International Trade Committee on Sept. 27th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Lewis for five minutes.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses here this morning. It has been great testimony.

Once again, I would just start out by saying that this is a study to study the impacts that ArriveCAN has had and would have had on Canada. I think all of these questions are really good.

I'm going to stick to the business side of things, Madam Chair. I have to tell you, am I ever looking forward to October 1 coming. I wish it had been October 1, 2021, because I would have had a few thousand fewer inquiries coming in to my office, but I am looking forward to October 1.

To Mr. Maloney's point in his line of questioning to Mr. Lovegrove, I think we've got to go back to.... When October 1 comes, is that going to magically fix everything? Well, let's talk about the privacy issues and the fines that ArriveCAN had. Let's talk about the glitches, the quarantines because of the glitches, and the access to self-service.

I say all that, Madam Chair, because the business and the contracts that have been lost will never, ever come back. We will never, ever see those again. When it's gone, it's gone forever. When the relationships that the likes of Mr. Lovegrove and so many other hundreds of businesses across Essex-Windsor.... When those contracts are gone, they are gone for good, so it's had major impacts on our region specifically.

Through you, Madam Chair, to Mr. Lovegrove, it's my understanding that in a business such as yours, Zoom is not an option. You're not going to sell a few million dollars' worth of goods to stamp out incredibly important auto parts without.... If I was your customer, I certainly wouldn't use Zoom or video to say, “Yes, that pretty much meets the spec.” You have to taste it, feel it, see it. You have to be in the room with it, and usually that's only a one- or two-hour deal.

I know that you mentioned a lot of business was lost. Mr. Lovegrove, can you tell me, generally speaking, how much business or potential business you've lost in contracts and what the industry locally in Windsor-Essex has seen?

[Douglas Lovegrove]

I can certainly speak to my own situation. There were several million dollars' worth of contracts that we were not considered for, given the situation we found ourselves in. We were a new business and had the door open, and these customers wanted to come and see the facility, visit with the staff and see their capabilities. The fact that they couldn't come up or wouldn't come up because of the situation they found themselves in with ArriveCAN prevented that from ever happening.

Can I put a firm number on it? I'll never know. I just know that there were multiple opportunities that we've never realized. Hopefully, by working, we can get those relationships on the go again and get them up, but what's been lost is lost.

For the local area, I don't want to speak for other tool shops or automation shops within the area, but I can only imagine that it must be in the magnitude of hundreds of millions of dollars.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

It takes a lot of guts, Mr. Lovegrove, to start a business in the middle of COVID. It takes a lot of guts to start a business in Canada, period, but specifically during COVID it's not a small endeavour. It's really important, though, for our region and for Canadians.

As I wrap up here, I have one minute left.

Here's a quick story, Madam Chair. I got a phone call about a month and a half or two months ago from a major player in the area. They had their private jet sitting on the apron at the Windsor airport with the four top executives. When I say a major business, I mean a very major business. They couldn't get off because one of the four had a glitch with their ArriveCAN app, so they decided to just leave.

All that being said, is my line of thinking correct, Mr. Lovegrove, that it's not just your business that was affected?

[Douglas Lovegrove]

Yes, absolutely. It's across multiple industries across multiple regions throughout Canada. It's anybody dealing with a U.S. customer base.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Miao for five minutes, please.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of the witnesses attending today for looking at the impacts of the ArriveCAN app for us.

I want to ask how many people in this room or online have ever used the ArriveCAN app.

I see. That's good.

The main purpose of it is to allow us to check vaccination statuses to protect Canadians across the nation. In Richmond Centre, the YVR Vancouver airport is part of my riding. I've heard a lot from my constituents that it is troublesome to fill out the app, but after filling it out, they feel a lot more comfortable about travelling to Canada. They are experiencing the prepandemic feeling of enjoying what they're here to enjoy in Canada.

One question I want to ask is how ArriveCAN can be exclusively liable for the decrease of export levels. Can any of the witnesses answer that?

[Barbara Barrett]

I don't think I would say that it's exclusively responsible. I would say that anything that makes the border stickier than it should be.... It was most certainly a pain point, but there were others. Our numbers bear that out.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Lovegrove, do you have something to add to that?

[Douglas Lovegrove]

Could you clarify the question for me?

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

How can ArriveCAN be exclusively liable for the decrease of export levels?

[Douglas Lovegrove]

I would agree that it is not exclusively liable. However, in our situation, it presents the majority of the issues for business.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

I understand there were definitely a lot of impacts during the pandemic to many businesses across our nation. However, now that we're in a recovery process, economies across the nation have been thriving and are doing even better than their prepandemic levels. One big shortfall is that we are experiencing a lot of staff shortages.

I personally look forward to the October 1 optional removal. Do any of the witnesses feel that after October 1, business will be back to normal, as Ms. Barrett mentioned in her statement? Do you feel there are other challenges that we might encounter?

[Barbara Barrett]

Perhaps I misspoke by saying “back to normal”. I think what I meant was that the pain points have been removed. I think we have a long road before it's back to normal.

Travellers' and tourists' habits have changed. They need to be re-educated now that it's optional. I think we have a lot of work to do to re-educate people and get those habits back to what they were prepandemic.

[Wilson Miao, Liberal, Richmond Centre, BC]

I think you mentioned a very good word here: “re-educate”.

From personal experience, after the restrictions were lifted, my family visited Switzerland. My mother, being 65 years old, had trouble filling out the ArriveCAN app. However, I spent about 10 to 15 minutes of my time teaching her how to go through the process.

Yes, this may delay the process of the lineup, and the shortages in the CBSA may not address the issue of needing help with technology that some people experience. However, if this is to protect Canadians, do you feel that the extra 15 minutes of individuals' time to use that app to make other Canadians feel safe is a necessary step to move forward?

[Barbara Barrett]

If I felt that it was keeping Canadians safe, I would certainly be on board. I don't see the evidence that it was keeping Canadians safe when we were in a community spread situation.

However, I think it's also presumptuous of us to assume that everyone has a smart phone. If my mother was trying to cross the border, she would be unable to, because she doesn't have a smart phone. We had motorcoaches full of seniors who did not even approach the border because that was the case for them as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'm sorry, Mr. Miao; your time is up.

We'll go to Mr. Savard-Tremblay for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Weber, you appeared before the committee last June. At that time, you told us that ArriveCAN did not facilitate cross-border travel, that there were serious operational efficiency problems and that, on the contrary, processing times had skyrocketed.

People travelled a lot during the summer; it couldn't have been easy. Moreover, many cases received media coverage, but not all of them are exclusively related to ArriveCAN, let's be clear.

In spite of everything, at the end of the summer, did you notice some improvement as people got used to it, little by little?

[Mark Weber]

No, we didn't. The number of people who were arriving at the border without having completed the application was fairly consistent.

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

So, there's been no change in that regard.

If the health situation were to deteriorate and border measures were again necessary, what would you propose, in a concrete and constructive manner, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past?

[Mark Weber]

If it's simply a matter of confirming that people are vaccinated, that can be done much more simply than having to complete a separate application. Surely there's a way whereby we can get the information that someone is or is not vaccinated when a passport is scanned, since we're all getting vaccinated through government programs. Either that, or simply have travellers show us their phones. Our vaccination status and certification shows up on our phone.

The real question is, what's the necessity of the app and all of those additional questions, like what address you're staying at and what port of entry you're coming through. A lot of those things gave people trouble, especially when we got to a point where we were no longer doing any contact tracing. I think that's really where the questions have to be asked. That's where all of the extra time was being taken up, and I think that's the big reason that people were having trouble completing it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Masse for two and a half minutes, please.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Weber, the officers you represent are trained for personal action to analyze individuals for other issues, such as smuggling of guns and drugs and so forth. In that interaction, how important is that in protecting Canadians, and for those officers to get a snapshot as an individual comes over the border? I worry about some of the automation. Obviously, a machine can't do that.

How much training do your officers receive for that? Is it also training that is constantly renewed?

[Mark Weber]

It is constantly renewed. We go through a lengthy program of training at Rigaud. We learn throughout our careers. We try different modes, we specialize, and we join different teams.

You're right that it's all about that interaction, that ability to read indicators, and to be able to do that interdiction that we need to do. That's our primary concern. The more automation that we add on, the less interaction we will have with travellers. No machine is going to tell you if someone is lying. Obviously, when you're relying on people's self-declarations, no one smuggling is going to self-declare that they are doing so.