McNeil Wants Open Borders With All Provinces By Mid-July, Atlantic Bubble Sooner
HALIFAX — Premier Stephen McNeil says he wants to open Nova Scotia’s borders to the rest of Canada by the second or third week of July.
Speaking at a press briefing today, the premier said getting Canadians moving within the country is vital to keeping businesses alive through their Covid-19 recovery.
“We have to learn to live with Covid. We need to figure out how we’re going to be able to move about inside of this country,” McNeil said.
“We have to be open to this because tourism is one of the most important industries. It employs tens of thousands of Nova Scotians and we need people to get back to work so that they can feed their families and keep our communities alive.”
McNeil said opening Nova Scotia’s borders to the rest of Canada would be the second step in the process of attracting more people to the province. The first will be creating an “Atlantic Bubble” of open borders between Atlantic Canadian provinces.
McNeil dodged questions about exactly when an Atlantic Bubble will be announced. However, he said it should happen before his mid-July target of open borders with all of Canada.
That timeline suggests an Atlantic Bubble announcement could come around the start of July. Last week, PEI premier Dennis King said he believes an Atlantic Bubble will go into effect around that time.
“I’ve been dealing with our Atlantic colleagues on the issue of an Atlantic Bubble. We’ve all continued to agree to have a conversation on what’s the appropriate date that we could agree on to opening up. And we will continue that and have more to say with them in the near future,” McNeil said today.
When Nova Scotia does relax its travel restrictions with other provinces, McNeil said it will mean people can come into the province without self-isolating. However, they will still have to practice physical distancing according to provincial health guidelines.
More Provincial Health Restrictions Eased
McNeil also announced today the government is further easing restrictions around gathering sizes.
As of today, 10 people can gather together in a group without any physical distancing. And you are not limited the same group of 10 people, as was the case with the previous “bubble family” rules.
Nova Scotians will also be allowed to gather in groups as large as 50 if they maintain physical distancing outside of their core group of 10 people.
These 50-people gatherings will be allowed to outside or inside, as long as there is enough space for people to physically distance.
Public playgrounds in the province have also reopened.
“Effective today we are bursting the bubble,” McNeil said.
As of July 18, Nova Scotia has gone nine straight days without a new case of Covid-19. McNeil said the flattening curve means things can start getting back no normal, but warned that physical distancing measures will remain in place for the foreseeable future.
“Our cases of Covid are down and that’s good news, but until there’s a vaccine we have to learn to live with Covid,” he said.