Canadians driving south of the border must soon provide border agents with their photos and license plate numbers prior to arrival as part of the upcoming “traveller modernization” plan. 

The program, separate from the faulty ArriveCAN application, will see Canadians “provide their biographic, biometric declaration and other border-related information prior to arriving at the port of entry,” said the report Traveller Modernization. 

Similar electronic filing will be made available for marine passengers in 2027 and air passengers in 2028.

“Officers will be given smartphones to access the digital referrals and process them,” it said, “to save time.”

Ottawa, meanwhile, launched ArriveCAN on April 22, 2020, claiming it would streamline the border-crossing process. However, the app, which tracked vaccine status, only saved travellers “about five minutes” in the queue, according to the Department of Public Safety.

Some 60 million people cross ports of entry each year, reported Blacklock’s Reporter. 

Modernization did not say whether the travel plan would be mandatory, nor did it say what penalty, if any, would be incurred by insubordinate travellers.

In contrast, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) made ArriveCAN mandatory for travel on July 5, 2020 until October 1, 2022.

ArriveCAN cost $59.5 million to create, Auditor General Karen Hogan estimated, greatly exceeding its original budget of $80,000.

Auditor Hogan furthered that the actual cost of ArriveCAN would be “impossible to determine” due to poor record keeping.

The “traveller modernization” plan, meanwhile, is without a detailed budget to date.

In 2019, Ottawa allowed border agents to compile data on cross-border travellers for reasons other than public safety, according to Exit Information Regulations. CBSA says it lacks “exit information on Canadian citizens” regarding compliance with the Income Tax Act, as well as EI and Old Age Security regulations.

A subsequent 2021 notice announced the launch of an Office of Biometrics to track travellers, without any parliamentary inquiry to date.

Canadians, in a 2021 federal focus group, expressed discomfort with Ottawa collecting information on law-abiding Canadians. 

A class-action lawsuit states ArriveCAN led to the forced quarantining of 10,200 Canadians, despite plausible exemptions. The 2024 audit highlighted erroneous instruction for Apple IOS users from June 28 to July 20, 2022. 

“There was an obligation on the government to make sure the app was functioning properly, because there were serious consequences if it was not,” said Jeff Orenstein, a lawyer with Consumer Law Group, who represents the plaintiffs. 

The Trudeau government, at the height of the pandemic, clarified it could not refuse entry to returning Canadians. They “have a legal, constitutional right of entry,” Bill Blair,  then-public safety minister, told reporters at the time.

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