Good Riddance to Trudeau’s AriveCAN APP as a Badass and Very Costly Canada/U.S. Border-Crossing Blocker

Starting this October 1st, Trudeau’s Liberal Government  Has Finally Stopped Making Arrive Can APP Mandatory at our Border Bridges

“It has been two and a half long years of border restrictions between the United States and Canada. The extended measures have kept loved ones apart and kept border communities from reaching full economic recovery. The end of restrictions is overdue. Canada’s decision is the right one.”                                               – Brian Higgins, U.S. Congressman (Democrat) for the Buffalo/Niagara Falls, New York area

A News Commentary from Niagara At Large reporter and publisher Doug Draper

Posted October 2nd, 2022 on Niagara At Large

So here we finally are – longtime friends and neighbours in Canada and the United States  – finally able to cross border bridges to the Canadian side  without being blocked over a failure to fill out or properly fill out and download that glitch-riddled online ArriveCAN form.

It was and still is an online app (for those who know what an app is a still want to fill it out)  that, for more than a year and up to this September 40^th, border crossers had no choice but to fill out and show to Canadian border security officers, preferably on a smart phone that some of don’t have a don’t want. It was either that or face the very real possibility of not being allowed to cross, or to being ordered what many of us took to calling “house arrest” – quarantine in our homes for 14 days even if we were fully vaccinated and COVID free – and face the threat of paying a heavy fine or even serving some jail time if we were caught breaking the quarantine order.

Even if ArriveCAN served a purpose of reducing spread of the virus when it was launched in mid-2021, during some of the worst days of the COVID plague, Trodden and his Liberals continued imposing it on anyone crossing border bridges to Canada, even as COVID cases dropped significantly and other COVID requirements, even for mandatory mask wearing for commercial air travellers, where being dropped, and even as municipal leaders in border communities from the Atlantic provinces and states to those along the Pacific Ocean, continued to press Trudeau and his Liberal government minions to let Arrive Can go.

So on and on Trudeau and his ministers so stupidly and smugly went with ArriveCAN as a mandatory requirement – all through  this past summer season that saw border communities in Niagara, Ontario and the Buffalo, New York area and others like them across the continent continue to suffer the economic and social consequences of pandemic restrictions.

During a recent appearance on a CBC news program, long-time Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hebert recounted something she read from someone on Twitter, and I paraphrase- ‘Watching the Trudeau government drop the ArriveCAN requirement now is like watching a neighbor on your street finally take down their Christmas lights in July’.

Yet on and on and on Trudeau went imposing this ArriveCAN app on anyone wanting to cross the Peace Bridge or any other border landing to Canada, and our federal MP representatives here in Niagara- Chris Bittle in the St. Catharines Riding and Vance Badawey in the soon-to-be-gutted Niagara Centre Riding –were hardly profiles in courage when it came to saying that it was high time this APP went away.

For them, it was more like saying there must be other reasons residents in border communities still don’t want to cross. But one must wonder if it was more about not wanting to say anything or take a position that might upset their dear leader.

At the federal government level, one of the strongest voices we had in this Greater Niagara Region for dropping ArriveCAN as a mandatory requirement was Buffalo, New York area Congressman Brian Higgins, who is a Democratic on the Biden administration side but had the guts to speak out against this and other requirements on the U.S. side anyway.

In a recent statement, Higgins said – “It has been two and a half long years of border restrictions between the United States and Canada. The extended measures have kept loved ones apart and kept border communities from reaching full economic recovery. The end of restrictions is overdue. Canada’s decision is the right one. The U.S. should follow immediately.”

When Higgins mentions the U.S. following immediately, he is talking about U.S. border security guards asking those entering the United States at a border crossing like the Peace Bridge or Rainbow Bridge if they are fully vaccinated.

What I have heard from border crossers is that the question of vaccination is randomly asked and it is rare that crossers are asked to show proof of vaccination. And if that is all it is, and that is all it was for those crossing to the Canadian side, that makes a hell of a lot more sense than ArriveCAN.

Now let’s see how long it takes for businesses and residents and social and cultural life in our border communities to recover – no thanks to Trudeau and his minions.

• Doug Draper, Niagara At Large

Just one quick P.S. – For anyone who is wondering, this journalist has a record on this Niagara At Large news site of being a strong supporter for vaccination and all other reasonable measures for protecting ourselves and our communities from COVID-19. This prolonged ArriveCAN business is, in my view, quite another story and has more to say about evidence of arrogance and incompetence in the camp of Trudeau Liberals than anything else. Doug Draper

To read more on this issue, click on – https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/arrivecan-border-covid-end-1.6595710

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