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Alberta premier calls on Ottawa to ‘drop pointless’ COVID-19 travel restrictions

File: People walking to their departure gate at a Canadian airport. Nathan Denette, THE CANADIAN PRESS

As most restrictions came to an end as of March 1 in Alberta, the premier wants an end to COVID-19 related vaccine passports.

In a mid-afternoon tweet, Jason Kenney said in a video he will be introducing a motion later this week to “call on the federal government to drop pointless COVID travel restrictions that no longer make any sense, that are no longer defensible from a public health point of view.”

The six-minute video points to a variety of health experts, including Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada’s top doctor. Notably, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw was not mentioned.

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“For example, I’m not aware of any jurisdiction in the world apart from Canada, that has a requirement to be fully vaccinated to board a plane,” Kenney said.

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“And the pre-departure testing requirement is now as I’ve said, of very questionable value. It’s just another way of holding back the hundreds of thousands of people who work in our travel and tourism industry with no measurable public health gain.”

As of Saturday, more than 81 per cent of all Canadians were fully vaccinated — equivalent to about 31 million people.

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