Survey: Majority of Canadians not ready to welcome non-essential Americans across the border amid COVID-19 pandemic

Canada-US border initially closed until at least July 21

DETROIT – Canadian and U.S. officials have agreed to keep the border closed to non-essential travel at least through July 21, due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The border was initially closed on March 21 for 30 days. That closure was extended for an additional 30 days on April 20 and another 30 days on May 19. On June 16, the closure was extended until July 21. Click here to read the Department of Homeland Security’s fact sheet on the closure.

READ: How extension of US-Canada border shutdown will affect Michigan economy, families

A recently released survey reported that a big majority of Canadians are not ready to welcome non-essential Americans back to their country. The survey indicated that this response is based on the United States response, or lack of response, to COVID-19.

On the John Hopkins map, the United States leads the world in coronavirus case stoday. Almost 2.9 million cases of the virus. Canada has about 107,000 cases.

Renaldo Agnostino is the owner Element Entertainment and Espression Café.

“It’s like we’re a community that got split down the middle,” Agnostino said. “We really can’t wait to have people from Michigan to come back to Windsor.

Watch the video above for the full report


About the Authors:

Paula Tutman is an Emmy award-winning journalist who came to Local 4 in 1992. She's married and the stepmother of three beautiful and brilliant daughters. Her personal philosophy in life, love and community is, "Do as much as you can possibly do, not as little as you can possibly get away with".

Kayla is a Web Producer for ClickOnDetroit. Before she joined the team in 2018 she worked at WILX in Lansing as a digital producer.