I want to thank the Auditor General for her report. We accept the recommendations to ensure that border service officers have the appropriate guidance and tools to enforce border control measures and to conduct a review of decisions related to essential service providers to ensure that exemptions are properly applied.
The Canada Border Services Agency's border service officers have been at the front line of the pandemic since January 2020, when enhanced screening measures were first implemented. In addition to the 90 acts and regulations that they normally apply, they've also been responsible for implementing the provisions of over 45 pandemic-related orders in council. These provisions apply to different categories of persons presenting at our ports of entry, such as essential service providers and citizens. They are designed to restrict travel and reduce the spread of the virus.
It's important to note that these provisions, which are revised regularly to reflect the changing pandemic conditions, add several layers of complexity to the decision-making process. Every day, CBSA officers make over 35,000 decisions regarding entry. Each decision reflects an individual's unique circumstance and is based on several factors, including the OIC provisions, to determine whether a person is permitted to enter Canada and what their quarantine obligations are. Our officers exercise their professional judgment in a highly complex environment and are well supported in their training to apply these measures.
I want to emphasize that our officers have neither the discretion nor the authority to overcome the obligations and requirements as prescribed in the orders in council. They cannot exempt travellers from quarantine based on any business-related or compassionate factor. That said, given the complexities they face while making these decisions, there may have been isolated incidents of misinterpretation that resulted in incorrect decisions. In such cases, we have strategies to continually learn and improve.
The CBSA continues to support other government departments and initiatives. We have been supporting the implementation of pre-arrival testing and the mandatory digital submission of contact and quarantine information with the ArriveCAN application, which has now been downloaded over 1.4 million times. These contributions have helped the government monitor and control the travel-related spread of COVID-19.
In response to the Auditor General's recommendations, the CBSA has developed a management response and action plan and is already taking steps to address the findings.
To ensure that our officers have a sound understanding of new border measures, the CBSA has significantly expanded the provision of detailed technical briefings before new or amended OICs are implemented. Our objective is to support how new measures are applied to ensure clarity for frontline staff and consistency of application.
The CBSA has also established a process to monitor decisions made by CBSA officers in the application of the OICs for essential service providers, and adjustments will be made as required. We are also developing a new training tool to better assist frontline officers in understanding the complexities of the orders in council.
The CBSA is committed to enforcing border measures to minimize the spread of COVID-19 and its variants, while facilitating the continued flow of essential goods, including food and medical supplies.
We have been at the forefront of all this since the beginning. I am very proud of the work CBSA officers have done, and are continuing to do to protect Canada during this pandemic.