I'll go first and say that from our perspective, it would be nice if the communication between the U.S. government and the Canadian government was improved with respect to the CBP and the CBSA at the border. We went through this whole pandemic, and it just seemed like there was a lack of communication. The timing of some of the openings was different. If we had to go through this again, it would be nice if the coordination and the timing of some of this could be rolled out together.
It seemed like it was a problem from the beginning. We're still seeing it now. Obviously, October 1.... We haven't heard if the U.S. government is going to eliminate the vaccination requirement. Right now, we don't think so. We haven't heard anything. These types of things probably should be communicated and worked through a little bit better from both sides.
The other thing that we would like to take a look at—and I think it may be public information, but I'm not sure—is the testing. Going into Canada throughout this pandemic, there was a lot of testing done. I'm not sure, but some of the information that I've heard is that the rate of those testing positive wasn't any higher than what it was in Canada in general.
I kind of question.... I know this is more of a health department-type issue, but this question was brought up earlier: What really changed this week or in the last couple of weeks versus six months ago or a year ago?
At the point that the U.S. was at, let's say, 70% vaccinated and Canada a few points higher than that, we all strove for the same thing. I just don't know if there was enough of a reason to keep the U.S.-Canada border closed for the reason of vaccinations for as long as they did. I understand the closure at the very beginning, but when we get to a point where the vaccination rate was as high as it was, it just seems that this could have been done a lot earlier and the border communities would have felt the improvement earlier.
I think that could be tested by looking at the test results of the travellers who came through the CBSA and seeing what the rates were.