by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:52 PM ET, Thu July 15, 2021
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is pushing back against lawmakers from the United States who recently passed a resolution calling for both governments to immediately reopen the border to fully vaccinated travelers.
According to Politico.com, local legislators in the Midwest unanimously passed a resolution at the Midwestern Legislative Conference calling on Prime Minister Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden to reopen nonessential travel between the two countries.
The border between the U.S. and Canada has remained closed since March 2020.
"The interpretation of what is considered essential travel has been a matter of discretion by individual border crossing agents, creating confusion," the Midwestern Legislative Conference's resolution reads. "Fully vaccinated people do not provide a threat of COVID-19 transmission."
Despite the pleas from border towns in both nations, Prime Minister Trudeau said Wednesday during a press conference that the government would remain cautious, as the Delta variant of COVID-19 has resulted in several regions reintroducing restrictions.
"As eager as people are to open up, I know nobody wants to have to go backwards," Prime Minister Trudeau said. "The reality is we know how unbelievably costly and heartbreaking it would be to fall into a fourth wave of this pandemic. We are going to make sure that we don't do that."
Prime Minister Trudeau recently said Canada won't open its border to unvaccinated visitors for quite some time, but revealed the government is working on a plan to allow fully vaccinated international travelers.
Local reports suggest changes at the border aren't expected until August at the earliest.
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