Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce Calls on Trudeau Government to Lift Remaining Border-Crossing Restrictions

“With the Chief Public Health Officer reporting declining COVID-19 indicators and as other pandemic-related restrictions have been removed across the country, we feel the time is right to re-evaluate Canada’s border crossings.”                                                         – Mishka Balsom, Executive Director, Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce

News from the Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce in Niagara, Ontario

Posted June 7^th, 2022 on Niagara At Large

GNCC requests lifting of border restrictions

Niagara, Ontario – The Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce (GNCC) has asked the Government of Canada to lift its remaining border restrictions.

“With the Chief Public Health Officer reporting declining COVID-19 indicators and as other pandemic-related restrictions have been removed across the country, we feel the time is right to re-evaluate Canada’s border crossings,” said GNCC CEO Mishka Balsom.

“Niagara’s tourism sector has essentially missed two seasons. Reserves are at an end. Economic recovery requires a strong 2022, and that requires a return of visitors from the United States and further afield. It is already June – a removal of onerous requirements such as the ArriveCAN app cannot come soon enough.”

The GNCC sent a letter to the Prime Minister, to the Ministers of Public Safety, Tourism, and Transport, to Premier Ford, and to Members of Parliament representing border communities. In that letter, the Chamber cited both the importance of the tourism sector to the economies of Niagara, Ontario, and Canada, and recent Statistics Canada data indicating the financial strain they are currently under.

“More than 40,000 local jobs depend on tourism,” added Balsom. “Continuing to hold this sector back will have dire consequences for the entire region. We have asked the Prime Minister to re-evaluate the border situation immediately, and we hope that will result in all remaining restrictions being lifted as soon as possible.”

The full letter can be downloaded here<https://gncc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2022-06-06-GNCC-border-reopening.pdf>.

The Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce is the voice of business in Niagara, the largest business organization in the region and the second-largest Chamber of Commerce in Ontario, with 1,500 members representing 50,000 employees. More information on the GNCC is available at gncc.ca<https://gncc.ca/>.

A Footnote from Doug Draper at Niagara At Large – Although it was not mentioned specifically, the lifting of remaining border-crossing restrictions should also apply to having to fill out and produce at border crossing sites an ArriveCan document, filled out by the individual crossing.

This absolutely inane document, that could only have been produced by a bureaucracy that the Trudeau government has allowed to go out of control, discriminates against virtually anyone who has not got a ‘Smart Phone’ to produce it at the border or a copy machine to do the same on paper.

And what does ArriveCan ask for? It wants to know where you crossed and how you are crossing the boarder in front of the same border security officer you are facing at a border crossing – as if that border security officer was so intellectually challenged that he can’t figure out that one for himself.

It also wants to know other information that the security officer can find in a split second by scanning your passport, including a vaccine passport you should have with you around any border crossing situation.

ArriveCan is a bureaucratic joke that is denying border crossing to many Canadians and it is disgusting that our federal MPs in Niagara and elsewhere in border regions are not demanding that it be deep sixed.

To visit the ArriveCan site, click on –https://www.canada.ca/en/border-services-agency/services/arrivecan.html .

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