In an interview with CP24 Breakfast Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that he's "frustrated and disappointed" with Premier Ford's continued calls on Ottawa to tighten restrictions at the border in Ontario without specifying what that would look like.
"I find it kind of frustrating and disappointing that the province is still trying to point fingers," Trudeau said.
The federal government, according to Trudeau, has been open to working with Ontario on enacting further restriction on the border, on top of the reduced inbound international flights already in place.
"We're there to continue to support Ontarians through this difficult time in whatever ways are necessary. It's just unfortunate that Doug Ford continues to play politics," Trudeau continued.
Despite a letter from Ford saying he is "disappointed" in Ottawa's lack of response to his calls to tighten restrictions, Trudeau told CP24 that two weeks ago he met with premiers on what new specific limitations would look like, and got no response from Ontario on who those restrictions would apply to.
"To date, there has been no action on any of these requests and no indication that anything is coming,” Ford wrote.
Trudeau responded the the letter saying, "whether it's international students, whether it's temporary foreign workers, whether it's essential workers, whether it's compassionate workers, we said let's work together and we will tighten those numbers," adding that "[Ontario] never told us. We started working with them the very next day, they still haven't said what categories they want to restrict, how they want to reduce international arrivals."
Two letters from Deputy Premier and Health Minister Christine Elliott and Solicitor General Sylvia Jones followed Ford's initial letter last months, asking for a reduction of incoming international flights, mandatory PDR testing for incoming domestic flights, and a mandatory three-day hotel quarantine for those crossing the border by land.
The Intergovernmental Affairs Minsiter Dominic LeBlanc responded to Ford's letters last week, saying that Ottawa has not received any formal requests on actions they should take at the border.
"We welcome your specific requests for further refinements to the mutual agreed list of acceptable international travellers. The federal government stands ready, however to date we have not received such a request," LeBlanc said in his Friday letter.
Ford's latest letter once again pushed the blame on Ottawa saying that "existing measures at the border, an area of federal responsibility, failed to keep variants of concern out of Canada. These variants entered our province through our borders and, as a result, have had devastating impacts on our communities."
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