Province tries to stop spread from Quebec, but would a north-south border do more to slow COVID?

Normally the border between northern Ontario and Quebec is marked simply by a sign reminding you what province you are in.

But as of this week, there are police officers stationed on both sides, keeping non-essential travelers out with the aim of stopping the spread of COVID-19.

The Ontario Provincial Police is set up on Highway 101 east of Matheson, Highway 66 near Virginiatown, Highway 65 near New Liskeard and on Highway 63 on the dam over the Ottawa River between the town of Temiscaming, Quebec and the small village of Thorne, Ontario.

"QPP are checking vehicles going into Quebec and OPP are checking vehicles coming out of Quebec," says Dave Matthews, who chairs the Local Services Board for Thorne.

He says the biggest inconvenience for the couple hundred people in Thorne is that they can't pop across the river to buy groceries and need to make the longer drive into North Bay, although he admits it isn't much of an inconvenience.

Matthews, like most in Thorne, works at the pulp mill in Temiscaming and his family doctor is in Quebec as well, both essential reasons to cross the border.

"Any sacrifices we have to do pale in comparison to the sacrifices my parents made," says Matthews, whose parents survived the London Blitz during the Second World War. 

"Somehow you've got to stop people from moving around to stop the spread."

The Ontario Provincial Police say trucks and other commercial vehicles are allowed to go right through the checkpoints and anyone with an Ontario license plate will have to slow down, but won't be asked any questions.

"There are a lot of exemptions available. We're not just stopping everyone saying 'You can't come through,'" says acting manager of media relations Bill Dickson.

"There is a very, very long list."

The OPP says it is not pulling officers from local detachments to staff the border crossings, but declined to say where those employees are coming from or how much it's costing to keep up some 15 boundary checkpoints across the province.

The police force says it will also not be revealing how much traffic is coming through the roadblocks.

Three of these border crossings are in the Timiskaming health district, but acting medical officer of health Dr. Glenn Corneil says they haven't been a big concern during the pandemic.

He says there have been a few COVID cases tied to travelers coming in from Quebec, but he says they were all coming into Ontario for essential reasons that are still allowed under the latest restrictions. Many people from Quebec commute to work at gold mines in Matheson and Kirkland Lake, for example.

But Corneil supports the border restrictions as a way to generally discourage people from moving around during the pandemic. 

"We know that is an ongoing big risk factor for our area, so that's the lens that I looked at. It's just one other measure to decrease travel in and out of different jurisdictions," he says. 

Last year, several northern Ontario leaders called for checkpoints to be set up on the three highways running to the south, with the hope of stopping the spread of the virus from the hotspots in the Toronto area.

Sudbury city councillor Mike Jakubo says the province dismissed the idea as too expensive and was surprised to now see 15 checkpoints set up.

"At the end of the day the resources are all coming from the same pot," he says.

Jakubo says with the third wave well underway, he doesn't think these new roadblocks are doing much to stop the spread of COVID. 

"There was a point in time when this made very good sense and in my opinion, that time has passed," he says.

"We have the virus circulating in our community right now because governments were not able to make the tough decisions and close border a year ago."

Asked to comment, Nipissing MPP and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Vic Fedeli provided a statement noting that travel between communities in Ontario is already not recommended and that medical experts are concerned about the spread of COVID variants between provinces.