Feds Quietly Relax ArriveCAN App Requirements at the Border
The federal government quietly implemented a one-time ArriveCAN exception for travellers crossing into Canada by land — reports The National Post.
Every individual coming into Canada is required to provide their personal and vaccination information on the ArriveCAN app for their border crossing to be processed. However, border agents may excuse land travellers from the requirement, but for one time only.
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) spokesperson Judith Gadbois-St-Cyr said these “temporary” exemptions are intended to “provide more flexibility” for fully vaccinated travellers “who may have been unaware of the requirement to submit their mandatory health information via ArriveCAN.”
Ottawa originally made the change in May for Canadian citizens and permanent residents, as first uncovered by Radio-Canada. The federal government never announced the change and the CBSA website does not mention this either.
The leniency was extended to all foreign nationals, including Americans, in July. Last month, the CBSA said that up to 40% of travellers weren’t filling up the ArriveCAN app anyway.
“After this one-time exemption, fully vaccinated Canadian citizens, permanent residents and persons registered under the Indian Act who do not submit their information through ArriveCAN will be subject to quarantine and testing and may also face fines,” Gadbois-St-Cyr added.
Foreign nationals who don’t fill the app, on the other hand, will be denied entry into Canada. Numbers from the CBSA indicate that 308,800 travellers out of a total of 5,086,187 took advantage of this one-time exemption between May 24 and August 4.
According to Richard Savage, who heads the union that represents border workers, Ottawa’s stealthy rule change has reduced delays at the border. “The one-time mulligan has released our officers from being IT consultants almost 100% of their day to allowing them to go do the jobs that they’re trained to do,” he said.
Travellers who receive an ArriveCAN exemption at the border are informed that their one-time free pass will be recorded, so they cannot take advantage of it again. They are also provided with an information package explaining what ArriveCan is and how to fill it out.
The feds previously announced that the app will be mandatory through at least September 30. However, comments from Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino have suggested that Ottawa might keep it around as a pre-customs screening tool ever after the pandemic.
“That is honestly not a decision the government has made,” one government source told The National Post. “We’re currently weighing options before us in terms of what we can do with that long term.”
ArriveCAN has caught a lot of flak as of late, being accused of discouraging tourism and harming businesses in border communities.
Things didn’t get any better when the app sent erroneous quarantine orders to fully-vaccinated travellers last month. Some privacy experts have even questioned if ArriveCAN violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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This coming out, right after court documents showed Trudeau pushed through vax mandates without any supporting medical or scientific evidence shows just how useless he knows they are. Mandates were deployed as an election ploy to get votes from the covid-PTSD crowd. His gov was begging staff for any evidence they could provide to support mandates and none were willing or able to provide such evidence. Trudeau himself said he wouldn’t consider mandates because they would only created division and anger. Only once he remembered those were his key tools for winning elections did he suddenly decide they were needed and he needed to call an election with mandates as the central issue.
He literally made up a policy that he knew was useless and that he was previously against, fear mongered it into a wedge issue and successfully conditioned a terrified population that it was a necessary policy to save them from covid and that anyone against it was a deplorable that only cared about themselves. ArriveCAN built upon that foundation even more.
Canadians got played for fools.
I hear there’s another Freedom Convoy protest and a Trump rally being organized in your area folks hosted by Joe Rogan. Have you sent in your confirmation email you’ll be participating?
After this one-time exemption, fully vaccinated Canadian citizens,
permanent residents and persons registered under the Indian Act who do
not submit their information through ArriveCAN will be subject to
quarantine and testing and may also face fines,” Gadbois-St-Cyr added.
——
Face fines? So now you can get a criminal record for not having an app on your phone?
Did someone change the name of Canada to New China?
This app should either be optional or banned completely.
Given it does nothing to restrain covid spread, it serves no actual purpose. It is as useful as requiring travellers to pledge allegiance to the Trudeau family in order to enter Canada. Quicker, easier and equally useless.
Anyone that says “it’s easy so it’s ok for it to be mandatory” is completely missing the point. Easy isn’t a justification for mandatory.
100 percent!