Cameron Bissonette has owned the duty-free shop in Osoyoos, B.C., for 30 years and says he has never seen a day like today.
“We had RVs parked close to two kilometers down the road,” Bissonette said.
“People were starting to park here on Saturday night. Last night, at midnight, we thought that the border was going to be opening but it turns out it was actually 9 p.m. Pacific Time or 12 o’clock Eastern time. So when I was driving down here, I had to hustle to get down here and suddenly the vehicles started crossing the border.”
Bissonette wasn’t expecting to be open for a few hours starting at 9 p.m., Sunday. Usually, their hours are 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., but expectations were thrown out the window this week. Even when he returned to work early the next morning, nothing went as expected.
“I actually had to take a side road to get down to the store because the highway was packed,” he said.
Bissonette said it looked as though it would take days for the U.S. border patrol to work through the lineup of Canadians eager to get to the United States, but that wasn’t the case.
“It was very, very busy for about four hours. But U.S. border patrol did a fantastic job getting vehicles through,” he said. “Actually I couldn’t believe how quickly they were moving through. So it worked out quite well.”
Area resident Glenda Weiler was similarly impressed by both the volume of people who gathered — some for as long as four days — and how fast they were able to move the backlog of traffic into the U.S., once the border opened.
“They were right up to each side of my driveway and parked in front of my house,” she said.
“And at 9 p.m. they opened the border, it was just like San Francisco highway. They just going through, pulling out all excited to get across the border. And they put them through extremely fast. I was amazed.”
Bissonette said the vast majority of people headed through were snowbirds, and they were excited to get back to everything from winter properties they’d been apart from for 20 months to just seeing friends.
“They want to go see the sun and the palm trees in the sand and Nevada and California and Arizona and that kind of stuff,” Bissonette said.
Most of the people he’s met with were enthusiastic, and frankly, so is he.
It’s been a tough 20 months for border businesses and finances have been tight.
“We’ve been open but living off of government subsidies, the rent subsidy, the wage subsidy, business was down 97 per cent,” he said.
“It kind of picked back up when the Canadian government opened up the border to fully-vaccinated Americans. … Our business, in general, is about 80 per cent Canadians to 20 per cent Americans. So you know, it was still a tough go.”
He’s hoping the PCR test requirements for testing won’t deter people from moving back and forth across the border. The tests can range from $150 to $200 per person, so he said it could be a big hit to a family thinking of doing a quick U.S. getaway.
Beginning Nov. 8, all ports of entry into the U.S., including ferries, will allow non-essential travellers, such as tourists, if they are fully vaccinated.
To be considered fully vaccinated, 14 days must pass after either a second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine or after a one-dose vaccine, namely the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccine.
The U.S. will accept all vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and those given Emergency Use Listing by the World Health Organization.
That includes COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca and Covishield.
The U.S. will also accept mixed doses of approved vaccines from different manufacturers, as long as they were taken at least 17 days apart.
While a negative COVID-19 test is not required to cross the border into the U.S., the same does not apply when returning to Canada.
Canada requires a negative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test taken within 72 hours of the border crossing to enter the country for all travellers five years of age or older. Other tests that will be accepted include a nucleic acid test (NAT), nucleic acid amplification test (NAATs) or reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP).
These tests use methods such as a nasopharyngeal (NP) swab, nose swab, or saliva sample.
Last Friday, Canada’s top medical officer, Dr. Teresa Tam, said the PCR test requirement should be reviewed but she did not give any indication when they might happen.
— with files from Global BC