Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast from me, Simon Calder, coming to you from

Quebec City in Eastern Canada. And that bell out there, I'm glad to say, isn't tolling for me

because I was not randomly selected for testing.

Just as a reminder, previously on the Independent Travel Podcast,

I had just arrived at the Canadian border.

I've flown in from Chicago to Montreal and I was just about to go through the checkpoint.

Well, nothing happened. And more to the point, nothing happened in the 15 minutes afterwards either

because that was when I might have been selected for a random test for COVID.

Now, of course, when Canada opened up last year, like many countries,

it required a pre-departure test, PCR actually as it happened.

And of course, if you tested positive, you weren't going to Canada or anywhere else.

But this new policy is really quite surprising because it does bring with it a risk.

Just a reminder of how it works.

You get notified within 15 minutes of crossing the airport formalities at Montreal, Toronto,

at Calgary or Vancouver.

Then that email tells you to take a test either on the day you got in or the following day.

Now, in my case, I got in due to the extreme delay on Air Canada at about 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock in the morning.

So I could have just waited until just before midnight the following day before taking the test.

Anyway, it's a PCR test that's paid for by the Canadian authorities,

but you have to sort out a place and a time to take it.

And I've been hearing since I mentioned this extraordinary new rule that it's actually quite tricky.

The issue is, this is from J.S. Roseberry, finding a pharmacy on their list once forms a film deal. That can actually do it.

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