CNN is reporting, and CBC has confirmed, that Canadian and US officials are in the final stages of planning to close the Canada-US border to non-essential traffic. Negotiations are determining what counts as “essential”; transport for supply chains, for instance, is obviously going to be exempted, given the relatively tight integration of the two countries’ economies, and it will remain open for Canadians and Americans looking to get home, at least for now.
Reportedly discussion is ongoing for personal travel such as family emergencies, but for shopping, tourism, casual travel, non-critical business and the like, the border will be closed.
I believe this is the first time this has happened since...well, ever, at least since the end of the War of 1812, which was a half-century before Canada transitioned from a collection of British colonies to a country.
The negotiations and joint planning explain why Trudeau explicitly excluded Americans when travel restrictions were announced on Monday, which was questioned by reporters given the US being the source of several Canadian cases. It’s believed now that this was to keep goodwill with the Americans negotiators as the details were being worked out and…
...oh, fuck it, let’s not kid ourselves. It was because if Canada announced it was closing the border to Americans, that maggot-brained fuckwad currently contaminating the White House with his orange-faced presence would likely have blown a gasket and announced something ludicrous in revenge that would have fucked over people on both sides of the border all because he would have perceived it as Justin Trudeau trying to make him look bad. As if anyone with a couple of functioning neurons couldn’t make that egotistical fucking prick look bad in comparison. Well, okay there’s Louis Gohmert, but he’s a special kind of stupid.
Anyway, there it is.