The Canadian government plans to roll out the first phase of vaccine certifications for international travelers in early July. With the travel industry pushing the government to ease the ongoing travel restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccine certification is the need of the hour.
Why Is Vaccine Certification Required?
According to the government, the ArriveCan app will be expanded to include a new feature to allow international travelers to save their vaccine certificates. The app will allow users to upload a snapshot of their vaccine documentation to make it easy to go through customs. The information will be non-transferable to address the privacy concerns of the users. This update will allow the government to ease travel restrictions gradually as it facilitates traveling for fully vaccinated individuals.
Recently, the government also ended the requirement for a mandatory quarantine period for Canadian citizens and permanent residents crossing the border. The plan is to gradually reopen the border and allow fully vaccinated travelers to enter the country.
Canada’s health minister Patty Hajdu said that the government is still working on clear vaccine certifications for Canadians. It is still too early to predict an exact date for reopening the border. However, the talk of vaccine passports and certifications came up first in a meeting between G7 health ministers. Since then, many discussions have been conducted to implement a uniform passport certification to allow fully vaccinated citizens of one country to prove to the border security of another country that they are vaccinated.
