Chambers of Commerce in communities along the Canada-US border are adding their voice for the elimination of the ArriveCAN app.
Travellers to Canada are supposed to use it to document health and travel information to expedite crossing the border.
Fort Frances Chamber’s executive director Heather Johnson says it is having an impact on border numbers.
“People are just not willing to use it to come back and forth. Our tourism has gone down greatly. Our numbers of people arrive to take in the fishing and the resorts and everything Canada has to offer, that’s gone way down,” notes Johnson.
Johnson says the App’s use is also slowing down access through our land borders because of technical issues or American travellers unaware of its need.
“So even though you may have the ArriveCan app loaded on your phone, if you’re behind two other people in front of you, it can take you an hour to cross the border when you should be through in 5 minutes.”
The chambers say wait times at land border crossings have lengthened by up to two hours since 2019 despite traffic cut in half.
Some bridge authorities place blame on the ArriveCAN app.
Johnson adds the App is the remaining COVID measure still in place.
She says with others lifted long ago, its use is no longer necessary.
“Since virtually all mandates and vaccination requirements in Canada have been lifted, and with domestic transmission of all variants being recorded, we wonder if border restrictions are worth the economic cost right now. The app is also quite inflexible in its approach. Visitors have to complete a quarantine plan even if they are only coming for a few hours and would be back home before they started to show symptoms, for instance.”
