Canada’s Health Agency Levied Quarantine Fines of Over $61,000 a Day on Cross-Border Travellers: Federal Records

A passenger is screened and gets a COVID-19 test while entering Canada from the United States at the land border crossing in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que. on Feb. 22, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Paul Chiasson)

Federal records show that the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) imposed quarantine fines at a rate of over $61,000 a day on cross-border travellers from January to August.

The fines were disclosed in an Inquiry of Ministry presented in the Commons by Tory MP Eric Duncan, with most travellers being fined $5,000 at a time, totalling nearly $14.9 million during the eight months.

Fines totalled $14,886,750 over the 243-day period, the equivalent of $61,262 a day, according to Blacklock’s Reporter, which obtained the records.

A total of 3,614 tickets were issued against travellers who breached the federal quarantine rules, with most at land borders, from Jan. 1 to Aug. 31.

Of the tickets issued, the largest portion came from those who were entering Canada without proof of a negative COVID-19 test (45 percent). The “refusal to answer relevant questions asked by an Agency officer” constituted 36 percent, while those who refused to complete a second test on arrival made up 6 percent. Three percent were travellers who tried to enter the country with fake or invalid test results.

The fines, averaging about $1.38 million a month for the first half of the year, surged to over $2.6 million in July, followed by another spike to nearly $4 million in August. According to the records, the amounts excluded provincial taxes and surcharges.

“While the Public Health Agency works closely with local law enforcement and receives data on most enforcement activities taken under the Quarantine Act, police services are not required to send enforcement information to the Agency,” cabinet wrote in the Inquiry of Ministry, in response to Duncan’s request.

“As such there may be enforcement activities not reflected in Agency data.”

‘Missing or Unable to Match’

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada reported last December that the PHAC spent $614 million between March 2020 and August 2021 to administer border measures, but with incomplete data.

“We found that the agency was missing or unable to match 30 percent of COVID-19 test results to incoming travellers from February to June 2021,” the auditors wrote in “Report 15—Enforcement of Quarantine and COVID-19 Testing Orders—Public Health Agency of Canada.”

“In addition, the agency did not set up an automated system to track whether travellers who were ordered to quarantine at authorized hotels did so. The agency had records to verify hotel stays for only 25 percent of incoming air travellers.”

A breakdown of the $614 million spent includes $65 million for 14-day quarantine orders, $342 million for COVID-19 testing orders, $7 million to operate government-authorized hotels, and $200 million to house incoming travellers at designated quarantine facilities, the report said.