Trudeau: Canadian, US border to remain closed ‘for now’

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday that it is too early to make a decision on reopening his country’s border with the U.S.

“The approach that [President Biden] is taking on COVID right now much more aligns with where Canada has been for quite a while, grounded in science, grounded in protection of people as the best way to protect the economy and understanding that being there to support people is absolutely essential so that we can get through this as quickly as possible,” Trudeau told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“It’s great to see America reengage. I think certainly there were things that were more challenging under the previous administration in terms of moving the dial in the right direction on the international stage,” he added.

Asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd how soon border restrictions would be listed, Trudeau responded, “I think there’s an awful lot of different metrics we need to look at on.”

“Obviously, case counts, presence of variants, hospitalizations — all these things factor into the expert analysis. Our public health experts telling us what the right measures are and how concerned we have to be about variants,” he added. “Obviously, as vaccinations increase, we’re all hoping for good news and to get through this … but for now, we all need to keep safe, and that means keeping them in place.”

The prime minister added that he expects all Canadians to be vaccinated by the end of the summer, despite some delays in distribution.

“Obviously, it’s not going as fast as everyone would want. We all want this pandemic to be over yesterday and to vaccinate everyone as quickly as possible, but we’re confident that in the coming weeks, hundreds of thousands of vaccines every week, millions into the coming months, we are going to have everyone vaccinated probably by the end of the summer,” he said.