Canada’s Border Restrictions Are Finally Ending, and Polievre Deserves Some Credit

Commentary

Canada has been one of the world’s leading countries in terms of vaccinating its population. According to the Public Health Agency’s data (up to Sept. 16), 85.41 percent of Canadians have received at least one primary dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 82.08 percent have received both primary doses.

Nevertheless, Canada has been one of the slowest-moving countries in the world when it comes to removing COVID-19 restrictions.

Only this week did the government finally announce that, by Sept. 30, vaccine requirements at the Canada-U.S. border will be removed and the ArriveCan app for travel will become optional.

This is a positive development. It’s high time that Canada joined the United States, UK, Germany, France, and other countries in removing COVID-19 vaccine requirements and restrictions and getting back to normal—or the “new normal, whatever that entails.

At the same time, it doesn’t speak well of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals that they took so long to catch up with the rest of the world. The amount of wasted time, money, and resources should also be widely condemned by Canadians.

Let’s use ArriveCan as an example.

The Canada Border Services Agency noted in July it had spent $24.7 million to develop and maintain the app, as well as an additional $2.2 million for advertising. While some people had no issues setting up ArriveCan on their handheld devices, others experienced technical glitches and hiccups that caused confusion and clogged up phone lines. (A notable instance involved Mercedes Stephenson, Global News’s Ottawa bureau chief and host of The West Block, whose fully vaccinated mother was issued a 14-day quarantine even though she presented no symptoms at the border. The matter was eventually resolved.) Meanwhile, some older Canadians who don’t use iPhones, Androids, and other technological devices had to rely on family and friends to fill out ArriveCan on their behalf—or print out paper copies. Again, some experienced no issues and others faced unnecessary, time-consuming hurdles to simply get back home.

Not to mention the fact that posting personal information such as photos and passport identification on the app made some Canadians feel rather uncomfortable.

There’s also the fact that Trudeau, his cabinet ministers, and backbench MPs have held the government line on COVID-19 restrictions to the bitter end. Canada, which operates under the Westminster model of parliamentary government, obviously follows procedures such as party discipline, whipped votes in the House of Commons, and loyalty to a party leader and/or Prime Minister. Nevertheless, the PM’s decision to ignore the fact that many Canadians were fed up with COVID-19 restrictions and wanted to regain their lost personal freedoms that other western democracies had already returned to their citizens showed an enormous amount of tone deafness on his part.

That’s why, as these requirements and restrictions go by the wayside when the clock strikes midnight on Oct. 1, some of the credit with this impending change to government policy should go to Pierre Poilievre.

The new Conservative leader has spoken out against Ottawa’s handling of COVID-19 vaccine requirements for months. He tabled a bill in June that would have prohibited vaccine mandates and helped “give Canadians back control of their lives.” He called the mandates “unfair, unscientific bullying” in a statement that month and encouraged “everyone to keep protesting government attacks on our freedoms.” He even tweeted in July, “ArriveCan App wants to quarantine quadruple-vaxed man who has no symptoms and has not tested positive for COVID. It is time to stop forcing this app on people.”

Poilievre also noted the frustration that Canadians have had with Ottawa with respect to issuing passports and renewals. “What’s the deal folks?,” he said in a widely viewed video during his successful Conservative leadership campaign. “Well, this is a waiting nation. We are asked to wait for everything as sleepy bureaucrats and government gatekeepers stand in the way of you getting the basic services to which you are entitled — one of them is a passport.” If it wasn’t bad enough that some Canadians struggled to arrive back in the country, others couldn’t leave on time—or at all!

Many Canadians appreciated Poilievre’s candour on these issues and became increasingly furious with Trudeau. The PM and his senior advisers have publicly denied the claim by some Conservative MPs that any easing of COVID-19 restrictions would be related to Poilievre’s catchy soundbites and succinct analysis.

In reality, the Liberals have heard Canadians loud and clear. They’re starting to move from a slow walk to a fast sprint in our post COVID-19 world.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.