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OPINION: Apply Alaska rules to Point Roberts

The new rules implemented last week for Alaska-bound Americans might well be used as a model to address a nagging situation at the Point Roberts border crossing.
Point Roberts

The new rules implemented last week for Alaska-bound Americans might well be used as a model to address a nagging situation at the Point Roberts border crossing.

There’s been a growing effort to ease the restrictions at the crossing at the foot of Tsawwassen’s 56th Street so Canadians with property south of the line can cross to perform maintenance on their cottages and boats. This push, which includes a 3,000-name online petition, hasn’t made much headway as governments on both sides of the line have been reluctant to vary the rules, even for our own little geographic anomaly.

I get it, you can never be too safe when it comes to COVID-19, but now that new regulations have been put in place to clamp down on Americans passing through Canada on their way to Alaska, it seems to me that a similar approach could be applied to Canadians wanting to access the tiny American peninsula to check on property.

There are a host of new rules now governing Alaska-bound Americans, including only being able to cross at specific locations, taking the most direct route, avoiding all tourist hot spots and much more, with failure to heed them resulting in hefty fines or imprisonment. Surely something similar could be tailored for Point Roberts, where Canadian property owners could also be given a rear-view mirror tag with a list of strict conditions, the primary one being only to travel to the cottage and back, as well as the stiff consequences should they not be followed.

I realize that relaxing restrictions can prove problematic when you’re talking about a virus that can get out of control in a hurry, but we’ve done well in our collective battle by setting reasonable expectations and trusting people to use good judgement. This looks like another situation where that approach could be applied.