A citizen of Magog, last December I crossed the nearby American border, just to take my mind off things by going for a walk along the main street of the small town of Newport, in Vermont. Of course, I had brought my passport and my vaccination certificate.
What was my surprise, on my return, to see myself imposed a 14-day quarantine with two mandatory screening tests, I who had never felt the slightest symptom of COVID! My fault: I had not completed the ArriveCAN application, which I had never heard of, neither in the written press nor in other media. It would have been necessary, I was told, to consult the site of Immigration and Citizenship Canada to find out. Do you think of consulting this site when you are only crossing the border for a few hours?
I am not the only one to have found myself in quarantine under these circumstances. Following complaints from many other bona fide citizens, The duty published a video denouncing this abusive “punishment” and calling on the authorities for clemency. The message does not seem to have been heard, since other people have suffered the same vexations. For example, the case of a lady who experienced technical problems with her mobile phone and who, having been unable to fill in the application, had the same outrageous measure imposed on her, was recently reported in the media.
While the pandemic situation is no longer the same and several experts question the relevance of the measures imposed at the borders, would it not be time to put an end to this requirement, which is less and less justified and which is beginning to look like a abusive measure of population control in a country that prides itself on being free? Not to mention that this measure assumes that every citizen has a mobile phone. Otherwise, the person must find, in the country where he is, a computer and a printer in order to obtain the receipt allowing him to cross the Canadian border, with all the complications and hassles that this may cause.
With the approach of the summer holidays, this measure should be softened or, better yet, completely eliminated. The sanction currently applied is neither logical nor proportionate. It would surely not pass the Charter test, even in times of pandemic.