A friend was told about not traveling to Canada by CBSA if classes are online. I recommend the ones who have Booked their tickets to confirm it themselves by calling CBSA. This applies to first time fliers. Verify it again if anyone needs to and reply back if some other info is received.
But that doesn't make sense for a whole lot of reasons -
1. There's nothing on the IRCC website related to travel restrictions that says anything like that.
2. And there's no point in denying entry to people who have online classes as ALL students in Canada are having ONLY online courses predominantly for the Fall.
If online courses is the issue, then they must either put that up on that website / deny entry to ALL students for the fall term.
By that metric, it doesn't make sense for current international students to be there in Canada now, as even their courses are online.
3. IRCC is actually saying that PGWP won't get affected if we do online courses due to Covid. If pgwp is not going to be affected, then how will entry be a problem only because our courses are online? In fact, even schools in some provinces are shifting to a part-online system for the fall.
4. They have actually allowed exempted people with the permit obtained before 18 March & proper isolation plan to actually enter the country.
The IRCC website, which from all that I've seen till now is not frivolous & they actually implement what they put up, - shows rule of law with the many modifications & adjustments that they're doing so that students' studies are not affected due to Covid.
5. Why include a group of students with permit / LOI obtained before March 18th at all, if they're going to be denied entry on the basis of online courses? When all courses across universities n the country are anyway being held online?
And what's the point of having EXEMPTIONS to the restrictions if they're denying based on Omline courses?
I go by the IRCC website - if it says anything regarding denial ONLY DUE TO online courses, then we need to see.
The issue for international students is to get operational flights, if they're otherwise eligible as per the website, there's no reason for CBSA to deny entry. This is if we strictly go by the website.