Travellers Are Already Finding Loopholes To Avoid Canada's Quarantine Hotels

Travellers who want to avoid Canada’s quarantine hotels are already looking for loopholes to dodge the new restrictions. 

Just weeks after the federal government announced that all incoming air passengers would be required to stay three nights in a pre-approved hotel (and foot the bill), some vacationers have already found a way around it.

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$2,000+ Quarantine hotel cost

A new report from CBC News revealed that some air passengers intend to dodge the new rules by flying near the border in the United States, then driving to cross the Canadian border by land.

While travellers crossing the land border will still have to take multiple COVID-19 tests and quarantine for two weeks, they aren’t required to stay for a minimum of three nights in one of the government’s approved quarantine hotel facilities.

This means they’ll save the $2,000+ per-person fee that all hotel guests are required to pay.

"If I can avoid it, I'm going to do it," one Canadian couple told CBC. "Common sense says, well, let's do the path of least resistance, right? If I can save 4,000 bucks, why wouldn't I do it?"

The snowbirds explained that they plan to return to Canada by flying to Buffalo, New York, instead of Toronto. Then, they intend to take a cab to the land border at Niagara Falls, where they’ll cross by foot and meet friends who will bring over their car.

"We'll just pick it up and drive home," they explained.

The restrictions at Canada’s land and air borders are pretty different, but there’s good reason for it according to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.

He previously explained that enforcing hotel quarantine at land borders would be extremely challenging due to the remote nature of some border crossings, in addition to the sheer number of possible crossings between Canada and the United States.