Canada to bar entry to non-residents (except US) | Hacker News Reader

Canada to bar entry to non-residents (except US)

cbc.ca

270 pointsmunk-a182 comments

Additionally, it didn't take a lot of reading-between-the-lines to infer that they're planning to close the border to Americans in the next few days as well. NAFTA must be an impediment here.

The US seems to have a lot of community cases, so if they don't close that border as well it won't make much of a difference.

Another issue is that there are many families that span both sides of the border.

European countries that have closed borders have said "no family visits" unless the relative is critically ill.

I'd imagine a lot of key pathways of trade don't really stop at the border. I'm sure that trucking, for example, doesn't hand off goods. They probably drive straight through after a short border check.

Unless they think they have significantly fewer cases than the United States, it doesn't make sense to block travelers.

There is a pretty stark difference between British Columbia and Washington State right now (10x cases, 42 vs 1 death)

BC had 3 more over the weekend, now 4 deaths. And quite an up-tick in cases. :(

Crap, and quite a few of those cases in Vancouver Island (lots of retired people, not a lot of hospital infrastructure). Announced only 1 hour ago it seems, and not yet in the Johns Hopkins tracker

Zero social distancing going on either, busses crammed to the hilt and E. Hastings is wall to wall addicts outside right now. Someone I work with his wife is a health worker under potential exposure quarantine and he showed up to work today. I guess we are aiming for the full Italy version of this pandemic.

Be vocal about it and talk out. I spoke out vocally at my workplace and most of us are now remoting - its on every individual to self-quarantine because relying on force (like the mounties or army) simply isn't reasonable - policing people closely defeats quarantining and those transit resources need to keep going to make sure essential employees can get to work.

That all said I'm curious what Translink's plans are to restrict access to the skytrain.

Well if its doubling every 3 days, its only the difference of 10 days...

Washington State is also an outlier in that one of the first places that got hit was a nursing home and they didn't react quickly enough; several of their residents died fairly quickly.

The rest of the state is doing alright, comparatively.

> I'd imagine a lot of key pathways of trade don't really stop at the border. I'm sure that trucking, for example, doesn't hand off goods. They probably drive straight through after a short border check.

It's fairly trivial (conceptually) to close the border to non-commercial traffic while allowing commercial traffic through, given that both are separated physically at the border and you need paperwork to go through the commercial lane anyway.

> Unless they think they have significantly fewer cases than the United States, it doesn't make sense to block travelers.

Absolutely, given that Washington has mismanaged the crisis, and in the US there is often a monetary cost for even seeing a primary care physician, plus no mandated sick or vacation days, and the numbers so far reflect this.

The biggest concern, in my opinion, would be people who try to come to Canada in the hopes that they can get sick here and recover somewhere that isn't going to bankrupt them as a result. Not that I want our southern neighbours to die in the streets while we lounge in relative medical luxury, but risking overloading both systems would be catastrophic for everyone.

> The biggest concern, in my opinion, would be people who try to come to Canada in the hopes that they can get sick here and recover somewhere that isn't going to bankrupt them as a result.

do canadian hospitals not send foreigners a bill?

it seems like this sort of issue would've come up long before now.

maybe it has come up before, but there would be a pretty significant difference between doing that with normal conditions and during a pandemic.

do canadian hospitals not send foreigners a bill?

It may have changed, but it used to be standard not to.

I remember a news article from about 15 years ago where doctors at a Vancouver hospital were unhappy about it. Not because they were treating the sick traveler for free, but because some stupid regulation meant that he had to remain in an ER bed rather than moving him to a normal hospital bed and freeing the space for anyone else who might need it.

As an American, I had to pay out of pocket for an ER visit in Ontario a few years ago. They charged me before admitting me even.

Most (all that I am aware of) health facilities here in Toronto will charge you before you get service unless you can prove you have coverage in the province. So yes Americans who are visiting will be charged for health services.

Healthcare in Canada is done by province -- there isn't a national system, just 10 different ones that have to comply with a federal mandate. They're all a little different.

That said, as an American in Alberta I can confirm for sure that they'll make you pay up front here too.

Cost out of pocket was much, much lower than it would be in the US, but certainly not trivial.

They definitely do. At least in BC.

Source: Live in BC, foreign relatives had medical treatment while visiting.

About ten years ago, a relative came to Ontario and had to pay the cost of an emergency room visit (about $400 to see a doctor and get a cast). The bill was sent about a month afterward (to our address), but I could see a tourist being made to pay immediately.

Yes, Canadian hospitals will bill you if you're foreign, but the amount they bill is about 20× to 50× less than what US hospitals bill for the same services.

> The biggest concern, in my opinion, would be people who try to come to Canada in the hopes that they can get sick here and recover somewhere that isn't going to bankrupt them as a result.

Canada would probably need to build a wall to prevent this.

You are right about this. The number of trucks passing the Champlain Bridge every day is huge and many of those truckers are American.

I was actually thinking Trudeau is telegraphing from his talks with other G7 countries, that other countries are going to close borders soon, and if you want to come home you should move now.

At this point, what is the gain?

The virus is already essentially everywhere. Closing borders in January might have done something but now I can't imagine there will be much of an effect.

You limit imported new infections and can focus on slowing community spread. Due to the exponential growth rate, this absolutely makes a difference.

In the past few days, Singapore and other countries have announced they are also adopting this strategy. Singapore too has a complex highly-interdependent border situation with neighboring Malaysia and has to make an exception there as well.

My point being that infected already exist here broadly, presumably in every urban area. The small number of people crossing borders wouldn't seem to make any difference, the goal should be on the more local levels of transmissions (closing restaurants or slashing capacity, hygiene requirements, closing schools/workplaces/events, i.e. venues for transmission) risking adding a few infected individuals to a large population of infected individuals seems to be the wrong step, or much much too late.

If a country had already hit its peak, new infected travelers potentially infecting they came across (customs, transport, at their lodging) might cause new local flareups, no? At which point you might have to wait for a new peak to subside.

That's probably not true (yet). From what i have read, there are reports of community spread in bc, alberta, and ontario. That's a lot of Canada but certainly not all of it. If a significant portion of cases are still travel related, closing the border makes sense imo.

Roughly 250k Canadians cross the Canada-US border per day. Not sure about US citizens.

Unfortunately (or fortunately because other phenomena are based on this also -- see gossiping protocols), that is true. Once you have a critical population, related with the connectivity of the subgraph, the propagation is self-sustained, that is everyone is going to get infected in a SIR model or similar. One could argue that you might change the curve slope a bit. And I guess that is the bet here.

If you restrict movement at all, you help reduce the amount of societal entropy. At a fine-grained level this is what China did, and it does work.

I'm worried about the U.S. closing state borders (land and air), and what that might mean for supply chains. I hope it doesn't come to that.

These border closures have almost universally had exemptions for shipping. So there may be secondary effects but it's unlikely to be disastrous.

> The virus is already essentially everywhere.

For one thing, your setup is bad. You simply do not know that to be true.

Your premise is some kind of equality of distribution, which is never going to be the case.

Simple scenario: how about if the US ends up having 20 times as many cases as Canada, while having only 10 times the population.

Cultures - specifically the people that derive from them - are all different. They all behave differently. They will all comply with or violate quarantines differently. They will all spread, or not spread, the virus differently.

Compare Italian touching culture with Germany. Very different cultures.

It's also better to not be responsible for any more foreign citizens than absolutely necessary, during a time of panic, quarantine, national emergency. We do not yet know how bad this is going to get.

I don't understand why people keep repeating the terrible premise that it doesn't matter, when it's so incredibly obvious there are numerous important ways that it matters. The experts are calling for these travel lockdowns, and they're doing it for good reasons.

People come by plane. How do you travel by plane without risking infection?

Since it is not avoidable that at least one person on a flight is infected, you have to quarantine each passenger.

The parent’s point rings true to me. It’s not so much the spread from country to country as it is the confined space that would concern me. As such, safety of domestic flights and trains should be considered as well.

Easier to trace who was on a plane with other infected people. You're not aiming to stop all infections, but to be able to slow, contain, and trace.

This is basically the point made in https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-si... (accessible without payment and also works in private browsing).

Residents are not denied entry when the borders close.

Flights stop though as there is no market. Already happening.

My bet is that the Canadian government wanted to close the border to US tourists, but in discussions with the US government it was made clear that that is unacceptable.

I think it's fair to assume that's because of internal US politics, ie. Trump wouldn't like it and it would make him look bad.

There's no reason Canada couldn't close to US tourism, but remain open to commerce.

There is also the issue of NEXUS card holders. Many of them work in one country and live in the other, or have other reasons to cross the border daily.

Or it could be the fact that it is a huge mostly unprotected border.

Sure you can stop people at the main highways, but there are a ton of lakes where you can just row across to Canada.

There is also the tiny peak in Minnesota which is only accessible by boat or Canadian road.

There's one of those in Washington too.

The folks in Point Roberts are going to have a hard time if the Canadian border is closed to US citizens. If the US does the same, a good number of Vancouver residents will lose access to their US post office boxes. Guess someone will start a ferry between Point Roberts and the rest of Washington.

The precedent from European countries has been to exempt people who commute across the borders from the shutdown; I imagine that Canada is likely to go the same route here.

The issue is not sealing off the border entirely, but trying to reduce non-essential travel while keeping supply chains and essential commuter workers flowing. A person who's no longer able to make their weekly milk run to Bellingham, WA from Surrey, BC isn't going to try hiking across the border, but it'd be best if they could be persuaded to stop travel voluntarily without incurring the costs to essential traffic that come from closing border crossings.

This isn't a police action to prevent dirty immigrants from getting across the border, it's a quarantine measure.

99% of those travelers aren't going to row across a lake to get into Canada; if they are chances are they're doing something sketchy and would have been rowing across lakes anyway regardless of the enforcement regime.

More importantly disease transmission is one of herds and numbers -- a tiny handful getting across isn't a huge deal, it's the influx coming through ports and via plane.

I stopped commuting across the border just a little while back. For years I'd crossed it every day.

I feel like I just slid under the door in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

That would be insane. You biggest trading partner being block and the only country you share a land border with will drag their economy to the ground. Banning fun-loving travel makes sense.

Banning the country that supplies most of your produce, electronics, cars, etc seems crazy just to prevent health care centers from being overrun. Cause thats really the issue. Everyone will get sick they just don't want people getting at once.

They wouldn't ban trucks carrying cargo, supplies, etc.

Which, due to the closeness of the US/Canada relationship, makes it pretty pointless. Unless they do something involving disinfecting truck cabins then switching from US to Canadian drivers, at the border.

Every trucker who goes to Canada pops into a Tim Hortons before heading back to the US, no exceptions.

Don't let perfect be the enemy of better-than-nothing. Especially when we're talking about individual truckers vs. tens of thousands of close packed poor-environment-suffering groups of people in transit hubs.

Disallowing close-packed passenger travel while still allowing essential logistics _curbs_ even if it does not halt. Just because it's not the solution doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

I agree with you in general.

I'm saying that, epidemiologically speaking, Canada and the US should be treated as one entity. This is probably the case for border regions of Mexico as well, though I see no reason to allow flights to or from D.F. at the moment.

If (it's probably when) we start to see domestic travel restrictions, curbing transport between states, that's a good time to restrict the border as well.

Just to clarify - all of these travel restrictions apply to non-logistical/essential persons only and Canada still is emphasizing that goods movement won't be restricted - it's important too since Canada is a net importer of food.

Chill out. Closing the border means not allowing passenger transport, not turning back freight/cargo. Even Europe keeps the trucks going through their closed borders.

Not just trucks but people working and etc

I believe a lot of those in particular aren't US originating, but if they are, probably not to a critical extent. Many of them Chinese, or maybe passing through the U.S, but not all that much more critical than leisure travel anyway.

EU countries are finding it easy enough politically to soft-close their borders, and that's normally a much tighter union than NAFTA. It would be surprising if Canada didn't have the right to do this in emergency circumstances.

March 22 seems to be the updated data for all international and transcontinental travel.

The problem with closing the US border is that it can't be a simple blanket ban - a very large amount of our food and other supplies comes from there. Closing that border must be a much more complex situation and needs more resources and planning.

Shipping and trade was specifically exempted from this restriction. I'm not certain if that might really complicate truck-carried goods but in theory goods moving is unrestricted.

My suspicion is that doing these restrictions for air and sea ports may be easier than for our land border. Also it seems like everything is on the table. Maybe more time is needed to ensure these exchange of goods and services aren't impacted by closing the land border.

As I was listening to the followup discussion by the ministers that was my charitable read - that closing the border would cause supply chain issues because truck drivers would be uncertain if they could cross the border or companies might not even attempt to send goods up... So I do agree that's a possibility, but it seems like if that was the emphasis it could have been expressed much more clearly.

I think you hit the mark. The government will need to allow American truckers, air freight and rail crews to cross no matter what.

Why not change rail/truck crews/drivers at the border or stations closest to the border?

Imagine the complexity of that. Mind boggling.

Yeah, the risk-to-reward ratio for that would be ... high.

Also, residents of Point Roberts, WA who must drive through Canada to access the rest of Washington state.

Yeah in general, logistics needs to remain unimpeded or you hit a whole new level of problem.

this whole covid19 business would be a lot easier to deal with if blockbattle.net were up and running :-) (not sure of a better way to notify on outages, would love to discuss)

Reading between the lines I get the feeling we can't close the border and we're all in it together. There are towns where the border runs through the middle of town. Indian tribes that run through both. It would be extremely difficult to close the entire border.

As someone who lived in Vermont and who has been on the Akwesasne reservation - yea, sure, but there still is a border. It isn't like folks in the grey zone can constantly wander across willy-nilly penalty free.

There certainly are places where you can just walk across a border in northern Vermont, and it's illegal to do so - so not many folks will cross the border.

Remember, we're not at walking-dead levels of societal collapse, we can still generally assume people are following orders given by governments, so just saying the border is closed and letting folks through on a case-by-case basis should be fine.

The Mohawk Akwesasne council covers parts of New York, Ontario, and Quebec. The international border crosses islands in the St. Lawrence River as well as mainland areas, with tribal members going back and forth to visit family, go to school, get healthcare, go to work, etc. It's very complicated to monitor and regulate, with various tribe, state, provincial, and national authorities involved. There already is at least one COVID19 case being tracked: http://www.akwesasne.ca/mohawk-council-of-akwesasne-and-sain...

Further west, the bridges over the St. Lawrence connecting New York and Ontario get lots of daily cross-border workers, usually Canadians working in New York, as well as the normal flow of trade and tourism going both ways. Shutting it down would have a huge impact on the economies of both countries, but particularly Canada.

There's a school district in Washington where the children have to take a bus through Canada to get to school.

That is, if Washington State schools are still open.

Still, there are a number of U.S. towns that can only be accessed through Canada.

Also, my relatives in Minnesota say that most of the retail sales in their town is Canadians who don't have anywhere else to shop.

> There's a school district in Washington where the children have to take a bus through Canada to get to school.

In case anyone is curious, they're referring to Point Roberts, a town whose primary economic drivers are, as far as I've been able to tell, Canadians coming down to pick up packages to avoid cross-border shipping, and providing gas and restaurant meals to those same Canadians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Roberts,_Washington

> That is, if Washington State schools are still open.

All public schools in Washington State are closed, FWIW.

Another interesting example is Hyder, Alaska, which is only accessible by road from BC, Canada. It relies on various services from Canada, including ambulance and fire services, the latter due to Hyder's fire hall being burnt down, with their fire engine inside, during an Independence Day fireworks display.

There are no border controls when entering Hyder from Canada, as the only way to access the rest of Alaska from Hyder is via seaplane, and those flights are treated as international in origin when they land. There is a inspection station when crossing into Canada, but it is closed overnight -- anyone wishing to enter Canada when its closed must report via videophone.

The Winnipegers coming down probably could stand to ease off on at least some of the stuff they're going down there to buy. Not that Grand Forks isn't a nice little town, but damn it seems wasteful to drive so far for usually frivolous things.

Edit: I do imagine that many smaller communities close to the border in MB need to cross into the US for necessities, and was being a bit facetious

Edit: I do imagine that smaller communities in MB do actually need to cross the border for a lot of things, but I think Grand Forks has recently been advertising in Winnipeg.

It should be noted that anybody coming into Canada now from a foreign country, no matter their citizenship, is being told to self-quarantine for 14 days.

This isn't mandatory or enforced (yet) but it's not exactly a red carpet for folks to come visit for tourism or business meetings.

This is heart breaking for me! I am a Brit planning to come to Canada on an IEC visa which expires at the end of June. I'm writing to the IRCC begging for an extension to my entry date.

I can't imagine Canada not being lenient in this situation, we tend to have quite good relations with all commonwealth countries

As a British citizen and now also a Canadian citizen I can confirm that we don't get any special treatment and rightly so.

We do with driving licences, at least in Quebec. We don't have to pass a test to get a licence here smh.

This is an extremely common misconception.

I'm Australian, took about five years to get Permanent Residency for Canada. I've been working on Citizenship for about three, still ongoing.

On all my application forms my country of origin has nothing to do with anything. My application process would have been identical if I were from Turkey or Mali or the Congo. (unless I was claiming refugee status, which is entirely different)

I still had to take an English test, even though my application was sponsored through a company that had been employing me as an Engineer for two years already, and my Engineering degree is from Australia.

Commonwealth countries do get a bit a good deal with work visas for Canada, but for residency and citizenship it doesn't change a thing.

This is a crazy decision on a day when most of our cases came from the US.

> most of our cases came from the US.

Source?

Most of them seem to be Canadians returning to Canada, not American tourists.

Yeah I guess that is prob true.

Trucking - food. I think they need time to sort out changes to allow certain types of travel. Blocking all traffic except for business would be trivial to bypass, and making more categories isn't going to happen on a whim.

Stressful times for temporary skilled foreign workers in Canada & international students on study permits.

Foreign worker visa extension delays and loss of work visa status will happen. Also those who applied for permanent residency while working in Canada are going to see long wait times.

Chrystia Freeland diplomatically dodged questions concerning the work permit holders & international students in Canada when asked by a reporter.

So... Meghan Markle can go back to Vancouver Island to be with her child, but Prince Harry is trapped in the UK?

It seems unlikely that a member of the Canadian royal family [0] and Canadian military is going to be blocked from returning to Canada if he isn't showing symptoms.

[0] Technically a distinct entity from the British royal family, it "just happens" to currently contain the same members and have similar (but not the same) succession rules.

I never thought of the notion of "Canadian royal family" before. I guess that makes more sense.

It also gives me this silly vision of Harry at the YVR immigration counter holding up a $20 note and saying, "Because my grandma says so."

He doesn't have to, he can just point to the official Government of Canada webpage describing Canadian Royal Family:

Canadian Royal Family:

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/royal-fa...

His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry:

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/royal-fa...

Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex, Rachel Meghan Markle:

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/royal-fa...

But in all seriousness, immigration is a separate issue. Being a member of the royal family, unless your are the Queen herself, does not guarantee you any rights in Canada, including right of entry.

well, when they announced they were moving to Vancouver the news said they still had to apply for a visa, even if grandma is on the money

There is also a family exception to this ban. Maybe he can sneak in that way.

Closing the border to the U.S. and leaving it open to all other countries would probably have a larger impact on controlling the spread of coronavirus, simply because of the relative volume of traffic between Canada and the U.S. vs the rest of the world.

The US is our biggest trading partner. If they are also barred from entering the country, it would effectively grind the economy to a crawl.

Tourism, certainly, but that's already in the toilet regardless of who our border is open to. Even for overseas countries, we imposed no restrictions on trade or commerce, only visitors. I doubt this accounts for a non-trivial fraction of our economy, especially with public spaces already shutting down.

The US is the only country we share a land border with and at the very least at this time of year 35million people will starve without trains and trucks over the border.

So, yeah, the first logisitical barrier I can think of inside of 30 seconds.

Right in the article:

"Trudeau said the new border controls will not apply to trade and commerce in order to keep Canada's supply chain open."

It doesn't look like it is just visitors. People with Study and Work Permits seem to be affected as well.

Sure, and perhaps a solution for America would include work and study permits alongside permanent residence in the category of exceptions.

Trudeau mentioned it is just for people, trading and "deliveries" continue as usual.

Several countries are taking an approach like that. Denmark closed its borders to non-nationals, but the list of exceptions includes truck drivers doing cross-border deliveries.

That is a good consideration, but I think the US also has demonstrated some terrible handling of the situation - it's not super clear just how dire the situation in the US is because they have such a poor handle on tracking disease progress.

Yeah from my understanding the automobile industry parts pipeline knows no borders. Closing the border could essentially mean shutting down all the car factories.

You can bar people but still allow trade. The economy is going to grind to a halt regardless.

If the Detroit/Windsor border crossing was closed, you can take another 15-25% off the NYSE.

I don't even understand how you can generate this comment. Have you been watching developments around the world at all? China completely shut down, followed by so many countries I can't even keep up at this point. I'm living in a country (not China) where the mega metropolis capital city has been forcefully quarantined. How do you look at all this and think "the economy!" The world is way past that point. This is bigger than the economy, or maybe you know something that the rest of the world doesn't.

In other words, the world economy is beyond screwed. That's already in the rear view mirror. We're going all in on stopping the spread.

Too little too late. It's what will happen internally that will matter most.

>Too little too late.

I agree. Our government didn't take any apparent action up to this point, except express platitudes of "business as usual".

Why not overreact early and buy some time to get sorted? How do people whose jobs it is to deal with these things go from, "we're fine" to "close everything down" in a matter of days? We've had months to get ready for this.

Im really hoping the Premiers now start closing businesses and shut stuff down.

It depends on the province. Quebec is almost completely on lock down at this point. I think the decentralized approach is better in this case since it allows for much more agility and a localized approach. The provincial government here is communicating extremely well with the population and answers really well to most concerns from the population. To give an example they opened today daycares for the children of healthcare workers to avoid any disruption due to all schools shutting down. Which is an excellent comprise that I don't the federal government being able to set in place so quickly and so widely across the whole country

Because that's not the federal government's problem. They are mostly interested in: international relations, facilitating business and the economy (trade deals etc), making sure shipping flows freely, defence, etc (you can find a list of all provincial vs federal competencies online). The healthcare systems are run by the provinces, even if the federal government took the liberty to redistribute tax monies to provinces for their own healthcare, subject to federal govt conditions, as well as assure service to some populations (first nations, veterans, etc).

Trudeau has even stated that he thinks each province should be acting on that since they're competent wrt healthcare. Borders are under his control, yet weren't seen as a particularly pressing issue as I highly doubt (as we have, I believe, clearly seen) that this was even on his daily agenda before a few days ago. He went from 0 to 100 in a day. Just yesterday he was serving the same old same old.

There were a bunch of statements made by some of his ministers on Twitter. Overall bad handling of what should have been a no-brainer. Premier Legault had to publically call Trudeau out multiple times on his inaction. That kind of thing shouldn't happen.

There goes my plan to flee to Canada once things go south.

So when things go south, you go north?

Canada is a hefty, relatively normative, English-speaking country, I always assumed it'll be the obvious temp. shelter in hard times.

I just meant it as a joke of south vs north.

Is this why US healthcare is so terrible - there's an assumption that if things get really bad you can just head up north into Canada?

Why not just fix your country - Canada isn't a big country and it provides well for its population, but those services wouldn't hold up under pressure from large numbers of Americans.

"my country" is not the US. Fixing a country is very difficult. I've long accepted that "fixing my country" is not something I can do. Grabbing my kids and hopping on a plane, otoh, is fairly easy.

(as to your question - no)

Calm down. It's just a cultural cliche holdover from the Vietnam War when draft dodgers ran to Canada to avoid serving.

Like when all those celebrities in Hollywood swore they would move to Canada if Trump was elected, and then completely failed to live up to their promises.

What makes you think that things are so much better in Canada? There are so many problems here.. the grass is always greener.

Because we have functional universal healthcare, safety nets that let people stop working when ill, etc.

I've lived in both, I am very happy I am in Canada instead of the US right now.

The good news is after this is all over we'll see exactly which healthcare systems are "functional" in a pandemic, ones flush with cash or ones starved for cash. We don't know that quite yet.

Because we have functional universal healthcare

You'll have to define "functional" for me, as someone who frequently hears advertisements on Palm Springs radio stations for hospitals offering to perform medical services on snowbird Canadians that they can't get done at home.

Uh, does "I can get whatever care I need, whenever I need it, for free" work for you?

Apart from purely elective plastic surgery (which isn't free, or needed) I really can't think of any services that could be being advertised. Maybe your hearing advertisements for medical care that doesn't involve returning to Canada instead of medical care not available in Canada?

You may want to stop waving that "Whatever care I need, whenever I need it" flag.

The average wait time from a GP's referral to seeing a specialist in Canada was 8.7 weeks in 2018. Meanwhile, this USA-an doesn't need a referral to see a specialist. I can just pick up the phone and make an appointment.

"Specialist physicians surveyed report a median waiting time of 19.8 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment"

That goes up to almost a year (45.1 weeks) to wait in New Brunswick for treatment.

Source: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/waiting-your-turn-wa...

I don't know where they are getting their numbers, but the one I can easily fact check for you are flat out wrong, and the other ones all strike me as very suspicious.

> Canadians could expect to wait 4.3 weeks for a computed tomography (CT) scan, 10.6 weeks for a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and 3.9 weeks for an ultrasound.

I've had multiple ultrasounds (outside of a hospital, no urgency) the waiting time is literally 0. I walk in to the imaging clinic and hand them the piece of paper the GP gave me 10 minutes ago and get one.

I've had a CT scan (in a hospital, medium urgency), the waiting time was "a few hours".

I've never needed a MRI, the only person I know who did need one (very urgently) got it within hours.

The waiting time for specialists does not strike me as believable, but given that there is variation across the different fields I can't authoritatively say they are wrong. For context, I just needed to see both a dermatologist and a urologist (nothing serious, no medical related urgency), the waiting time was roughly 2 weeks and 3 weeks respectively.

Well they are using the Fraser Institute, it's a right wing think tank that aims to take away things like universal care in favour of private care. So, I wouldn't trust it.

US wait times aren't ideal either. I scheduled a dermatology appointment (suspicious mole, so this is a necessary treatment, not getting my acne treated) and my wait time is three months for the appointment. My dad was telling me his derma usually schedules a year out, they set up next year's appointment while he's in the office.

The Fraser Institute is not a reliable source, it's a right wing think tank.

Thanks for letting me know. I picked it because it was the first result in Duck. The second one was Forbes, but I figured with "Fraser" in the name it would be more Canadian.

For sure, no worries. It's really hard to decipher what is and isn't a reliable source sometimes. I spend a lot of time on this topic so I know a lot of the usual ones to watch out for.

Just one data point: in the US recently (but before COVID-19) I called around and the best I could do was about an eight week wait to see a GI specialist. So that's apparently comparable to the Canadian average, but in Canada it's free.

Uh, does "I can get whatever care I need, whenever I need it, for free" work for you?

As a Canadian, I can agree with the "free" part, but not the other two. There are things that aren't covered and if you're not dying, the wait can be long.

Would rather wait for my surgery than pay six figures for it

Sounds like you've never had any life-threatening medical problems.

Which are not electives are they

This trope is getting old. Wait times are long for things like hip and knee replacements. Barring a global pandemic, you are getting in ASAP if you are in critical condition. There are without a doubt cases that slip through the cracks, and everyone agrees, especially healthcare workers, that more can be done there. People are not dying in waiting rooms because they weren't seen in time after a stroke, that's a myth.

Bennett was referred for surgery on her right hip in November of 2013 and said she’s been told she won’t get in until early in 2016. She said her joint has deteriorated so much she is unable to work or even function without strong narcotic painkillers.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/patients-liv...

Something weird is up in that case

> Across the country, 76 per cent of patients received a hip replacement in 2017 within the recommended six-month wait time, down from 81 per cent in 2015.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/hip-knee-replacement-wait-tim...

I think a lot of the waits are very location driven.

I do agree it's an extraordinary case.

This conversation got lost somewhere between "IF you're not dying" and "life-threatening medical problems"

What are examples of medically necessary procedures (i.e. not elective plastic surgery or elective botox) that aren't covered?

I'd argue that "when I need it" is true, for non urgent matters that might not be when I want it. Personally I've had good experiences on the when I want it side too, but I know that does vary a fair bit.

I've heard very different reports from folks in British Columbia who need specialist care. As with anything that affects a large group of people, your mileage may vary! This is important to remember, as I see it.

Dual citizen here. Most of my life I've lived in the US (Massachusetts and California) with excellent medical care though I often got lots of charges, out of network fees, co-pays, etc. Then the last decade I'm in British Columbia. Despite all I heard when I lived down south I've found the Canadian care to be, yes, excellent. My spouse just got a new knee, very fine treatment start to finish, out the door cost was $0. I can see my GP w/in 24hrs. No one asks about money, no one asks what insurance plan, everyone from the CEO to the very poor are all on the same plan. It's so much more civilized in Canada.

Not in Quebec. The healthcare system in Quebec is in ruins with extended wait times and walk in clinics turn off walk ins frequently. Nurses & Doctor shortages are acute in Quebec to the point that retired nurses are being asked if they could come back to work.

I've gotten healthcare in Quebec a few times and never had any issues - what's your source for this as it just sounds like anti-medicare for all FUD.

It is functional alright. Here is an example:

California has tested 8,316 people total so far [0]. My province of Alberta has tested 8,887 people [1]. This is even though the population of my province is 11% of the population of California. In fact, the population of California alone is higher than the population of Canada, let alone my province.

Put it another way, California has tested 210 people per million residents. Alberta has tested an order of magnitude more, 2030.

Edit: Today's numbers for Alberta are in. Alberta has completed 10,598 tests, or 2,425 tests per million population.

[0] From https://covidtracking.com/data/

There is some uncertainty about the number, but not so much that the real number would be an order of magnitude higher.

[1] https://www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans.aspx

Citing testing after the CDC's failed initial test reagents is not painting a whole picture of care capability. The testing will catch up in the US. What isn't easy to scale is the critical care of patients who are hardest hit. That is a capability which the US excels in:

[1] USA has 34.7 ICU Beds / 100K [2] Canada has 9.5 ICU Beds / 100K

[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4351597/ [2]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275101876_Critical_...

Given the current situation, the relevant question is which country's healthcare system is most likely able to handle the coming influx of demand. The answer is probably unknowable and will vary quite a bit across each country.

Surely the US is the last place you want to accept people from (from a health point of view)

Not even in the top 5

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

The US fucked up testing pretty bad. There are many more cases than the official number.

That's the case in most places though. Places like Sweden and Finland have stopped testing for people who don't have severe symptoms. Sort by the death rates to get a more accurate picture.

You're assuming those numbers are accurate - the US has had a terrible time getting testing out so it might be less a case of "we don't have any" and more a case of "we're clueless as to what's going on". And, honestly, I'm thinking it's the second since it seems like there is widespread community transmission.

They have the worst and least accessible healthcare system in the western world.

The only reason those numbers aren't higher is because they're testing less people per population then Vietnam.

You can complain about the insurance system, but the quality of care is among the best in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...

Nobody is denied care if their life is in danger, and those below the poverty line qualify for free healthcare through Medicaid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid

Surely people then resist going to the hospital when they need to because its going to financially cripple them?

Like if you are rich enough to not qualify for medicaid, but not rich enough to have good insurance?

"So I have a deep cough and a bad fever but I will just ride this out. I'll be fine".. And that's exactly how the Corona virus manifests, like a bad cold that just keeps getting worse.

Except it's not, and the US is the literally best equipped to minimize fatalities: https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/21105.jpeg

And yet in Australia we've found that most of the cases have come from the US. (We've been testing travellers mostly)

Scroll down to the bar chart:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-data-reve...

My feeling is that it is uncontrolled and untested in the US in a way it isn't in places that actually are on lockdown.

Interesting question: Do you think the Canadian government has the power to deny entry of US citizens into Canada? I don't think they'd be able to do it.

[edit] I think any Candian government who actually did it would see an economic shock and loss of legitimacy so large that none of them would risk it.

You don’t think it’s possible because... why?

Why do you think that? The Canadian government absolutely could and already does on a selective basis daily.

I mean, they definitely could in a legal sense, but then the reaction from the US would likely be extreme and putative, it would likely cause a huge shock to the Canadian economy, and it would risk a sharp decline in the legitimacy of the canadian government.

You do realize Canada is a first world country just like the US is right? They have strong relations but they still are separate countries.

yes, I totally understand that. While they are separate countries, their economies and supply chains are extremely closely tied together and closing the border to US people would cause an extreme econ shock in both countries. Retaliation from the US would probably be stupid, out of scale, and make the situation much worse. My whole point is I don't think Canada would risk it.

I hear you and I think that's part of the reason US folks are still being allowed up - but honestly, there's a pandemic on, Canada shouldn't be held responsible for making sure Trump doesn't look bad and end up flipping out unreasonably - that's America's problem.

>My whole point is I don't think Canada would risk it.

Fuddle duddle.

Speaking as a Canadian: the current US government being angry at us would only increase the legitimacy of our government in my eyes.

The decline in legitimacy would come from the devastating effects of shutting down trade with Canada.

To clarify - shutting down trade isn't on the table right now - all trade lines will be kept open for the immediate future.

This announcement was solely about persons moving for non-logistical reasons.

Shutting down trade would be stupid, but it wouldn't have any effect on the legitimacy of the government. We are pretty damn secure about the legitimacy of our electoral process.

The ban is on travellers, not trade. There will still be goods imported and exported all over the world, just not humans.

There is already a huge shock to the global economy.

American opinions of the Canadian government matter very little as they can't vote in our elections.

This happens all the time, to famous and non-famous people. US citizens have no rights to enter Canada. Also the right to refuse people actually further legitimizes the Canadian Government.

???

Why wouldn't they?

They may not on an ordinary day, with our agreements being what they are; but I'm pretty sure in this circumstance we have the ability. It just won't really matter, since our borders need to be porous in practice, especially when we need supplies.

U. S. citizens get turned away at the Canadian border every day. Are you suggesting that Canada has lost its sovereignty?

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