'How is this app saving anyone's life?': Border city businesses and mayors plead with feds to scrap ArriveCAN app

With summer now upon us, it also marks the beginning of what’s typically a busy travel season. But business in border communities like Windsor is still down as fewer Americans make the trip across the river, with many pointing to continued measures like the requirement to fill out the ArriveCAN app as a barrier to travel and tourism.

“We’re at a point now where we’ve plateaued,” said Windsor Detroit Tunnel Duty Free Store general manager Lyz Meloche, who says the removal of testing requirements made a big difference for a return of some business, but not all. “Our revenues are down 40 to 60 per cent, game days aren’t as busy as we anticipated they’d be.”

Many American customers complain about the ArriveCAN app, according to Meloche, who point out it keeps them and others from making regular trips.

“How is this app saving anyone’s life?” asked Meloche. “We can’t move forward until these restrictions have been completely removed.”

The Frontier City Free Association which represents Canada’s land border duty free stores is pressing hard with a campaign aimed at the federal government to scrap the app.

It’s a message regularly being echoed by border city mayors.

Border-city mayors are calling on the federal government to scrap the ArriveCan app requirements for travellers crossing the border. (Nate Vandermeer/CTV News Ottawa)“I know from political experience, when you’re riding a dead horse, dismount,” said Sarnia Mayor Bike Bradley, who believes the app is just another impediment stopping Americans from visiting Canada, dealing a crushing blow to tourism and the businesses which rely upon a steady flow during what should be a busy summer season.

“The border cities feel very, very discriminated against,” Bradley said. “When people are planning for the summer and planning for what they’re going to do, they’re looking at where they’re going to be in July, August and September. And they need to know now about this app.”

Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said many other public safety measures have been loosened and it’s time for this one to follow suit.

“Life is returning to normal with festivals and some cross-border activity, but for border cities like ours, this simple app is a job-killer,” Dilkens said.

Dilkens points to Caesars Windsor where the workforce is still cut in half and foot-traffic is only 40 per cent of pre-pandemic volumes.

“We want to get these businesses back into normal operation,” Dilkens said.

The federal government said ArriveCAN is an important tool to monitor COVID at our borders and verify vaccination for people visiting or returning to Canada.

“We are talking to mayors and we are talking to travellers and airports on figuring out what else can we do to increase the compliance rate with ArriveCan, what else can we do to make it easier to use,” Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra told CTV News.

Mayor Dilkens hopes the government will change its course — and soon — before another busy tourism season is lost.

“Send a signal to the business owners here that are struggling that the government understands the impact on the ground in border communities and they’re willing to work with us to get to get to the other side of the pandemic,” he said.