Moisheh wrote:
Tourism in Canada is only 1/3 of pre covid. The rapid test requirement serves no purpose but is killing tourism and hassling Canadians``
....Moisheh. We just completed the ArriveCAN online version. We are heading back to Canada later in March. Very interesting experience. Absolutely HORRIBLE experience. Maybe the phone app is more intuitive? If I was a US visitor to Canada, I would avoid Canada at all costs. Extremely frustrating. We could not get a confirm that we had uploaded our vaccination documents into ArriveCAN !
I have been getting reports from Canadians driving back across the border from the US, saying that Canadian Customs does not even care about ArriveCAN; the border agents are ONLY asking for your "proof of negative test" on your phone screen. What does that tell you about the efficacy of this screening process? It is a CATASTROPHE. That's what.
Canada better pull this disastrous ArriveCAN process.
I will report exactly what transpires as/after we cross back.
Update: ........finally, my wife managed to get our proof of registration that we ARE ARRIVING at the border, and we meet the criteria. This, after 1 hour and 20 minutes putzing around with the **** online version.
With 1 in 10 Canadian jobs directly tied to "tourism" in Canada, in 2019, Canadian tourism earned 104.9 $ billion, and experienced an 82.5% drop in revenue in 2020 (but this is understandable, because no vaccines existed then). Imagine how much revenue was lost in 2021? When Canadians were almost entirely unvaccinated up until June/July of 2021, because Canada could NOT get sufficient vaccines ? Even worse, the Canadian border only opening in the 3rd quarter to US in-coming road visitors (let alone ANY foreign flyers)? I will guestimate 90 $ billion lost. In 2022? Not yet known, not even guessable. The Canadian taxpayer is on the hook for $1.7 trillion in Covid mitigation costs, plus appx $90 billion in lost tourism revenue when incoming vaccines were deployed very late in the game. I'm not saying that Covid mitigation costs should have been zero, however, Federal latency may have cost Canadians ~~ $1 trillion more than it should have cost. This will eventually come out in the wash, as investigative journalists get a better handle on mismanagement, and inappropriate use of draconian lock-down measures over the next several years.
