Clergy from the Canadian mainland hope they can still reach the faithful on Campobello Island once the seasonal ferry ties up this fall. Anglican Archdeacon John Matheson in Saint Andrews has reached out to New Brunswick Southwest MP John Williamson to help make sure that Charlotte County clergy can transit through Washington County from Calais to Lubec to lead worship and attend to other duties of ministry on Campobello Island and return home without running afoul of COVID 19 rules in Canada or the United States.
     "We should have started working on it as soon as the border was closed, but no one took the initiative," Matheson says. Rev. Kevin Borthwick from St. Stephen makes regular trips to conduct services at St. Anne's Anglican Church at Welshpool, taking the summer ferry from Deer Island to avoid crossing the Canada/U.S. border. Matheson worries about what might happen once the ferry makes its final run for the year when he, Borthwick and other clergy present themselves to Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) officers in St. Stephen on their way home. "They might say, 'Go isolate for two weeks,'" he says.
     Rev. Philip Clement in Machias, who continues to celebrate Mass at St. Timothy's Roman Catholic Church on Campobello, normally on Saturday afternoons, thinks that Charlotte County clergy should be able to sort out border issues related to COVID 19. "They allow me to cross the Lubec border without any problems," he says. The Canadian authorities put a notation on his passport, he always wears his clerical shirt and collar, and border officers at both ends of the bridge recognize him on sight. "They do consider us essential workers," he says.
     CBSA senior spokesperson Rebecca Purdy points to an order in council the Canadian government approved in June stating that "any person who enters Canada" showing no symptoms of COVID 19 must still go into quarantine for 14 days. However, section 6 allows for exceptions, including "a person or any person in a class of persons whom the chief public health officer determines will provide an essential service," and also "if the entry is necessary to return to their habitual place of residence in Canada after carrying out an everyday function that, due to geographical constraints, must involve entering the United States."
     Williamson pointed out in a July 31 letter to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland that Canadian funeral directors can travel through Maine to provide professional services on Campobello. The Funeral Services Association of Canada and the New Brunswick Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association helped negotiate this exemption, according to David Humphreys at Humphreys' Funeral Home in St. Stephen. The exemption allows funeral directors to drive directly from Calais to Lubec without stopping in Maine, Humphreys says, meaning they should gas up before leaving St. Stephen. Campobello has no gasoline station, but an exemption allows island residents to fill up in Lubec.
     "In my opinion, a simple solution would be to allow clergy and their spouses from St. Stephen and its surrounding areas the same exemption to cross into Campobello as morticians are presently given," Williamson wrote in his letter to Freeland. He has more recently taken up this issue with Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Francois Phillippe Champagne as well as Freeland. "There is progress, in that Ottawa is aware of the problem and is considering it, but I have no news to report now on what could happen when the summer ferry stops running," Williamson says, but he notes the success in negotiating an exemption last spring allowing Campobello residents to travel to St. Stephen to do essential business.
     Matheson feels the exemption should apply to clergy of all denominations travelling to Campobello to tend their flocks. The 2016 national census counted 872 people on the Canadian island off the Maine coast. There are Baptist and Pentecostal as well as Anglican and Roman Catholic churches on Campobello, but Matheson does not believe that Christian clergy of any denomination live full time on the island.
     The provincial government would apparently not stand in the way of an exemption for clergy travelling to and from Campobello. "While the province has taken responsibility for public health screening at its borders with other Canadian provinces, entry into Canada from the United States is under the sole jurisdiction of the government of Canada," Geoffrey Downey of the provincial Executive Council Office wrote in e-mailed statement.
     As of August 25 there were 10 active cases of COVID 19 in New Brunswick, including one, an individual between 10 and 19, reported in the Moncton region on August 25. This case was travel related, and the person is self isolating, according to a press release from the provincial health department. None of the active cases were in hospital and none were in the health zone including Charlotte County. Up to August 25 there have been 190 COVID 19 cases in New Brunswick, including 178 who have recovered, two deaths and 10 still active.