Market Access International is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Canada Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Canada newsletters.
Editor’s note: Trevor Williams is traveling in Quebec for research on a special report looking at the province’s economic and trade ties with Georgia in advance of the SEUS/Canadian Provinces Alliance Conference and its return to Savannah 15 years after its founding. This is the first of his planned daily blog posts. The reporting trip is sponsored by the Consulate General of Canada in Atlanta.
“Please pull your masks up and over your nose and mouth — they do not mess around.”
As we made our final descent into Montreal, the Delta Air Lines flight attendant broke from his script to emphasize the Canadian border authorities and their strong mask enforcement policies.
The comment elicited chuckles from the mostly American passengers, newly set free from their own country’s mandate when a federal court ruling struck down the CDC’s plan to extend masking on flights and transit until May 3.
Our maskless honeymoon was about to be over as we crossed into Canadian airspace and prepared to go through customs in Montreal, which apparently has not transitioned to the happy-go-lucky state of pandemic denial we in the South have been embracing for some time.
I had enjoyed my exit-row seat on the flight up from Atlanta, other than the incessant throat-clearing and occasional hacking cough by the unmasked man to my back left. It evidently had never occurred to him to don protective gear for the sake of others, even as he grunted as though trying to burst his way of out of a straitjacket.
I was just glad to have worn a KN95, mainly because, inexplicably, a negative test is still required to get back into the United States for those of us who travel abroad. Quebec seems lovely so far — particularly the few cobblestone streets of Old Montreal I walked in search of a meal at midnight — but I’d rather not be stranded here for 10 days, as a Georgia professor I recently interviewed is right now.
Our Delta flight was touching down literally moments before a Canada’s nationwide COVID travel regulations were set to change — not on masks, but on testing and vaccine requirements for international travelers.
As of 1 a.m. — two hours after I landed — quarantine plans would not be required for any international travelers entering Canada (or for Canadians returning home), and children under 12 would no longer have to present a negative PCR test, regardless of vaccination status. The questionnaire I had filled out on the (easy-to-use) ArriveCAN app about where I planned to stay in the event of a positive test would be obsolete just minutes after they let me into the country.
This doesn’t mean the Quebecois are dancing in the streets declaring victory. Mask compliance is still high, and my Uber driver — that tried and true benchmark for all serious journalists — revealed that the province’s mask mandate, at least for public spaces and transit, would be extended through mid-May. Quebec is reportedly one of two provinces, along with Prince Edward Island, to retain such a mandate two months after a so-called “Freedom Convoy”of truckers clogged up the capital, Ottawa, to protest vaccine requirements and other restrictions.
As with most places, the mandates have been subject to much discussion in Quebec, but the province seems to be playing it cautious despite downward trends in case prevalence, given the relatively high utilization rate of local hospital beds. The goal currently is to relax the public-places masking requirement by mid-May.
In workplaces around Montreal, the masking mood seemed casual and conciliatory. Line workers dutifully wore them on the factory floor, and executives began meetings with a question about my comfort level with going maskless in a controlled, one-on-one setting. On the street, everyone paused to put on masks before entering shops, churches or restaurants.
For a wild-and-free Georgian, it was like going back in time to way back in February, when the Omicron wave had subsided and the CDC was just starting to relax its recommendations in certain areas of the country — seemingly oblivious that many had been ignoring these for a long time.
Nothing like crossing borders to jog one’s memory in the pandemic era, when prior restrictions seem like so long ago, yet all too near at the same time.
