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HomeNewsSkeena-Bulkley Valley MP says reports of Americans misusing ‘Alaska exemption’ is concerning

Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP says reports of Americans misusing ‘Alaska exemption’ is concerning

Concerning is one-word Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Taylor Bachrach used on the reports of American Tourists misusing the Alaska exemption to cross the border.

Bachrach is also advising residents to not overreact.

Canada and U.S. borders have been closed for non-essential services since March but people who work and live in Alaska are able to travel through Canada.

According to Bachrach, there are some safety measures that have been put in place for people crossing the border to go to Alaska.

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Bachrach said the federal government is aware of these reports.

“I know it’s something the Prime Minister is made aware of and I know it’s something the federal government is looking into and my hope would be that they are going to be taking every precaution to protect our communities,” he said.

According to the Prime Minister, the federal government is looking into the reports and it needs to make sure that they are able to apply the rules consistently.

Bachrach also said it is hard to tell how much of an issue this is.

“We need to take it seriously because we need to make sure that our communities are safe and we don’t want people coming through from the United States who, frankly the south of the border have a much bigger problem with COVID-19 and we don’t want our communities to be exposed to that,” he said.

The United States has around 2.35 million cases of COVID-19 as of Monday afternoon.

Bachrach is advising people to not make assumptions about different license plates in your community because there could be a variety of reasons why they are in the community.

RCMP in Alberta issued several $1200 tickets to Americans who were seen hiking in the Banff area.

Vista Radio has reached out to the RCMP to see if any tickets have been issued in the province but did not hear back in time for publication.

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