising prices as soon as April.
In the United States, inflation rose at its fastest pace year-to-year in nearly four decades in December.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked President Joe Biden’s pandemic-related vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses, including for trucking companies with more than 100 employees. But that is a separate measure from the border requirement due to take effect later this month.
Both the ATA and the CTA argue that the nature of trucking means that drivers stay mostly isolated from the general public, and that has meant low coronavirus infection rates among drivers.
Canada’s border agency and the ministry of public safety, which oversees the border, did not comment when asked about potential exemptions for foreign drivers.
The White House declined to immediately comment.
— Steve Scherer is a Reuters correspondent in Ottawa; David Shepardson reports on the U.S. transport sector for Reuters from Washington, D.C.
CLARIFICATION, Jan. 13: This article has been changed to clarify that Canadian truck drivers returning to Canada from the U.S. may still enter Canada, vaccinated or not.
