Tensions stemming from protests spearheaded by Canadian truck drivers over the country's COVID-19 mandates have been simmering in recent weeks, so much so that traffic at key U.S. transit points has ground to a stop and a judge has temporarily banned demonstrators in the nation's capital from using horns.

For nearly two weeks, Canadian truckers have been protesting a new rule that requires them to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or face a two-week quarantine in their homes after they return across the U.S.-Canadian border. Others have joined to rally against mask mandates, lockdowns, restrictions on gatherings and other COVID-19 preventative efforts in the country.

Demonstrations have popped up across Canada, including at the Ambassador Bridge, which links Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit and is the busiest international crossing in North America. Idling trucks and vehicles impeded access to the bridge for a third day Wednesday, snarling traffic on both sides of the border.

"When the border crossing of this magnitude — almost a third of all traffic between our two countries crosses here — and when it closes down, it has an immediate and material impact on the economies of our both nations," Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens told CNN's Don Lemon on Tuesday night.

Some protesters have been loud — so annoyingly loud that a lawsuit is demanding an end to the deafening honking unleashed by the truckers in downtown Ottawa, Canada's capital, where residents have endured the near-constant noise in their homes.

Zexi Li, who lives within five blocks of protests at Parliament Hill, sued to demand an end to the beeping. Sound levels from the air and train horns are "dangerous and cause permanent damage to the human ear" and cause "significant mental distress, suffering and torment," the lawsuit filed by the 21-year-old says.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean on Monday issued a 10-day injunction that prevents demonstrating truckers on downtown Ottawa streets from using air or train horns. A hearing is set for next Wednesday.

Mayor Jim Watson described the constant honking of large trucks as "tantamount to psychological warfare" and wrote in letters to federal and provincial officials earlier this week that, "People are living in fear and are terrified."

As of Wednesday morning, Canadian-bound traffic at the Ambassador Bridge was still shut down, Michigan officials tweeted. U.S.-bound traffic was flowing for both commercial and passenger traffic, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Access to the bridge from the Canadian side could be tricky, however. Owing in part to protests on that side, traffic was heavy and some roads were blocked. One access route, in particular, was still open, Windsor police Constable Talya Natyshak said.

About 100 protesters were in the area of the bridge in Windsor as of 9 a.m. ET Wednesday, Natyshak said.

Canadian-bound and U.S.-bound lanes were open to passenger and some commercial traffic at an alternative, the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, which has height restrictions, according to Canadian and U.S. border websites.

Another alternative, the Blue Water Bridge connecting Port Huron and Sarnia about a 60-mile drive northeast of Detroit, was open to traffic from both sides. While little wait was reported for U.S.-bound traffic and Canada-bound passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles headed to Canada were enduring delays of more than four hours Wednesday morning, according to Canada's website for wait times.

The truckers' vaccine rule that kicked off the protests remains. But some of the COVID-19 related restrictions that moved others to join truckers in their protests have started to go away.

Tracking COVID-19:

Provincial public health officials across Canada, who are largely responsible for imposing and lifting most health restrictions, have lifted some measures in recent weeks.

As the most recent surge of COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant subsided, nearly all provinces have seen a decrease in new hospital admissions — though ICU occupancy remains stubbornly high.

Canada's chief public health officer, Theresa Tam, has said in recent days that it is prudent for provinces to react and adapt health restrictions based on local circumstances.

Protesters block access to Alberta-Montana crossing

Protesting truckers also blocked access Tuesday and Wednesday to a border crossing connecting Coutts, Alberta, to Sweet Grass, Montana, Canadian police said.

Demonstrators moved 10 farm tractors and three passenger vehicles onto Alberta's Highway 4 around 8 p.m. Tuesday, Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesperson Fraser Logan said.

The border crossing remained inaccessible Wednesday morning, preventing movement in both directions, Logan said. CNN has reached out to the Canadian Border Services Agency for comment.

There was little police could do to remove trucks from Highway 4, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki said Tuesday. Even if officers were to detain the truckers blocking the road, they wouldn't be able to clear the blockade, he said.

"Moving vehicles like these requires special equipment and operators," Zablocki said.

Protests started in Coutts 12 days ago with more than 250 truckers but as of Tuesday evening had dwindled to around 50, Zablocki said.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney announced Tuesday evening that the province has begun to roll back some COVID-19 restrictions. Albertans won't need to show proof of their vaccination to eat in restaurants or get into venues; some capacity limits are removed; masks mandates for schools will be removed Monday.

Kenney addressed the blockade in the news conference, calling it an inconvenience that's hurting business across the province.

"I've said consistently we welcome the freedom of people to protest lawfully and peaceful, but this is not a lawful protest," Kenney said. "This and other road blockages constitute a safety hazard a serious interference in the lives of others."

Roughly 150,000 trucks pass through the Sweet Grass-Coutts border crossing each year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The nearest border crossing to the east adds about two hours of travel to a trip; the nearest crossing to the west adds about an hour.

Many Ottawans are at their 'breaking point'

In Ottawa, the police department has requested additional resources from Mayor Watson so it can better deal with the unrest.

"We have been 100% full out on this for the last 10 days straight, and we will not rest until it's done, but we need more help," Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly said Monday.

Sloly has been pushing all three levels of government for "whatever they can bring to bear on the permanent, sustainable, lawful, safe resolution of this demonstration," he said, adding that many Ottawans are at their "breaking point."

"This is crushing for those residents and their businesses," he said. "It has to stop, and we are doing everything we can possibly do to stop it. We need more help; we're asking for that help; and we're starting to receive that help, but we need more to get this done."

In letters the mayor wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada's minister of safety and Ontario's premier and solicitor general, he asked for additional officers "to quell the insurrection that the Ottawa Police Service is not able to contain."

Police have opened more than 60 criminal investigations linked to the protests and 23 arrests have been made. Charges include mischief, flight from police and menacing. More than 1,300 tickets have been issued for violations ranging from excessive noise and use of fireworks to driving a motor vehicle on a sidewalk.

'It's unclear how this ends,' mayor says

Trudeau on Monday acknowledged protesters had a right to voice their concerns but said residents do not deserve to be harassed in their own neighborhoods.

"This pandemic has sucked for all Canadians, but Canadians know the way to get through it is continuing to listen to science, continuing to lean on each other, continuing to be there for each other," he said after underscoring that Canadians are tired of COVID-19 health restrictions.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, Dilkens, the Windsor mayor, said Canada is a Democratic society, where protesting is acceptable.

"But blocking off the busiest border crossing between our two nations is not ok. So how do we get at least a lane of traffic open in each direction to allow trucks to continue to flow to get goods to market in the U.S.?" Dilkens said.

Dilkens added that he's not sure what protesters' "end game" is.

"It has gathered a head of steam, yes, with folks who are feeling upset about vaccine restrictions or mandates, having to wear a mask," Dilkens said. "But it's also been a gathering point and rallying cry for many who are just angry with government in general. And so it is unclear how this ends, and what would make everyone happy so that they go away and stop protesting. We're not sure."

Marie-Philip Poulin capped a three-goal run by scoring on a penalty shot with 2:35 left in the second period, and Canada upended the defending Olympic champion United States 4-2 on Tuesday to claim the women's hockey tournament's top seed entering the playoff round.

Barring a major upset, the two global hockey powers are expected to meet once more in the gold-medal final next week.

In a fierce rivalry dating to before the women's first Olympic tournament at the 1998 Nagano Games, and won by the Americans, the U.S. and Canada put on yet another entertaining show at the Beijing Games in a fast-paced outing, with both teams trading leads.

Brianne Jenner scored twice, Poulin had a goal and assist and Jamie Lee Rattray also scored for Canada, which improved its Olympic record to 6-3 against the U.S. Anne-Renee Desbiens stopped 51 shots.

Alex Carpenter and Dani Cameranesi scored for the Americans. Maddie Rooney stopped 23 shots in getting her second start of the tournament. She's the most experienced of America's trio, and backstopped the U.S. in the 2018 gold medal-winning game, but missed last year's world championships while recovering from an injury.

Canada (4-0) and the U.S. (3-1) are the tournament's top seeds, and combined to out-score each of their first three opponents by a margin of 47-5. Their quarterfinal matchups won't be set until Finland plays Denmark to determine the Group B standings later in the day.

The game turned in Canada's favor after Cameranesi, who converted her own rebound, and Carpenter, with a backhander on the power play, scored about two minutes apart to put the Americans up 2-1 with 11:34 remaining in the second period.

The Canadians answered 26 seconds later with Sarah Nurse's spin-around backhand pass setting up Jenner for a one-timer in front. Rattray scored the go-ahead goal 2:25 later by tapping in Natalie Spooner's centering pass.

The wheels fell off for the Americans while pressing for the tying goal on the power play. Poulin intercepted Jincy Dunne's pass across the blue line and took off on a breakaway. Poulin's shot was stopped by Rooney, but the Canadian captain was awarded a penalty shot with Cayla Barnes called for hooking.

Poulin, dubbed "Captain Clutch" for scoring Olympic gold-medal-clinching goals in 2010 and 2014, came in from the left side and while driving across the crease flicked the puck inside left post with Rooney already moving the other way.

In out-shooting the Canadians 53-27 overall, the Americans had their share of chances but continued having difficulty finishing, similar to a 5-0 win over the Russian team on Saturday in which the U.S. had a 62-12 shot edge. The U.S. power play unit converted only one of six chances.

The struggles were readily apparent in the opening period, when the Americans had a 14-2 edge in shots before Canada opened the scoring on Jenner's power-play goal 14:10 in. Poulin began the play at the top of the left circle by feeding the puck down low to Sarah Fillier, who immediately centered it to Jenner for a tap-in.

The Americans are the defending Olympic champions following a 3-2 shootout win in 2018, ending Canada's four-tournament run of titles. The Canadians are the defending world champions following a 3-2 overtime win in August, which ended the U.S.'s five-tournament run of titles.

Canada played its third game minus second-line forward Melodie Daoust, who is listed as day to day after being hurt in a tournament-opening 12-1 win over Switzerland. The U.S. is expected to add Britta Curl to its lineup later this week to replace Brianna Decker, who broke her left ankle in the tournament-opening 5-2 win over Finland.

Referee Cianna Lieffers left the game 1:35 into the second period after being struck in the face by American player Amanda Kessel's stick. Lieffers returned later in the period.

OTTAWA, Canada — Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, tested positive for COVID-19.

He made the announcement on Twitter on Monday.

He wrote, “This morning, I tested positive for COVID-19. I’m feeling fine – and I’ll continue to work remotely this week while following public health guidelines.”

Trudeau encouraged everyone to get vaccinated and boosted.

The news comes after one of the Prime Minister’s children had tested positive for Covid on Friday.

Trudeau has been in isolation since Thursday.

He told The Canadian Press Friday that he felt fine and had no symptoms.

He had tested negative that day.

Trudeau and his family have been quarantined in an undisclosed location since Saturday, following anti-vaccine mandate protests in Ottawa.

Netflix is raising prices for its video streaming customers in the U.S. and Canada, less than a year and a half after its last price increase.

The move comes as competition from other streaming services ramps up.

The company said Friday that prices are going up depending on the plan. The "standard" plan that most people subscribe to is increasing by $1.50, to $15.50. The Canadian version is going up by the same amount in their local currency, to $16.50 Canadian dollars.

Price increases are becoming more of a regular feature at Netflix, which is facing saturation in the U.S. market. Of Netflix's 213.5 million subscribers, some 74 million are in the U.S. and Canada.

Netflix received an influx of global subscribers early in the pandemic, but is investing in video games as it looks beyond movies and TV for growth.

In the U.S., Netflix's most expensive plan is increasing and the platform's basic plan is up too. The plans vary based on options like the number of screens users can watch Netflix on at the same time and the number of phones or tablets that can download content.

The company still mails out DVDs in a service that requires a separate plan.

Netflix will tell customers by email and inside the Netflix app before the new price is applied to them. Customers in New York, Alabama and Louisiana also got hit with a new local sales tax bill, which Netflix says was because of the addition of video games to the service.

Raising prices carries the risk that people will cancel. Netflix remains the dominant U.S. streaming service, but others, such as HBO Max and Disney+, have increased in popularity.

This story was originally published by Dave Briggs of Newsy, and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

HIGHGATE, Vt. — For Jason Gagne, maple syrup is more than a topping. It's a lifestyle.

"It's not just for pancakes anymore," he said.

Gange runs his family farm, Gange Maple, and he's right. The use of maple has expanded.

"People use it in baking, cooking, they love it in their drinks at night," he said. "You can put it anywhere."

For Gagne and thousands of other maple producers in the Northeast, that expansion happened rapidly during the pandemic.

"COVID found that more people were eating maple syrup at home," Gagne said. "When the restaurants all closed, the consumption of maple syrup went up."

Gagne says demand went up about 25% — and it's up everywhere.

The Québec Maple Syrup Producers (QMSP) recently released around 50 million pounds of maple syrup from its strategic reserve in November to try and keep up with demand.

"Demand for maple syrup has been booming in 2020 and 2021," the QMSP said in a statement. "Businesses, noting the average-only harvest in Canada and the United States, responded by increasing their orders, necessitating QMSP's withdrawals from the Reserve."

Experts in the American maple industry say the country won't run out of syrup any time soon.

"There's still plenty of maple syrup to go around, there's not really a shortage of maple syrup," Gagne said.

Experts say tapping into a strategic reserve is pretty normal for agriculture economies.

"Typically, these reserves are in place in order to balance supply and demand and pricing," said Jack Buffington, who runs the supply chain program at the University of Denver. "A lot of times in agriculture and farming, it relates to pricing,"

Buffington says specific food shortages likely aren't as serious as they may seem, unlike the shortages affecting some other commodities.

"There's some commodities where this really matters: Oil semiconductors, aluminum, copper. Commodities that are critical," Buffington said. "This is really the lifeblood of how our supplies chains work."

Maple may not move the needle on a national level, but it's the heartbeat of the economy for thousands of producers in the Northeast and their families.

"The family's been making maple syrup pretty much as long as anybody can remember, from my grandfather and going back to his parents," Gange said. "We've grown from when we started here from maybe 1,500 trees that we tap, and now we have over 22,000 here."

Gange knows farmers don't farm for the money. They do it because they love what they do.

BLAINE, Wash. — Along America’s border with Canada, communities straddle two nations and businesses cater to two peoples.

“They come down to do a little shopping,” said Michael Jones, city manager of Blaine, Washington. “People come down for the weekend, for the day.”

They did that, until COVID put the brakes on it.

“I think the impact has been underappreciated,” Jones said.

Blaine is one of those border communities and home to the Peace Arch, a century-old symbol of America’s friendship with its northern neighbor.

“We are right on the edge of the Vancouver metro area, which is about three million people,” Jones said. “That's our nearest city. It's literally just a half a mile up the street, and all of a sudden we can't go there and they can't come here.”

For the past 20 months, COVID restrictions at the land border meant nonessential travel suddenly became a no-go. In Blaine, which relies heavily on Canadian visitors and Americans heading into Canada, gas tax revenue plummeted 80% and sales tax revenue dropped by a quarter.

“It affected the city's tax base substantially, which affected our ability to serve our citizens,” Jones said. “It essentially means one worker full-time all year with supplies and equipment to do things like fill potholes and stripe streets.”

Blaine is home to the busiest land border crossing between the U.S. and Canada, west of the Mississippi River. In the year before the pandemic, there were nearly four million personal vehicles that crossed through there—personal travel that proved difficult because of COVID restrictions until now.

As the U.S. lifts those restrictions at its borders for the fully vaccinated, there is hope things will start to improve.

However, some say the strain in relations between the U.S. and Canada might take longer to recover.

“Coming out of the restrictions, we are not at all aligned, which is particularly problematic for the land border,” said Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University.

She said because Canadians are still requiring a negative COVID test to enter or return through the land border -- but the U.S. is not -- shows the relationship between the two countries still needs work.

“We went into this crisis with pretty poor Canada-U.S. relations. The Trump administration and the Trudeau administration were not friendly to each other,” Trautman said. “I think they're not as good as many Canadians had anticipated they would be when the Biden administration came in place. You know, we have pipeline issues and other sort of ‘buy American’ initiatives that aren't particularly friendly to Canadians.”

Yet, it’s a friendship that border communities like Blaine are counting on, to help them thrive once again.

“We are ready and excited to have our Canadian friends and neighbors come south,” Jones said. “And, frankly, I'm anxious to go to Canada. I'm ready for them to reciprocate and open their border without testing.”

It’s a move the Canadians have not made yet and it is unclear when they might, leaving one final hurdle of COVID’s legacy at the northern border.

BLAINE, Wash. — In between two border checkpoints, for two nations, sits one monument: the Peace Arch.

“The park is a solace,” said Christina Winkler. “It's a refuge.”

Inscribed at the top are the words “Children of a Common Mother.” It’s a reminder of the close ties between the U.S. and Canada.

Those ties also bind the people here.

“My dad was from England. My mom was from Vancouver, BC and they came to America to raise their babies,” said Winkler, who is president of the International Peace Arch Association. “I arrived when I was three days old. Been here ever since.”

Winkler lives in Blaine, Washington, right near the border. For her and many here, COVID wreaked havoc on the land border crossing and their lives.

“What we have been through with the border closure and these families is really unimaginable,” she said.

It was also unimaginable to those whose business is the border.

“It was so heavily restricted that it was closed to the vast majority of people that would typically cross it,” said Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University.

Trautman said border communities on the U.S. side, which tend to be smaller, more rural and rely heavily on Canadian visitors, have been hit hard.

“It was pretty staggering, especially things like the gas tax. Communities here that are adjacent to the border can put in an additional fuel tax, and that really drew on Canadians who would come over and fill up their tanks when they were going shopping,” Trautman said.

She added that border communities felt ignored by both the U.S. and Canadian governments.

“I don't think that people in borderline communities were really heard by either administration and particularly by the White House,” Trautman said. “We need a land border. That's how we're tied together and that's how we've evolved together.

Amid all the restrictions at the border, though, something unexpected happened at Peace Arch Park, a renewed purpose.

Because of its unusual location, spanning both sides of the border, it’s become a place where people can come in from both countries and meet one another freely, as long as they don’t venture beyond the park’s borders.

“I have been brought to tears many times,” Winkler said. “I have seen people see their grandbabies for the first time after a year and a half.”

It’s all thanks to a park with a special arch, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Its builders came back from World War I and survived the Spanish Flu pandemic, before finally finishing the arch in 1921.

They left behind one last message inscribed within it: “May these gates never be closed.”

“If they can go through a war and a pandemic and come home and survive tough, tough times and leave us, their children, a beautiful gift like this, I think it's a great place for us to start,” Winkler said.

The hope now is that any step at the border towards a return to normalcy is a step in the right direction so that the gates remain open for a century more and beyond.

POINT ROBERTS, Wash. — On a small peninsula of five square miles in the Pacific Northwest, rainy days are nothing new.

It’s a gloom of a different kind that is engulfing those who live Point Roberts, Washington.

"No one's paying attention to a damn thing in Point Roberts, and that's wrong," said Brian Calder of the Point Roberts Chamber of Commerce.

The peninsula in Washington state sits surrounded by water on three sides and is separated from the rest of America by the Canadian border.

It's never been an issue until COVID-19 closed the land border to most travel last year.

"Our population has gone from like 1,200, which wasn't huge to begin with, down to about 800," Calder said.

We first met Calder last year, when we reported on what Point Roberts was going through with the border closure. There is no car ferry, though there is a grass airstrip on the peninsula, but there is no control tower and no regular flights.

So, what's changed since then?

"Nothing,” Calder said. “Nothing except lockdown and more punitive, more human suffering, more economic devastation."

For a community that normally relies on a constant stream of thousands of Canadian visitors doing day trips, the economic impact from the border closure isn't hard to find.

"It's been devastating for all the restaurants on the point," said Tamra Hansen, owner of the Saltwater Café.

The café closed because there simply wasn’t enough business available without Canadians coming into town.

"I can't blame the locals. They've supported me as much as they can through this whole pandemic,” Hansen said. “And I appreciate that. It's just not enough."

Inside the Point Roberts International Marketplace, there is more bad news for the town's lone supermarket.

"Last week was our worst week ever in the history of the store being here," said owner Ali Hayton. "The last two months have been really, really hard. There have been days I looked at sales and just thought, 'I don't know how we're going to keep doing this.'"

Hayton said they are holding out hope the border reopening on November 8 might help.

Yet, it comes with its own set of issues, including how Canada will still require mandatory COVID-19 testing for Canadians who visit and then return home.

"Nobody's going to do a $150 test to come down and put gas in the car and buy a gallon of milk," Hayton said.

People in Point Roberts are hoping the Canadian government will create a COVID-19 testing exemption for their community, but so far, that hasn't happened. In the meantime, they say more American help from federal, state and local governments is needed.

"From day one, we've always said, 'We don't want help, we just want our customers back,'” Hayton said, “but at this point, we've got such a huge hole to dig out of that, you know, we're going to take that help if it comes."

It’s a community now waiting to see if the tide may start to turn there.

TORONTO — Canada is introducing a contact tracing smartphone app that will notify Canadians of exposure to the new coronavirus.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the app will be voluntary and that if someone tests positive, other users who have the app and have been in proximity will then be alerted they’ve been exposed to someone who has tested positive.

Trudeau says that the government will not collect any data from the app and users won't need to enable location services in order to use it.

Governments around the world have been turning to smartphone technology to help battle fresh virus flare-ups as they ease lockdown restrictions. But technical problems and privacy concerns have dogged the development of virus tracing apps.

Watch the video above for more on this story.

A woman in British Columbia, Canada, is thanking her lucky stars.

Earlier this month, a meteorite hurtling toward Earth crashed into Ruth Hamilton's home.

Moments before the impact, she was awoken by her dog barking. The next thing she knew, there was a loud crash.

"And all of a sudden there was an explosion," Hamilton told CTV News Vancouver. Hamilton then jumped out of bed, turned on the lights and went to inspect the commotion.

That's when she noticed a fist-sized hole in her ceiling, right above where she had been fast asleep.

After calling 911, she looked around her bed, flipping over her pillow. Then she saw it; a smooth, angular chunk of black rock.

"I didn’t feel it," Hamilton said. "It never touched me. I had debris on my face from the drywall, but not a single scratch."

Police arrived on the scene, questioning Hamilton and a nearby construction crew, the latter of which told authorities they had seen a "bright ball in the sky," before the impact.

A group of researchers from the University of Calgary and Western University inspected Hamilton's home to look for more details about the space rock.

Later in the week, they opened their investigation to the rest of Golden, the town in British Columbia where Hamilton lives. The team eventually found a second rock weighing a little more than a pound in the northeast part of town.

"We’re trying to reconstruct what the path was through the sky as it arrived," Phil McCausland, a geophysicist at Western University, said. "Because it’s scientifically even more valuable if we can reconstruct what the orbit was before it hit the Earth. It gives us an idea of where it came from."

The research team is pleading with people in the area to come forward with any other pieces of evidence of a meteorite impact.

Hamilton loaned the meteorite that almost killed her to Western University to photograph, weigh, measure, and to potentially take a sample of it. She expects to get it back by Nov. 30.

Officials say that hundreds of meteorites strike the Earth's surface every year. However, it's rare for the space rocks to land in areas that are easily recoverable.

"The number one misconception is that they’re hot when they land," Herd said, adding that they begin cooling some 10 to 15 miles up in the atmosphere. "Mrs. Hamilton’s bed didn’t catch fire."

Experts say that the chances of a meteorite landing in your home are astronomical. Specifically, about 1 in 4 trillion.

When asked if she plans to buy a lottery ticket, she laughed, then replied:

"I won the lottery. I won it, I’m alive. I’m laughing about it. I feel pretty blessed."

CTV News Vancouver contributed to this report.

TORONTO (AP) — The Canadian government says that passengers must have a negative COVID-19 test taken within three days before they arrive in the country.

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Wednesday the measure will be implemented in the next few days.

According to public health minister Bill Blair, there will be more border officials at Canada’s ports of entry to ensure those arriving understand the new rules.

Canada already requires those entering the country to self-isolate for 14 days.

The decision came a day after the premier of Canada's largest province said he had ordered his finance minister to end a Caribbean vacation, saying he is "extremely disappointed" the official went abroad at a time the government is urging people to avoid nonessential travel because of the pandemic.

According to The Associated Press, Ontario's finance minister Rod Phillips resigned from his position Thursday after going on a vacation to the island of St. Barts during the pandemic and seemingly trying to hide the fact by sending social media posts showing him in a sweater before a fireplace.

The AP reported that Ontario Premier Doug Ford accepted Phillips’s resignation as minister hours after Phillips returned home.

On President Joe Biden’s first day in office, the newly-minted president “disappointed” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Biden signed an executive order to revoke the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Keystone pipeline has been a major political issue on both sides of the border for the last decade. Currently, a pipeline extends from Alberta all the way to the Gulf Coast, with several refineries along the way.

TC Energy has attempted to build a larger, more direct pipeline from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Nebraska. TC Energy says the Keystone XL pipeline would be capable of delivering 830,000 barrels of crude oil per day from Hardisty to Steele City. President Barack Obama held up the permit's approval in 2015, but President Donald Trump allowed the project to move forward after his inauguration.

TC Energy says that the pipeline would create 13,200 jobs, with 10,400 being in the US and 2,800 being in Canada.

While Trudeau welcomed that the US would rejoin the Paris Agreement, revoking the permit will cost Canadian jobs, Trudeau said.

“Workers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and across Canada will always have our support. Canada is the single-largest supplier of energy to the United States, contributing to U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness, and supporting thousands of jobs on both sides of the border,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau said he previously spoke to Biden about the pipeline.

“I spoke directly with President Biden about the project last November, and Ambassador Hillman and others in our government made the case to high-level officials in the incoming administration,” he said.

Like in the US, the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline is hotly-debated in Canada. Environmental activists have largely opposed the pipeline’s construction. The pipeline’s construction has drawn opposition from many Native American and First Nations leaders.

Despite Trudeau’s disappointment, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Biden’s first phone call with a head of state as president will be with Trudeau on Friday.

FRANKSVILLE — Three Republican Wisconsin Congressmen joined the backlash against the White House's decision to halt the Keystone pipeline project, claiming that "hundreds" of Wisconsin workers are losing their jobs as the massive and controversial construction project ground to a halt this week.

The decision to revoke the permit allowing construction of Keystone XL was one of the first executive orders signed by incoming President Joe Biden, leading to praise from environmental groups but heavy criticism from proponents of the oil and gas project, including three of Wisconsin's representatives in Congress.

Friday's press briefing at a Michels Corporation jobsite, a national construction contractor headquartered in Brownsville, Wis., was attended by Republican Reps. Bryan Steil, Glenn Grothman and newly elected Scott Fitzgerald. Michels is a subcontractor of TC, the Calgary-based company building the pipeline.

Watch the press briefing here:

Over 1,000 jobs connected to the Keystone project will be eliminated in the coming weeks, Keystone XL President Richard Prior said earlier this week. "Hundreds" of those jobs being eliminated are held by Wisconsin workers, the Republican Congressmen claimed Friday.

"I find his decision disgusting. Hundreds of Wisconsin workers lost their jobs because of what Joe Biden did. He needs to reconsider this action and put Wisconsin workers back to work," Rep. Steil told reporters.

A general manager for Michels at the briefing also said that hundreds of workers have been laid off, and "a lot of them live in Wisconsin."

The Keystone pipeline was to stretch 1,700-miles between Alberta, Canada and the Texas Gulf Coast, cutting through the states of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma. The pipeline was planned to carry about 800,000 barrels of oil a day.

Rep. Grothman focused on the potential repercussions of the decision on the U.S.'s largest trading partners and neighbors, Canada and Mexico.

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"It is so important we have good relations with the both of them," Grothman said. "I'm sure Canada thought this was a done deal. This is part of their economic development. And on day one, Biden comes out of the chute and pops Canada right in the face. Amateur night at the White House, I'll tell you that."

The pipeline was first proposed in 2008, and soon became a symbol of the tensions between economic development that relies on traditional sources of energy like gas and oil, and the effort to curb fossil fuel emissions causing climate change.

Former President Barack Obama shot down the proposal for the pipeline. Former President Donald Trump revived it.

Rep. Fitzgerald used his several minutes at the press briefing to call for a legislative push to revoke President Biden's executive order shutting the pipeline down.

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"I'm hopeful not only by being here today but I think other elected officials - whether at the state legislative level or in Congress - that is where the answer is to reverse this," he said. Fitzgerald also called on Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin to urge the White House to reverse the decision.

Critics of the pipeline say that operations in Alberta's oil sands increase greenhouse gas emissions and threaten the province's environment. But Rep. Steil said those fears are overblown.

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"The environmental concerns are very misleading to a lot of people," Steil said. "The oil and gas are still going to be transported into the United States of America. It's going to be done by rail - a less efficient way of moving gas, with greater risk to the environment from rail accidents."

Tribal and environmental groups applauded Biden's decision.

“This is a vindication of 10 years defending our waters and treaty rights from this tar sands carbon bomb," Dallas Goldtooth, a member of the Mdewakanton Dakota and Dine nations, told The Guardian. "I applaud President Biden for recognizing how dangerous KXL is for our communities and climate and I look forward to similar executive action to stop DAPL and Line 3 based on those very same dangers."

Outside of the statements from the Wisconsin legislators, it is unconfirmed how many Wisconsin workers will lose their jobs in connection to the cancellation of the Keystone pipeline.

This article was written by Jackson Danbeck for WTMJ.