The federal government announced Wednesday those travelling commercially by water, rail or air over the age of 12 will soon need to show proof of vaccination with no option for negative test results.
Regina Airport Authority President and CEO James Bogusz says this policy also includes travel within Canada.
“Right now, most of the vaccination requirements would be if another country had one or they require some form of testing to get into the country,” Bogusz said. “There is a note here from the government for travelers that there may be at least a temporary alternative of travel with a COVID-19 molecular or PCR test within 72 hours, but that appears to be a very temporary measure.”
Bogusz says with the program coming into effect on Oct. 30, it’s a very tight timeline to work with.
“The issue is not only the vaccination component, it’s what potential mitigations will they offer if there’s valid exemptions,” Bogusz said. “I just haven’t seen any documentation yet from the government beyond these news releases. We of course had the pre-election — very similar type — announcement that we saw, and now of course there’s (this) press release out.”
Bogusz adds it remains unclear as to what will count as acceptable proof of vaccination documents at the airport..
He also adds this comes as the airport starts to recover from COVID-19’s impact.
“We had a really good month in August with 58 percent of pre-pandemic numbers. Things have softened a little bit in September, but we’re still trending at around 50 percent of pre-pandemic,” Bogusz said. “A heck of a lot better than last year.”
Work also continues for the airport on flights to the United States. Bogusz says while they continue to reach out to the federal government, no resolution appears to be in sight
