The federal ArriveCan app is erroneously ordering Canadians who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 into mandatory quarantines, even though fully vaccinated travellers are supposed to be exempt from quarantine.
Quadruple vaccinated traveller David Crouch said that despite not testing positive for Covid-19 and having no symptoms, the application demanded he quarantined upon arrival to Canada.
“I checked my email and there’s an email from ArriveCan, saying you are quarantined. This is your second day of quarantine,” said Crouch.
“It seems to be all one way. They can tell you things, they can send you things, but God forbid you ever tried to get hold of anybody.”
Current federal mandates only require unvaccinated travellers entering Canada to quarantine for fourteen days.
Despite calls by the Conservatives to scrap the ArriveCan program altogether, the Liberal government has indicated that it is committed to making the app a permanent feature of Canadian travel.
“Use of ArriveCan is extremely high — according to our most recent statistics, it was successfully used by 99.52 per cent of those travelling by air and 89.20 per cent of those travelling by land,” said Public Safety Canada press secretary Audrey Champoux.
“While we are aware some travellers may have experienced some glitches, in cases where people have issues using the app, the CBSA’s top priority is always to help and educate, not be punitive.”
According to Crouch, the government sent him instructions asking for his quarantine information, which he has yet to fill out.
“ArriveCan has been a disaster for our community in terms of its impact on our tourism community,” said Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli, who represents the border community of Niagara Falls, Ont.
“Our two communities are highly integrated. So we’ve got a lot of people who, for example, will live here and work in the United States or live in the United States and work in Canada,” said Baldinelli.
