Canada, U.S. working together no guarantee of border symmetry, ambassador says
Posted July 23, 2021 4:02 pm.
WASHINGTON – Canada’s envoy to the U.S. says just because the two countries have been working together to manage their shared border doesn’t mean they were always going to be moving in perfect symmetry.
Kirsten Hillman says both Canada and the U.S. are well within their rights to be making their own unilateral decisions about COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Hillman appeared today alongside U.S. interim ambassador Arnold Chacon for a panel discussion on the bilateral relationship hosted by the Wilson Center’s Canada Institute.
“The United States has allowed Canadians to fly to the United States since the very beginning of the pandemic whereas Canada restricted land-border transit as well as flights from the United States,” Hillman said Friday.
The comments are their first public remarks since Canada promised to begin letting fully vaccinated U.S. citizens and permanent residents back across the border as of Aug. 9.
“There’s been an enormous amount of information sharing and coordination and there continues to be, but coordination doesn’t mean you’re going to do the same thing, right?” she added.
“Indeed, since the very beginning, we haven’t been doing the same thing.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, extended its own restrictions at the land border with Canada until Aug. 21.
Chacon says he believes the two countries are in “a good place” and that their bilateral discussions about the border will continue.
