As of Aug. 9, American travellers who are fully vaccinated will be able to come to Canada for discretionary travel without needing to quarantine upon arrival, and the government-approved hotel quarantine program will also be axed on that date.
Fully vaccinated travellers from other places in the world will be allowed to enter as of Sept. 7.
American travellers and those other countries will have to submit their proof of vaccination through the ArriveCan app — the same rule in place for returning Canadian travellers since last month.
At the same time, the restriction on flights arriving from India is being extended due to the high infection rate from the Delta variant in that country.
As well, the government will allow international flights to arrive at five more Canadian airports.
Until now, international arrivals have been restricted to four major airports with capacity to handle increased testing and scrutiny of travellers: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. Now, those arrivals will be expanded to the airports in Halifax, Quebec City, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Edmonton.
The unvaccinated children of fully vaccinated adult travellers will also be exempt from doing a 14-day quarantine upon arrival. Federal officials said on Monday that these children should avoid congregate settings but that there will not be formal rules or guidance issued on what that includes.
While fully vaccinated travellers will not have to take a COVID-19 test on arrival or on their eight-day after arriving — as is the case for those doing quarantine now — border officials will be conducting random testing so some fully vaccinated travellers may still need to submit to a mandatory test if selected.