OTTAWA-
Transport Minister Omar Alghabra told the House of Commons Transport Committee that the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting labor shortages are causing significant wait times in Canadian airports, and said the ArriveCAN app is here to stay.
While the Alghabra office said the situation has improved in recent weeks, major delays and cancellations have plagued Canadian airports for months, even leading to Toronto’s Pearson airport being dubbed the world’s worst airport for flight delays.
Testifying remotely as he quarantines himself following a COVID-19 infection, Alghabra said there was “still work to do”, but said he was hiring more staff and moving testing COVID-19 mandatory off-site airports, as the government has tried to reduce airport bottlenecks.
“I want to be clear, this is not an excuse, but it is a fact,” he said, explaining that travel demand had exceeded what was expected.
During Alghabra’s hour-long testimony, opposition members of the committee questioned the minister about the causes of the delays, who is to blame, and the treatment of air passengers, whom NDP MP Taylor Bachrach called it “shameful”.
Conservative transport critic Melissa Lantsman called it “disappointing” that Alghabra’s appearance before the committee lasted only an hour in the middle of the busy summer travel season. She also called the delays, particularly at Toronto’s Pearson airport, “international embarrassment.”
When Lantsman asked if the government was responsible for the delays, Alghabra replied that he “blames it on COVID.”
Lantsman later said she was “getting no answers” to her questions, before moving on to discuss the oft-criticized ArriveCAN app and why the government is keeping it.
“ArriveCAN does not contribute to congestion,” Alghabra replied. “In fact, ArriveCAN is a useful tool to verify an individual’s vaccination status before they arrive at our borders.
Yet opposition MPs have continued to pressure the minister to decide to continue using the app, despite heavy criticism of it.
Alghabra – along with witnesses from the Department of Transport, the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) – were interviewed about the app’s perceived ineffectiveness, problems with the software, and privacy issues.
A glitch with the app last month forced more than 10,000 people into self-quarantine unnecessarily.
But Alghabra has defended the technology, saying it saves time digitizing a process that would otherwise take longer to complete manually.
In a later interrupted and interjection-filled exchange between the transport minister and Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli, the latter asked Alghabra if the government was discouraging travelers from visiting Canada because of border wait times.
“There is no one to blame except this Liberal government,” Baldinelli said, warning of a possible “self-inflicted” loss of another tourist year if travel delays are not addressed and restrictions are not corrected. are not deleted.
“It’s unfortunate that conservatives have never taken COVID seriously,” Alghabra retorted. “It is unfortunate that the Tories supported these illegal blockades which blocked our borders and had a massive impact on border communities and have not apologized to this day.”
PHAC’s Jennifer Lutfallah told the meeting that 190 tickets had been issued for non-compliance with ArriveCAN, which she called “very limited” relative to the number of travellers. She added that many of the offenses involved “repeat offenders,” people who either refused to submit a document or refused to follow public health measures in the first place.
Now New Democrat MPs are calling on the government to do more to protect passenger rights, so travelers can have their complaints heard and addressed faster and get compensation for delays and cancellations.