The customs puzzle does not save traveling to the United States by land. The ArriveCAN application – mandatory for entry into Canada – lengthens the queues, criticizes the customs union. Several travelers are denouncing a system that quarantines them without good reason.
Nancy Prada breathed a sigh of relief last winter when the Canada-US border reopened to tourists like her. She began spending the weekends back at her cabin in Vermont, just behind the lines.
However, these are banal Traveling is no longer easy. Each time she has to fill out a health form in the ArriveCAN app. And the software fails. “Once in two”, this electronic survey imposes a 14-day quarantine despite a properly completed questionnaire. The application incorrectly assumes that she is not vaccinated against COVID-19 and therefore needs to isolate herself.
Once the user is registered as a quarantined patient, the form can no longer be filled out. This standoff complicates any new travel planning for two weeks. “Every two weeks, ArriveCAN puts us in quarantine,” she summarizes.
Paper proof of vaccinations and the forbearance of customs officials often allow for trouble-free border crossings. On the other hand, encountering a more finicky agent is enough to impose another quarantine. “Two weeks ago, Customs would not accept our declarations with the written proof of our request for technical assistance, nor would they see our paper vaccination certificate,” says Nancy Prada. She said it was up to us to fix the problem with ArriveCAN and she didn’t have to take care of the problem. »
Health Canada also shows flexibility and sometimes exonerates wrong patients. But when the rule is applied, forced isolation quickly becomes painful. A federal representative is calling every day to verify containment.
“The infected” must perform screening tests in front of a nurse via video conference and send her the swabs by mail. If in doubt, a control officer will knock on the door of the quarantine site to monitor solitude. “But I don’t have COVID-19,” insists Nancy Prada, upset by the treatment. “We have to quarantine for 14 days just because we were in the forest, on the edge of the lake, at home on the other side of the border and the ArriveCAN app is not working as it should, while people with COVID -19 are only 5 days in isolation. »
She points out that only the good faith of travelers guarantees the effectiveness of the measure, since a vaccinated, sick and lying person can easily pass through customs.
The technological conundrum
These technical hiccups particularly annoy older people who are less into electronics. Such is the case of Renée Joyal, an Estrie resident who often commutes between Magog and neighboring Vermont.
She doesn’t have a mobile phone and was surprised at customs for the first time. ” [Pour éviter la quarantaine], I would have to buy a phone in the United States, configure it and everything… Can you imagine that? »
She therefore had to isolate herself from “a question of formality”. On another trip, she tried to cross the border by submitting the required answers in advance and by computer. “When it came to shipping [le formulaire]That was annoying,” complains the pensioner.
The professional lawyer recalls that the quarantine was also imposed “under threat of a high fine”. “It really looks like electronic police surveillance. »
Nancy Prada’s octogenarian neighbors are going “crazy” with the app, she says. Without digital competence, they are thinking of selling their property because changing countries has become so complicated.
Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman Rebecca Purdy acknowledges that the app has some flaws, but says: [qu’il] There were no recent or widespread outages or critical incidents reported.”
For “travellers who […] mistakenly received notifications from ArriveCAN,” she assures.
A modernity that delays
Construction holidays start in weeks and queues to return to Canada could be longer than usual due to ArriveCAN, Customs and Immigration Union warns.
Its President Mark Weber criticized this application a few days ago before the Standing Committee on International Trade. “Where a border post used to handle 60 cars an hour, it now handles 30 or less. At land borders, in terms of operations with travelers, this means that cars wait for hours and are sometimes diverted to another, more distant post,” he pleaded.
Almost 25% of travelers do not fill out the application correctly, he said.
ArriveCAN is here “at least” until September 30th, the Public Health Agency of Canada confirmed last week.
No decision has yet been made on the long-term future of the application, nuanced the Office of Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino. Its communications director Alexander Cohen nevertheless emphasizes “the experience of crossing the border more easily and efficiently” with ArriveCAN. “According to our latest statistics […] Used by 94.10% of land travelers [cette application] with success. »
Since the isolation requirement for infected travelers began on March 25, 2020, more than 4,700,000 travelers have been quarantined entering Canada.