Some Canadian businesses want to let Americans back in. Most Canadians don’t.

By Amanda Coletta
7/3/2020, 5:00:00 p.m.

TORONTO — In normal times, this would be the high season for Eric Brown's Ontario fishing lodges. In these times, he wonders if his business can survive.

Brown says Americans make up 95 percent of the business at his Totem Resorts in Sioux Narrows. Travel restrictions on the U.S.-Canada border, he said, have “absolutely devastated us.”

“It’s just heartbreaking to watch it all dissolve — 42 years of my legacy disappear in one season.”

As restrictions to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus drag into a fourth month, Brown and other business operators are pushing officials to consider ways to let at least some tourists in. But they’re running into resistance from the broader population, which appears to have little appetite for lifting the restrictions.

Amid a general sense here that Canada has handled the coronavirus better than the United States, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in June there was “broad consensus” among provincial leaders to keep current measures along the 5,500-mile frontier in place.

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