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Canadian Border to Reopen
It was announced this week that the US will lift restrictions on land borders with Canada and Mexico in early November. This will begin allowing travelers from Mexico and Canada who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 to enter the United States for non-essential purposes, including to visit friends and family or for tourism, via land and ferry border crossings.
This is good news but not great news for many in our area of the state but especially for those in the Northwest Angle who have been cut off and seen their economies devastated during the closing. So while it is good news, it is not great news as it simply does not go far enough.
The closing of our borders lasted far too long and the the sooner we can get back to normal the better. We are a free people in our respective countries. Our borders with Canada and Mexico—both going out and coming in—should be open to all legal citizens of our neighboring countries, vaccinated or not with a proper US, Canadian or Mexican passport to travel as freely as we did in the not so distant past. This vaccine required travel not only hinders my freedoms but the freedoms of millions of others in all of our respective countries by essentially marking us as unclean. It is unjustified and wrong and we have grown tired of it.
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Northwest Angle Program Working
Here is an example of the good work we can get done at the State Capitol when we work together for the good of Minnesotans.
This $5 million program for business crippled by the border closing has helped over two dozen businesses already.
I am glad to have been able to step up and help these people who, through no fault of their own, were left financially devastated.
From the MinnPost story:
"Shortly before a House vote on the jobs bill, however, Grossell said he approached State Rep. Mohamud Noor — a Minneapolis DFLer who chairs the House Workforce and Business Development Finance and Policy Committee — to ask if the $5 million loan program could be added at the last minute to the omnibus bill.
Grossell said Noor gave him a short list of issues to work out with the Republican-led Senate. Once Grossel cleared up the obstacles, top lawmakers agreed to amend the program onto the bill on the House floor. “I said these people have been cut off through no fault of their own through the border shutdown,” Grossell said.
At the time, on the House floor, Noor said the legislation was an example of lawmakers from different parties and disparate geographic areas working together. In an interview last week, he said lawmakers “felt we had to do something” because the “lifeline” of these businesses were cut off during the border closures.
Noor said it’s not that unusual for lawmakers to carve out specific help for certain areas or entities. There was also money for Rochester’s Destination Medical Center in the omnibus jobs bill, as well as a loan for a Duluth paper mill. But Noor said the Northwest Angle is unique in that people usually have to go through Canada to visit it, and said federal members of Congress from Minnesota had also been trying to help people there."
Read the full story here: mnhouse.gop/3al4oV6
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Please Stay in Touch
Please continue to stay in touch to share your thoughts or concerns. My phone number is 651-296-4265 or you can email me at rep.matt.grossell@house.mn.
Have a great week and God Bless!
Matt
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227 State Office Building
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Saint Paul, MN 55155
ph: 651.296.4265 |
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