House Committee Hears Impacts of ArriveCan App on Canadian Industries

A smartphone set to the opening screen of the ArriveCan app is seen in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini)

Mandatory use of the ArriveCan mobile app for travellers during the pandemic increased burdens on Canada’s border officers and discouraged tourism while causing significant losses to businesses, several witnesses told a parliamentary committee studying the matter.

“During COVID, we lost two tourism years. And unfortunately, we lost another tourism year this year. Two years we could blame on COVID; this year ... it was self-inflicted,” said Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli during a meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on International Trade on Sept. 27.

“We’ve been advocating for months that [ArriveCan] and the restrictions at the border be removed joining the over 60 other countries that are out there ending the restrictions at the border—why did it take this government so long,” he added.

The committee is looking into the potential impacts of the ArriveCan app on certain Canadian industries.

Mark Weber, national president for the Customs and Immigration Union (CIU), which represents personnel working for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), said ArriveCan created delays at the border while contributing “very little” to security.

“As far as border officers are concerned, the last months have shown that ArriveCan fails to facilitate cross-border travel while doing very little to address the severe gaps in border security that are plaguing our country,” he said.

Weber told the committee that border officers “across the country” are relieved that the app will no longer be mandatory come Oct. 1.

“I know with great certainty that none of them imagine that the best use of a trained law enforcement officer would be to provide IT support due to really an ill-designed app that failed to take into account the idiosyncrasies at our borders,” he said.

Weber was one of several witnesses invited to testify before the House committee on Sept. 27. Other witnesses that spoke were Barbara Barrett, executive director for the Frontier Duty-Free Association, Douglas Lovegrove, president of Osella Technologies Inc., and Kenneth Bieger, CEO for the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission.

‘Symbol for the Problem’

The ArriveCan app was initially introduced to ensure travellers arriving by land and air report their COVID-19 vaccination status and provide pre-departure test results to the CBSA. But its scope was expanded as a digitized border arrival tool, allowing people flying into Canada in certain airports to use it to fill out their customs and immigration forms rather than complete the paper version.

On Sept. 26, the Liberals announced that the government will not renew an order-in-council regarding travel mandates that is set to expire on Sept. 30, therefore ending the mandatory use of the ArriveCan app. The government is also removing all federal testing, quarantine and isolation requirements, and mandatory submission of health information through ArriveCan.

Lovegrove, whose company is located near Windsor, Ont., said his business, which heavily relies on customers from the United States, was severely impacted by the app.

“Up until just maybe a week or so ago, when we started hearing about the removal of a mandate for ArriveCan, it’s felt like the government has had their foot on my throat,” he told the committee. 

While defending the ArriveCan app and his Party’s pandemic response measures, Liberal MP James Maloney said Lovegrove’s remarks were “unfair.”

“When you make statements like ’the government has had its foot on your throat,' I think that’s a little bit unfair because ... you’re talking about staffing shortages and COVID restrictions,” Maloney said.

“The border was closed for almost two years—that had nothing to do with vaccination, certainly had nothing to do with the ArriveCan, it had everything to do with the pandemic.”

“The problem is, as I see it, is everybody blends all of these [issues] together and ArriveCan becomes the symbol for the problem. When really, it’s a solution to a lot of problems at the border.”

Maloney said that while ArriveCan has been subjected to criticism for causing delays and affecting business negatively, he thinks that those who criticize the app do so “largely because they were personally inconvenienced.”

In response, Lovegrove said about a third of his customers who are fully vaccinated have no problem with using the technology, but that about another third, who are fully vaccinated U.S. citizens, “fundamentally take issue with having a foreign government application on their work phone or on their personal phone.”

The remaining one-third of his customers, who Lovegrove said may not be vaccinated, had trouble travelling to Canada due to the restrictions.

“Up until just a week ago, it sounded like those folks were going to become lepers and there was just nowhere for them to go, and I was unfortunately never going to be able to do business with them,” Lovegrove said.

“We’re talking million dollar contracts on a regular basis—I need that interaction with those people at our facility,” he said.

Bieger, CEO of the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission, testified that the many issues surrounding the ArriveCan app and COVID-19 restrictions “go hand in hand.”

“If you didn’t have the vaccination requirements, you wouldn’t need the ArriveCan,” he said.