International Trade Committee on Sept. 27th, 2022

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We have Mr. Maloney, please, for six minutes.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I just want to clarify something before I ask questions.

Mr. Baldinelli, not only was I at that meeting in Niagara Falls, I organized it. We met with many stakeholders.

I have a number of questions for the witnesses.

ArriveCAN has been subject to severe criticism. It's become a political football. The narrative around it is that it causes delay. It affects business in a negative way. In my experience—the people I'm hearing from—it's largely because they are personally inconvenienced because they are annoyed that they have to take five minutes and do something on their phone, which they didn't have to do before.

Madam, I'm going to start with something you said. You said the border won't return to normal until this weekend. Does that mean that you believe that with the lifting of the restrictions, specifically the removal of ArriveCAN, on Saturday life will go back to normal at the border?

[Barbara Barrett]

I would love that to be the case. I don't think that will be the case. I think habits have been changed now since the border has been closed for so long.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

That's what you said. You said it won't return to normal until this weekend.

[Barbara Barrett]

All the sticky points have been removed now, so there is now the potential for it to return to normal.

Will it be a floodgate of folks going over the border and will traffic go back to normal—

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. I have only limited time.

Here's where I take issue a bit with what you said. As I said to you offline, I use your store quite regularly and I'm using ArriveCAN coming back quite frequently too.

When people talk about ArriveCAN, what they're really talking about is their displeasure with having to show proof of vaccination. As of Saturday, that will no longer be required to come back into Canada, but it will be required to go into the United States. Those same people who are are upset about the vaccination proof in the United States still can't come in because they can't get back in. They're still going to have the same problems, and Canadians who aren't vaccinated will continue to have those same obstacles. With all due respect, I don't think things are going to get back to normal.

I'm going to ask this question of Mr. Bieger and you, Mr. Lovegrove. You said you felt like the government had its foot on your throat. Your colleague to your left acknowledged the business supports that were made available. I assume that when you say you felt like the government had its foot to your throat, you were also talking about ArriveCAN.

[Douglas Lovegrove]

Yes. Would you like me to elaborate?

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

No. Let me finish and I will.

When people talk about ArriveCAN, they're talking about a technological device that's going to help facilitate access through the border. For example, I've had extensive discussions with people at the Greater Toronto Airports Authority who are quite fond of ArriveCAN and want it to stay in place because it's an instrument that allows quicker movement through the airport. The problem is that it's been stigmatized because of this vaccination connection.

When you make statements like “the government had its foot on your throat”, I think that's a bit unfair because, as we heard from some of the other witnesses, you're talking about staffing shortages and COVID restrictions. The border was closed for almost two years. That had nothing to do with vaccination. It certainly had nothing to do with ArriveCAN. It had everything to do with the pandemic.

The problem, as I see it, is that everybody blends all of these together and ArriveCAN becomes the symbol for the problem, when really it's a solution to a lot of problems at the border.

Sir, now I'll let you finish answering the question.

[Douglas Lovegrove]

Thank you very much, James.

I'd like to break it down into thirds.

I'll repeat that about 80% of our customer base—and I think that's probably pretty factual for most of the automotive tooling industry in Windsor and Essex county—is from the U.S. For about a third of my customer base, it's no problem; you're absolutely right. They're fully vaccinated. They have no problem with the technology and no problem uploading apps on their phones and coming across. That wasn't an issue.

We have another third or so who are fully vaccinated U.S. citizens who fundamentally take issue with having a foreign government application on their work phone or on their personal phone.

I have another third who may not be vaccinated. Without getting into the politics of that and the situation there, it sounds like they're going to be able to travel now, but over the long term, up until just a week ago, it sounded like those folks were going to become lepers and there was going to be nowhere for them to go. I, unfortunately, was never going to be able to do business with them.

In starting a new business and in what we do, we need those people to come over, spend time with us, see our facilities and engage with our staff. We're talking million-dollar contracts on a regular basis. I need that interaction with those people at our facility.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Sir, you're still going to face the obstacle of unvaccinated people trying to cross the border because of the U.S. restrictions. Is that fair?

[Douglas Lovegrove]

Yes.

[James Maloney, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

In Windsor in particular, where I lived for two years, I'm familiar with the auto sector and how important it is.

Again, I think, with all due respect, we're blurring a number of factors together. For example, witnesses talk about staffing shortages. If the staffing shortages exist now, they existed prepandemic. People were laid off, and if they're not brought back....

If you look at the airport example, which I referred to a second ago, once we saw the restrictions lifted earlier this year at airports, we didn't see things miraculously improve. The airlines, the airport authorities and a number of other organizations faced challenges.

To blame it all on the ArriveCAN app, I think, is unfair.

[Douglas Lovegrove]

I'd only want to speak specifically to a group of individuals who are interested in awarding contracts to Canadian businesses and have the option to go elsewhere. They don't have to come to us. Without easing all the steps along the way, like applications and interaction with border guards and making it as comfortable and as welcoming as possible, we run the risk of losing that business either to American companies or to foreign companies outside of North America.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Bieger, now that we think you have no technical issues, would you like to go forward and give us your opening statement?

[Kenneth Bieger]

I'll make a quick opening statement.

Basically, what we've seen from our side is the combination of three things. You have the staffing shortage with CBSA, and that is actually a real problem. We took a look at the Victoria Day holiday, Memorial Day and the Canada Day/Fourth of July weekends. On those three different holidays, it was clear that the CBSA staffing was much shorter than it was prepandemic.

What we're also seeing is that the vaccination requirement, along with ArriveCAN, has slowed times down. The problem, again, is differentiating between ArriveCAN and the reporting requirement.

From our side, the two really go hand in hand, and you need to take a look at both together. If you didn't have the vaccination requirement, you wouldn't need ArriveCAN.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on to Monsieur Savard-Tremblay for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good morning.

I would like to welcome all the witnesses and thank them for their testimonies.

I'm surprised that the topic of my first question hasn't been addressed yet. It has been touched upon, but we're here to study an application that will become optional as of Saturday, as mentioned. I guess the best person to answer my question is Mr. Weber, from the Customs and Immigration Union.

Mr. Weber, what do you foresee? It will take a few months before we can fully measure the effects of this change of direction regarding the application. After the holidays, when travel picks up again, we'll have a clearer picture.

At the moment, do you have an idea of what will happen when the application is no longer mandatory?

[Mark Weber]

Thank you.

We actually don't. We've not been consulted. We were not consulted when ArriveCAN was first made a requirement. We were not consulted on how it should be laid out. We weren't really consulted on what's going to happen once it's made optional or how that's going to look. If no longer having the requirement for ArriveCAN increases travel, again, our staffing shortages are not going away. They exist, and they have gotten worse year after year for quite a few years. We're in a place now such that if travel does start to significantly increase, we're going to see significant delays at our borders.

I know there were comments about the Greater Toronto Airports Authority being very excited about the new uses for ArriveCAN and further technology. The big worry we have when we talk about technologies is that our officers are much faster than any machine that's been installed at an airport. If you really want to keep things flowing and have the border move, we simply need more people in place, not technology.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Alright. That said, even if you weren't consulted, which is unfortunate, please feel free to contact the members of this committee if there are any new developments. We can then go back to the issue.

Ms. Barrett, earlier, one of my colleagues told you that there would not really be a return to normalcy since the vaccine mandate was still in effect in the United States. The effect is nil. You didn't really have a chance to respond to him, so I'd like to give you the opportunity.

[Barbara Barrett]

Thank you very much for that.

Yes, I think tying ArriveCAN to the vaccination status is not purely accurate. I have anecdotes from across Canada of our store owners and their staff being IT experts in trying to fill out the ArriveCAN for people who just didn't know how, and then also there were those who didn't even have smart phones to be able to do it.

A concrete example of how ArriveCAN was a deterrent for people even coming to the border comes from our store in Fort Erie. On the July long weekend, it would typically see 40 motor coaches of mostly elderly people who come across the border and stop in at the store. That's 40 motor coaches full of customers. This year they saw two motor coaches.

The staff at the motor coach companies say it was because the elderly folks did not know how to fill out ArriveCAN. They were scared of it, and they just chose not to come. I think that's an example of how ArriveCAN was just a deterrent for people to even try to cross the border, vaccinated or not.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

So, basically, you're making a distinction between the vaccine mandate, which is another issue, and the application itself.

[Barbara Barrett]

Sorry; I'm not sure I understand the question.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Given that the United States still requires proof of vaccination, as mentioned, one might be inclined to say that this ultimately does not change the situation.

What you're saying is that ending mandatory use of the ArriveCAN application is a different issue from the border vaccine mandate.

[Barbara Barrett]

It is, 100%. It's a completely different issue.