‘We Will Never Forget’: Canadians and Americans React to US Lifting COVID Border Restrictions

Canadian and U.S. flags fly atop the Peace Arch monument at the Douglas-Peace Arch border crossing in Surrey, B.C., on Nov. 8, 2021. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

While the United States recently announced it will end its COVID-19 vaccine requirements for international air travellers and at the Canadian border, The Epoch Times spoke with some Canadians and Americans who expressed deep frustration with the rules being implemented in the first place, vowing not to forget being separated from their loved ones.

“We will never thank a government whose deliberate implementation of discriminatory, baseless mandates, targeted a group whose only threat was the rejection of their false political science narrative,” said Hope Vanbeselaere Marsh, a Manitoba woman who was separated from her husband in Texas in March 2020.

“While many are content to pretend the last three years never happened, we will never forget.”

On May 1, the White House announced that international air travellers, federal employees and federal contractors will no longer need to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination starting on May 11.

Hope Vanbeselaere Marsh with her husband in January 2022. Courtesy of Hope Vanbeselaere Marsh

“Our COVID-19 vaccine requirements bolstered vaccination across the nation, and our broader vaccination campaign has saved millions of lives,” the statement read.

“While vaccination remains one of the most important tools in advancing the health and safety of employees and promoting the efficiency of workplaces, we are now in a different phase of our response, when these measures are no longer necessary.”

The Canadian government announced it would drop all COVID-19 border restrictions for anyone entering the country, which included proof of COVID-19 vaccination, quarantine and isolation requirements, and the controversial ArriveCAN application, on Oct. 1, 2022.

While Vanbeselaere Marsh said she is “thrilled at the prospect of long overdue reunification,” with her husband, she is among thousands of bi-national families that have yet to be acknowledged by the Canadian or U.S. governments for the “ongoing trauma of having been unconstitutionally stripped of our God-given rights and freedoms.”

‘I Didn’t Understand It’

Kate Moylan, who lives in a Yukon town bordering Alaska, said the “great relationship” the cross-border communities had with each other was “ripped apart” by the COVID-19 border restrictions and vaccine mandates.

“The whole irony of it was that unvaccinated Alaskans were allowed to travel the Alaska Highway, but unvaccinated Canadian citizens were not allowed. So I could never understand the mandate,” she said.

Yukon resident Kate Moylan. Courtesy of Kate Moylan

Moylan said she supervised a visitor’s centre on the Yukon-Alaska border but, because she was unvaccinated, she almost lost her job, being unable to cross the border.

She was also prevented, due to her vaccination status, from travelling to New Mexico to see a 70-year-old family member.

“We were being shunned, being ridiculed, being isolated from seeing family, not being able to travel across the border to see neighbours or friends or the one family member that was also suffering. I didn’t understand it,” she said.

Marcella Picone from Buffalo, New York said the removal of border restrictions is “wonderful news for all the families who have suffered and whose lives have been disrupted for more than three years, and for tourism businesses and border communities.”

Due to the travel mandates, Picone was restricted from seeing her fiancé, a permanent resident in Canada. Picone called the COVID-19 border policy a “shameful display of government incompetence.”

Border Barrier

Eric Chambers grew up in a border town in Washington State, while his wife of 13 years was born in British Columbia.

“We grew up less than an hour from one another, our lives always straddling the border. We could never have imagined it becoming the barrier it has to our family,” he said.

Chambers said the restoration of the Canada-U.S. border to pre-pandemic standards is “long overdue for bi-national families like ours.”

A U.S. citizen with a Canadian wife and children, Chambers said he lost three years of time with his extended family, “some of whom did not outlive the restrictions.”

He said his family will “not forget the cruelty” of the United States failing to create a path of entry for Canadian family members to enter the country during the pandemic, then “keeping us separated an additional year and a half after the border reopened for others.”

“The amount of both time and money that our family used to spend in the USA will never be the same. Reopening the border for all was long overdue, but also too little too late for many bi-national and cross-border families,” Chambers said.

‘Long Past Due’

Tanya Meade, a Canadian citizen and mother of three American-born children, said the reopening of the U.S. border to unvaccinated foreigners is “long past due.” She said the scientific rationale to keep the mandate in place had been missing “for quite some time now.”

Meade said she is excited to have her American-born and Canadian-born kids together under the same roof again after three years of separation.

“I am looking forward to a Christmas without opening gifts via a Zoom meeting, and once again being able to celebrate every special moment together,” she said.

While her family missed out on many events during the pandemic, she will “move on and forgive those who kept us separated.”

Noé Chartier contributed to this report.