'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
The head of a union representing Canada's customs and immigration officers says chronic staffing shortages mean long waits at the border won't necessarily disappear when use of the controversial ArriveCan app soon becomes optional.
Mark Weber, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, warned Tuesday that if travel volumes start to increase substantially there will be "significant delays" at Canada's border points.
Weber spoke at a House of Commons committee meeting looking at the ArriveCan app, which has been used for providing travel and public health information before and after people enter Canada.
The cabinet order mandating vaccine requirements and use of ArriveCan for incoming travellers expires at the end of Friday and the government says it will not be renewed.
Weber said the Canada Border Services Agency needs thousands more officers to fulfil its mandate.
He urged the government to hire additional staff to keep goods and people flowing across the border, not rely on technology like the "ill-designed" ArriveCan app.
"As far as border officers are concerned, the last months have shown that ArriveCan fails to facilitate cross-border travel, while doing very little to address the severe gaps in border security that are plaguing our country."
Weber said it was part of a pattern of overreliance on automated technology that senselessly sets aside security considerations.
"What I urge the government and the agency to do now is to turn their attention to the severe deficit in personnel afflicting border services throughout the country," he said. "The reality is really bleak."
He suggested the agency cannot adequately curb the smuggling of dangerous goods, despite the best efforts of officers.
At some of the busiest land border crossings this summer, the border agency often had little choice but to choose between properly staffing commercial screening or traveller operations, he added.
Duty-free stores at the land border across Canada were forced into almost complete closure at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, said Barbara Barrett, executive director of the Frontier Duty Free Association.
"We were, without exaggeration, the hardest hit of the hardest hit," she told the committee.
In recent months, while Canada's economy was recovering, sales at duty-free stores remained considerably lower than pre-pandemic levels, she said, attributing the slump to federal restrictions and mandatory use of the ArriveCan app.
Barrett said many U.S. seniors found the ArriveCan app too much of a challenge and simply stayed away, while others did not have a smartphone on which to use the app or needed help from store staff to fill in the required information.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 27, 2022.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.