#Team Biden’s bizarre ‘Blame Canada’ border slap

Poor Canada: It gets no respect even from the Biden administration, which just dissed it in the name of fighting COVID.

Mere days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada’s borders will open to fully vaccinated Americans on Aug. 9, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas answered by extending the US ban on nonessential land travel from Canada until at least Aug. 21.

Why?

The notification posted to the Federal Register claims that “the risk of continued transmission and spread of the virus associated with COVID-19 between the United States and Canada poses an ongoing ‘specific threat to human life or national interest.’”

Huh? Canada (after a rocky start because it didn’t do as wise a job of advance-buying vaccines as the Trump administration) is now better-vaxxed than we are — 52.6 percent fully jabbed to just 48.7 percent of the total US population, and 69 percent with at least one dose to our 56 percent. (Trudeau expects to hit 80 percent fully vaxxed by month’s end.)

And Ontario, the province bordering New York, is at 64 percent fully vaxxed.

That matters because Upstate will now miss out on some much-needed tourism. And Team Biden’s slap puts needless stress on separated families and businesses all along the world’s longest international border.

Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY), whose district includes popular tourist areas like Buffalo and Niagara Falls, complains that Mayorkas’ “illogical,” “counterproductive” and “completely unnecessary” move “harms economic recovery and hurts families.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed that it could jeopardize upstate’s “already tenuous recovery.”

Trudeau cited Canada’s “unique bond” with the United States, “especially between border communities,” as reason to open to Americans nearly a full month before the rest of the world. Team Biden plainly doesn’t feel the same love.

The bigger mystery: Why not focus US restrictions on the border that’s actually in crisis?