Trudeau Government’s Ongoing Drive to Discourage Travel at the Canada/U.S. Border

Justin and Company Continue to Shove Their Made-In-Ottawa AriveCAN B.S. Down Travellers’ Throats

A  Commentary by Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper

Posted September 6^th, 2022 on Niagara At Large

Those of you who have, over the years, been regular readers of my commentary may already know that I have a lot of issues with the record of Niagara Falls, Ontario Mayor Jim Diodati.

My issues with the mayor begin with his full-out support  a China Communist Government plan to build a commercial/residential complex around a host of provincially significant wetlands in Niagara Falls’ sprawling Thundering Waters Forest.

They continue with his nonsensical opposition to a proposal to designate the Niagara River as a globally recognized (RAMSAR) wetland of importance, and to not even be open with the public as to why he and a majority on his council oppose such a designation, and the list goes on.

But there is one issue I have to agree with Diodati on, and that is the Trudeau government’s efforts (intentional or not) to make it as difficult as possible for Americans to cross the border to Canada and to make it as difficult as possible for Canadians to cross back to their homes from the United States.

The Trudeau tool for discouraging cross-border crossing is something called AriveCan –an online APP that is not the easiest thing in the world to navigate and one that, once you fill out the form, you pretty well have to show up at the border with its content on a smart phone if you want to keep out of trouble with Canadian border officers.

What sort of trouble could you face if you don’t fill out the questions on the Arrive Can form properly and present them in an acceptable manner to border officers could arrange from being order to stay under quarantine in your home for up to 14 days to being charged with “an offence” (whatever that offence may be) under Canada’s Quarantine Act.

The questions in the Arrive Can document by the way, which must be filled out within at least 72 hours of crossing the border, including ones about your vaccination status and notice of when you will be crossing the border and when you will be going back.

The questions in the document are absolutely unnecessary since the border officers know the moment you pull up to their booths and they scan your Passport and key in your vehicle’s license plate number who you are and when you are entering or returning from either country. You can also be asked for your vaccine passports, informing the officer when and how man COVID shots you have had if the officer chooses to ask you for that information.

So this whole ArriveCAN business has all the markings of yet another make-work project for bureaucrats in Ottawa and suggests that neither they nor Trudeau and his dopey Transportation Minister – the “Honourable” Omar Alghabra – have much of a clue about how this ridiculous obstacle impacts on the lives of residents and the economies in border-area communities.

As well as wanting to know if Trudeau fills this damn thing out when he travels back and forth from other countries, and why he doesn’t much of a thing to say about provinces like Ontario dropping almost every safety measure for COVID in public schools and other places where people gather in large numbers, I think we should all demand to know what is the reason for continuing to impose this ArriveCAN obstacle when the Biden administration in the United States is not doing the same?

Could it be that the Trudeau government is receiving pressure from business interests in Canada to discourage Canadians from crossing the border to the U.S. to shop, vacation, attend sport and entertainment events, etc.?

I am left asking these questions because the ArriveCAN app, in and of itself, makes no real sense anymore, if  it ever did.

Meanwhile, Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati was featured on CBC radio and television news this past September 2^nd, making more sense on this subject than he has, in my view, on many others.

To watch and hear what Mayor Diodati had to say on this issue, click on the screen below –

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