Various covid certificates for vaccinations done in Canada

Travel to Europe is possible with various special requirements depending on the destination. Where required, the airline or bordere guards will want to see a regular human-readable proof of a recent negative test or vaccination. In other words, they do not rely exclusively on digital certificates and should be fine with a printed copy of whatever PDF you got or some other documents with the details about the vaccine (type, date, etc.) and the signature from a doctor/nurse.

Once you are in Europe, many countries are currently putting new restrictions on access to museums, long-distance transportation, restaurants, etc. in place For that purpose, anything else than a digitally signed certificate will create problems (it's either explicitely required or expected by the staff). Canadian certificates won't readily work for that and are not interoperable with the EU Digital Covid certificate.

There are provision in EU law for EU countries to issue such a certificate based on proof of vaccination abroad but in practice this is still quite difficult (physical presence or EU citizenship is required, no easy online solution). Several governments indicated they were working on better solutions, see Are there countries that allow tourists to obtain the EU vaccination certificate? for an up-to-date overview.

Beyond that, there are some ad hoc bilateral initiative to recognise vaccinations outside the EU system (e.g. with NHS certificates in France) but none with Canada as far as I know. In principle, you can also get tested regularly to get an EU certificate as needed.

Based on the images shown in the Ontario article below (and may now be outdated), these PDF will probably not work directly with the checking applications.

Canadian officials say a vaccine passport will be coming as travel restrictions lift and COVID-19 cases fall. No details have been revealed about what that will look like or when it will be instated.

Here the question is open what solution will be made available and whether it will be designed to work alongside the EU Digital COVID Certificate QR-Code.

We know that the UK QR-Code created by the NHS can be imported into the french TousAntiCovid application. Unfortunately the french article below doesn't mention if the QR-Code can be checked directly with the TousAntiCovid Verif application (or one of the other checking applications).

Actually, NHS certificates can be read by TousAntiCovid Verif, the government has been explicit about that. Importing it is not necessary and doesn't achieve anything

This means that the traveler does not need to 'convert' their certificate to an EU one, but can use it directly. This would the simplest solution for travelers.

See Are there countries that allow tourists to obtain the EU vaccination certificate? - Travel Stack Exchange for further information on this topic.

EU Digital COVID Certificate Check Applications

• France
  • TousAntiCovid Verif
• Germany
  • CovPassCheck
• Italy
  • VerificaC19
• Austria
  • GreenCheck [web app]
• Switzerland
  • Covid Certificate Check
• United Kingdom
  • NHS COVID Pass Verifier [geoblocked in Google Play]

(I don't know if a geoblocking exists for the EU applications)

Sources:

• 2021-06-15: Ontarians can download a PDF copy of their COVID-19 vaccination record | News
• 2021-07-22: NHS QR codes now compatible with France’s TousAntiCovid app