PM Justin Trudeau Keeping Canadian Border Closed 'for Now'

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not ready to open the border with the U.S. amid the global coronavirus pandemic, but as vaccinations ramp up, "releasing border measures" might come.

"Obviously as vaccinations increase, we're all hoping for good news and to get through this," told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "But we'll continue to engage with the White House and with the administration on the best times to start releasing border measures.

"But for now, we all need to keep safe, and that means keeping them in place."

Anchor Chuck Todd asked Trudeau at the end of the interview what metrics he looks at to direct public health policy, and Trudeau said all of them.

"I think there's an awful lot of different metrics we need to look at on, on border and on keeping Canadians safe from COVID-19," he said. "Obviously case counts, presence of variants, hospitalizations — all these things factor into the expert analysis. Our public health experts telling us what the right measures are and how concerned we have to be about, about variants."

Trudeau is echoing the Biden administration goal of vaccinating all Canadians that want it "by the end of summer."

"Obviously, it's not going as fast as everyone would want," he said. "We all want this pandemic to be over yesterday and to vaccinate everyone as quickly as possible. But we're confident that in the coming weeks – hundreds of thousands of vaccines every week, millions into the coming months – we are going to have everyone vaccinated probably by the end of the summer.

"And that is something that we're, we're very positive and excited about."

Trudeau is almost excited about a President Joe Biden who agrees with his progressive views, including globalism, lockdowns, and climate change.

"I think the issues that we're dealing with, whether it's climate change, whether it's making sure the middle class has a real shot in a, a globalized world, these are things that we naturally have to work together on," he said. "And of course as a Canadian, I believe that we all need to work together in a more active way, and I'm glad to see the new administration, this is something I spoke with President Biden about directly, it's great to see America re-engage.

"I think certainly there were things that were more challenging under the previous administration in terms of moving the dial in the right direction on the international stage."

On a topic more controversial and divisive, the Keystone XL Pipeline, Trudeau dodged and pivoted, unwilling to stand in opposition to Biden as much as he was with former President Donald Trump.

"[We] want to make sure we're continuing to sell hydro-electricity into the United States, and that the two of us are partnering in ways that are going to create good jobs and compete successfully against the world for cleaner, cleaner products and cleaner solutions," he said. "I think there's so much we can do together that I don't spend too much time worrying about the tension points.

"It'll always come up in our relationship, but we'll work through them, particularly given the alignment on so many things that we're able to bring with this new administration."

• Top US Diplomat 'Visits' Mexico, Canada on Virtual Trip
• Biden, Trudeau Bypass Tension for Unity on Virus, China, Climate