COVID-19: Summary data about travellers, testing and compliance

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) attempts to contact all travellers at least once during their 14-day quarantine. PHAC currently reaches more than 6,500 travellers daily through calls and in-person visits, and compliance with the border measures has been very high.

PHAC works closely with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and provincial and local police services to verify the compliance of travellers entering Canada. The RCMP and local police will follow up as they view most appropriate, and may not always report the results to PHAC.

Any instance of non-compliance with the Quarantine Act and related orders is an offence. The maximum penalties following a conviction include:

• 6 months in prison and/or
• a fine of up to $750,000

There are more penalties if travellers wilfully or recklessly violate (contravene) the Act or Regulations and cause another person serious bodily harm or risk of death.

In such cases, a traveller could be liable for:

• a fine of up to $1,000,000
• imprisonment of up to 3 years
• both of the above

In the event of non-compliance, police services use their judgement and discretion to determine the enforcement actions, including:

• verbal or written warnings
• fines for Quarantine Act offences
• fines issued for provincial, territorial or municipal offences
• arrest and detention
• laying of charges under the Quarantine Act (summary conviction)

The Government has amended the Contraventions Regulations to allow enforcement authorities to issue fines for Quarantine Act offences. As of June 4, 2021, fines range from $825 to $5,000 for adults.

Enforcement authorities can't issue fines under the Contraventions Regulations in:

• Alberta
• Saskatchewan
• the territories

While ticketing under the Contravention Act is unavailable in Alberta, the RCMP or municipal police services can take enforcement actions under the Quarantine Act and the Criminal Code. PHAC is not aware of any enforcement actions taken in Alberta for travellers refusing to go to a GAA under the Quarantine Act or the Criminal Code.

At this time, PHAC does not have any records of tickets being issued in Quebec for travellers refusing to go to a GAA. In Québec, fines are issues by provincial prosecutors and not directly by the enforcement agencies. Numbers presented below reflect cases that PHAC has been made aware of being submitted to prosecutors who may wish to pursue issuing a fine.

While PHAC works closely with local law enforcement and receives data on most enforcement activities taken under the Quarantine Act, police services are not required to send enforcement information to PHAC. As such, there may be enforcement actions not accounted for in PHAC's data. For the most up-to-date statistics, PHAC recommends contacting local law enforcement directly.

Law enforcement agencies voluntarily report their enforcement activities to the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The table lists the most common reasons fines are issued.

Data source: Public Health Agency of Canada

Beginning February 21, 2021, international air travellers, unless exempt, were required to pre-book a 3-night stay at a government-authorized accommodation (GAA) where they would await the results of their arrival test for COVID-19. The GAA requirement ended on July 5, 2021, for fully vaccinated travellers who met all other entry requirements, and August 9, 2021 for all other travellers.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) had a number of ways of monitoring traveller compliance with the GAA requirement, and focusing on addressing the highest risks in order to limit the spread of the virus. This included:

• designing the government-authorized accommodations (GAA) model to incentivize compliance from the onset, with the requirement for travellers to pre-book a non-refundable GAA stay, or otherwise be subject to fines
• verification by Canada Border Services Agency of traveller compliance upon arrival at the port of entry (to ensure travellers had proof that they had booked a 3-night stay at a GAA)
• referring non-compliant travellers to PHAC at the port of entry who supported them to become compliant by facilitating booking a GAA onsite. Travellers who remained non-compliant were subject to enforcement (for example, fines) as determined by the PHAC officer at the point of entry.
• post-border monitoring and following up on known or potential non-compliance (versus tracking compliance of who checked-in to a GAA), including:
  • travellers not checking in per booking (GAAs were required to submit reports of non-compliance to PHAC)
  • travellers who didn't check in and requested refunds
  • travellers claiming to have been exempted at the border

In addition, one of the most important actions undertaken by PHAC to minimize virus spread was calling every positive traveller to inform them of the requirement to isolate, and walk them through exactly what that means.

Genetic variations of viruses, such as the one that causes COVID-19, are common and expected. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, will naturally develop mutations, which are changes to the genetic material in the virus over time.

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has a monitoring program in place with provinces and territories to identify new COVID-19 virus variants in Canada.

The following table summarizes the number of variants of concern and variants of interest that have been confirmed in travellers arriving in Canada by land and by air.

Data source: Public Health Agency of Canada