Sask. parents anxious for border changes to see their daughter

Cal Rosenthal and his wife used to see their 28-year-old daughter multiple times a year, that is until the pandemic started – they live in Oxbow but she now lives in Florida.

“This has been a real struggle for us because part of our life is to go down and see her, my wife at least four times a year. So this has been hard on them because they’re very close,” said Rosenthal.

Technically they could have flown from a Canadian airport but with the quarantine rules when they’d arrive back, he said they chose not to do that.

In the meantime, there have been a lot of videocalls.

On Monday, the Canadian government announced the land border with the U.S. will open to non-essential travel for vaccinated Americans on Aug. 9. But on Wednesday, the U.S. government announced it would keep its land border closed to Canadians until at least Aug. 21.

Rosenthal said with his daughter’s job right now she likely wouldn’t be able to come here, so they’ll have to wait until they can go there.

He said the changes to the border are positive, but for him, and a lot of other people he talks to, the border is taking too long to open.

“We just feel that it’s been way too slow without a plan, there’s never a plan, it seems very arbitrary as to when and why they’re doing it,” said Rosenthal.

When the border does fully open and they can head into the U.S. there could be another wrinkle involved because neither Rosenthal nor his wife are vaccinated.

He said they just have some worries about the COVID vaccines.

But there’s a question of whether the U.S. will allow unvaccinated people into the country and whether they’ll have to quarantine still when they get back.

“If it comes down to not being able to see our daughter here in the end, we may have to acquiesce,” said Rosenthal.

“We’re not going to stay away from our daughter forever.”