The Canadian Liberal government has finally scrapped the ArriveCan app as well as mask and quarantine requirements for anyone travelling by plane or train.
“The results of border tests carried about at the Public Health Agency (of Canada) over the past months have indicated that importations of COVID cases and its variant no longer influence in a significant way the evolution of the pandemic in Canada,” said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.
Duclos further stated that COVID infections and hospitalizations are “largely explained by the domestic transmission of the virus.”
As of October 1, unvaccinated individuals will no longer be required to quarantine for 14 days upon entering Canada. No one will have to use the invasive ArriveCan app when traveling. And mask mandates are now scrapped while travelling on plans and trains.
The government left the door open to reinstate travel restrictions “should they be required in the future to protect Canadians from the importation of new variants of concern or other emerging public health threats.”
Numerous officials, mayors, and foreign politicians have complained about ArriveCan. Many Americans stopped coming to Canada to travel because the app gave them problems at the border, or they didn’t want to follow through with all of the app’s requirements.
On the issue of privacy, many people, organizations, and even the Privacy Commissioner, who’s had to launch a formal investigation into the app, say they’re concerned about the data harvested through the app and what the government is doing with it.
And despite its original purpose — to check one’s vaccination status to aid in supposedly stopping the spread of COVID — being long fulfilled, as everyone knows the vaccinated can get and spread COVID, the government decided to keep it well past the pandemic.
“ArriveCan was originally created for the purposes of COVID-19, but it has technological capacity beyond that to really shrink the amount of time that is required when you’re getting screened at the border,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said only months ago.
“So that’s the vision. [It] is really to utilize the platform to decrease the amount of time, so CBSA officers can really focus on the problem areas, like if you’re trying to smuggle a gun or trying to smuggle drugs.”
On Sunday, the app caused delays at the border for American emergency support crews who were crossing to help with Hurricane Fiona relief efforts.
