QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety
Canada Border Services Agency
May 17, 2023
My question is for the government leader in the Senate. I’d like to take us back, unfortunately, to COVID-19 which was a terrible time for all Canadians, and directly and indirectly touched us all.
Government leader, I have to rise today to ask questions about Canadians who were intimidated, persecuted and victimized by the incompetence of this Trudeau government, particularly with regard to your tool — which was, on many occasions, brought into question here — called ArriveCAN or, as I called it during COVID, “ArriveCAN’T.” Will your government apologize and pay reparations to those Canadians who, despite using the app, were forced into quarantine because of glitches in the app, as well as those who presented their paper copy proof of vaccination upon re-entry to Canada but were fined for not using the app itself, including Canadians like Joanne Walsh?
What does your government intend to do? Does your government have any plans to compensate these Canadians whose right to enter this country unimpeded was breached because the Trudeau government just couldn’t admit that they messed up and their ArriveCAN “ArriveCOULDN’T”?
Thank you for your questions, senator.
The efforts of the federal government, as well as all the provinces, territories and municipalities, to protect Canadians in the face of an unprecedented worldwide pandemic are well known. In very large measure, they were successful in terms of protecting Canadians from the physical and medical ravages of COVID. Far too many became sick and far too many died, to be sure. Canadians and their families paid a terrible price, but it would have been much worse had the government not acted as it did in collaboration with the provincial, territorial and municipal governments, as well as the not-for-profit sector.
With regard to your specific question, I will certainly bring your preoccupation — the issue that you raised — to the attention of the appropriate minister.
Government leader, on a number of occasions, I brought my preoccupation to you on this very floor while this injustice was happening to Canadians. This has nothing to do with protecting Canadians from COVID; this was just a messed up, inappropriate process — that the government put into place — that unfairly persecuted Canadians. Canadians who were exercising their legitimate right to return home were slapped with fines of as much as $8,500, despite showing proof of vaccination. They were then threatened with more fines of as much as $750,000 if caught breaking quarantine — quarantine was used as a punitive measure rather than a medical one.
Was it to pay for your government’s total failure on that ill‑conceived, terrible and costly app? You saw the bill going up and up. I asked you about that in the middle of COVID on this very floor.
Is this just another revenue grab? Is that why innocent, law‑abiding citizens were wrongfully ordered to quarantine: to pay for this government’s failure in regard to this app? Why this injustice?
The measures to insist that people without proof of vaccination be quarantined were measures put in place to protect Canadians.
It is not the case, honourable colleague, that this was a revenue grab, and the implications of that are not grounded in fact.
