Canadian border authorities deem Ontario man no longer essential, fine him $3,755

Ron Rousse of Belle River, Ontario for the past several months has been crossing on average once every two weeks to take care of needed business regarding the building his company is building, trying to limit the frequency of his crossings because of the pandemic.

According to Yahoo News Canada, on Tuesday, he ran into problems with procedure, since new rules that have been implemented stating that people have to cross the border regularly in order to qualify as essential workers. Since Rousse doesn't cross every day, he is no longer considered "essential".

"That was the only reason given multiple times — that you're not essential because you don't cross every day," commented Rousse. "In my mind, I'm an essential worker. I need to run my business in the United States."

Under the new and confusing rules, "the traveller must cross the border regularly to go to their normal place of employment and demonstrate a regular pattern of travel, which is generally defined as daily or weekly. The nature of their work does not impact this assessment."

"What they are essentially requesting is to go over, get your test as soon as you cross the border, stay in a hotel for two nights and then come back with your negative test result," continued Rousse.

Rousse was presented with the options of going back to the US, paying for a PCR test and waiting for the results in a hotel, or quarantining in a Canadian hotel all the way in Toronto for 14 days at his own expense in lieu of the fine.

Rousse currently holds an American E2 business Visa.