Expect serious delays at border due to staff shortages if travel levels rise: union

Weber said the Canada Border Services Agency needs thousands more officers to fulfil its mandate.

He urged the government to hire additional staff to keep goods and people flowing across the border, not rely on technology like the “ill-designed” ArriveCan app.

“As far as border officers are concerned, the last months have shown that ArriveCan fails to facilitate cross-border travel, while doing very little to address the severe gaps in border security that are plaguing our country.”

Weber said it was part of a pattern of overreliance on automated technology that senselessly sets aside security considerations.

“What I urge the government and the agency to do now is to turn their attention to the severe deficit in personnel afflicting border services throughout the country,” he said. “The reality is really bleak.”

He suggested the agency cannot adequately curb the smuggling of dangerous goods, despite the best efforts of officers.

At some of the busiest land border crossings this summer, the border agency often had little choice but to choose between properly staffing commercial screening or traveller operations, he added.

Duty-free stores at the land border across Canada were forced into almost complete closure at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Barbara Barrett, executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association.

“We were, without exaggeration, the hardest hit of the hardest hit,” she told the committee.

In recent months, while Canada’s economy was recovering, sales at duty-free stores remained considerably lower than pre-pandemic levels, she said, attributing the slump to federal restrictions and mandatory use of the ArriveCan app.

Barrett said many U.S. seniors found the ArriveCan app too much of a challenge and simply stayed away, while others did not have a smartphone on which to use the app or needed help from store staff to fill in the required information.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2022.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Expect serious delays at border due to staff shortages if travel levels rise: union

What's Trending