Anyone able to be with family this Thanksgiving weekend should be extra thankful this year, given the current Canada-U.S. COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Kai Petainen, a Sault native who lives in Ann Arbor, Mich., working as a University of Michigan business instructor, would have liked to cross the border to visit his mother for the holiday, accompanied by his wife and son.
But he can’t, due to rigid government regulations which are overriding family matters for so many these days.
“Normally we would come up once a month for three days (pre-COVID), or a weekend. It’s very common for us to be with our family,” Petainen said, speaking to SooToday.
Petainen spent five weeks back in the Sault beginning in July, spending the first two weeks in quarantine.
“We quarantined with my mom. She stayed in quarantine with us and she consented to it, so it wasn’t like she was in a nursing home and we had to go visit her or anything like that. It was consensual and she quarantined with us at that time.”
Canadians living in the U.S. are allowed to re-enter to visit family, required to quarantine for two weeks before enjoying the rest of a vacation.
“The tricky part is that you are required to be in quarantine for two weeks, and when you enter the country they ask you ‘how long are you planning on being over’ and you say ‘three days,’ that’s not going to cut it. You’re not allowed to be over for three days. You have to be over for at least two weeks,” Petainen said.
“If I want to come for Canadian Thanksgiving, I would have to stay for two weeks in quarantine. Not everyone can take two weeks off constantly, and especially right now, the school semester is up and running. I’m not going to take time off work while school is running for two weeks.”
Petainen’s desired solution?
“If I could be in self isolation with my mom and my sister and brother-in-law for three days, and those were the only people I saw, that would be great, but I’m not allowed to do that.”
“I’m not asking for the border to be opened to everyone. My concern is that I’m a Canadian, and as a Canadian, I should be allowed to see my mom, to come in and check on her and see her and practice the rules you guys have there (such as), self isolation and mask wearing,” Petainen said.
He said himself, his wife and son, his mother, sister and brother-in-law and perhaps three other people his sister and brother-in-law associate with would constitute an indoor bubble of no more than nine people over the Thanksgiving weekend (under the 10-person limit the province has imposed).
“I haven’t directly asked the border patrol, but I know from what the rules say and previous experience what’s involved (after his July stay in the Sault), and I do know they (the Public Health Agency of Canada and Public Health Ontario) call you every day to verify where you are, so I have some prior experience with this.”
“I haven’t sent a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau or the border patrol (to appeal the regulations). Some of my friends are joking that in America the president pardons a turkey (a humorous U.S. Thanksgiving tradition, most recently used to please vegetarians), but I’m basically trying to get pardoned by the Prime Minister of Canada,” Petainen chuckled.
He stated, if it were possible to visit for the weekend, he would be travelling a maximum of 80 kilometres between his mother’s home and another property in her ownership 15 minutes away from the Sault, not stopping to shop or dine, socially isolated in his vehicle and on private property, not travelling outside the Sault and Algoma district.
“I feel sad about it because I want to see my family,” Petainen said.
“My son is my mom’s only grandkid. My mom’s in her 70s, my son is six years old, so this grandkid matters a lot to that grandmother.”
“I also feel a bit burned in the sense that over here in the States I am following the rules, wearing the mask, keeping my social distance and a lot of Americans aren’t...Canadians, rightfully so, will look at Americans and say ‘you guys aren’t following the rules’ and Canada will basically ban anyone living in the States from coming in when there’s people like us, Canadians who do care. You feel burned because all these other people are not following the rules.”
For Thanksgiving weekend, Petainen said “they (the Public Health Agency of Canada and Public Health Ontario) could always call my mom’s house to see if I’m there, or I could show them I just had a COVID test, it was negative. I’m fortunate because I work at the University of Michigan, I’m getting regular COVID tests.”
With hopes to celebrate Thanksgiving in the Sault dashed, Petainen said his family will connect with his mother via Skype or Zoom.
“It’s going to be weird, but we’ll do something like that for sure. We Skype and Zoom on a regular basis anyway, so we’ll manage.”
Sad and disheartened, Petainen nevertheless stated cheerfully “I’m not bitter. It’s Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for what I have. I’m not bitter about it.”
While Americans will wait for their Thanksgiving turkey dinners next month, Petainen said he, his wife and son still hope to gather around their Ann Arbor dining room table and have turkey, Canadian style, on Monday.
“My wife called a couple of places asking if they had turkey and they said ‘no.’ We found one place that might have a turkey reserved for us right now, but I’m hesitant to say because I don’t want someone stealing my turkey. It’s hard to find turkey. You’d be surprised,” he chuckled.
While no one can predict what will happen with COVID-19 as the weeks and months go by, Petainen said he hopes to visit the Sault in November (during U.S. Thanksgiving) or Christmas.
“It (still) is home,” said Petainen of the Sault.
