The Public Health Agency of Canada does not know what happened to 59 per cent of travellers who were suspected to be breaking Quarantine Act requirements after their cases were referred to law enforcement for follow up.
This was one in a series of damning findings in a new report issued by the Auditor General of Canada on Thursday, examining what was going on at the border between July 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021.
“Of all incoming travellers referred to law enforcement for follow-up, 136,735 travellers were prioritized as a high risk of non-compliance with quarantine orders. We found that the agency was unaware of what follow-up actions law enforcement took for 59 per cent of those priority referrals,” reads the report.
Further, the auditor general Karen Hogan found that “ticketing of travellers for non-compliance was dependent on the enforcement regime in each province and territory, and in some jurisdictions, no tickets were issued.”
Alberta, Saskatchewan and the territories do not have the “Contraventions Act” ticketing regime in place so quarantine officers could not issue tickets in those jurisdictions, even though Alberta had one of four airports accepting international flights. PHAC quarantine officers could still refer non-compliant travellers to law enforcement to lay criminal charges including fines, but as of the audit, only five charges had been laid in these jurisdictions.
In provinces with the regime, most also did not issue a single fine for non-compliant travellers. In Quebec, which also had international travellers landing in throughout the pandemic, PHAC did not know how many tickets had been issued because “only provincial prosecutors have the authority to issue these tickets and they are not required to report this information.”
According to the audit, between December 2020 and June 2021, the only provinces that issued tickets—which could range between $100 to $5,000— were British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario. The total amount collected was more than $21 million. These tickets were issued in relation to testing, going to a designated quarantine facility, refusing to book a government-authorized hotel, or because of a confirmed breach of quarantine.
“Most tickets for non-compliance were issued to air travellers who arrived at Toronto or Vancouver airports and had refused to book at a government-authorized hotel… From December 2020 to June 2021, agency officials issued 6,203 tickets and had records of another 188 issued by local law enforcement agencies, for a total of 6,391 tickets. Of these, more than 5,000 were issued in Ontario,” read the report.
Hogan still considered this an improvement from a previous audit which found a lower proportion of travellers suspected of non-compliance were actually referred for law enforcement follow-ups in the first place.
She cited the introduction of the ArriveCan app as well as contracting private security firms to make in-person visits to travellers in quarantine in helping improve the monitoring of those who were supposed to be spending up to 14 days in isolation upon returning to Canada.
ArriveCan helped, but a further step taken to improve compliance verification involved in-person visits to travellers during their quarantine periods.
“The purpose of the ticketing was to ensure national enforcement of the quarantine measures and it's clear from our findings that the Public Health Agency of Canada didn't have a cohesive enforcement approach,” Hogan said during a press conference on Thursday.
She has recommended that the agency work on building consensus across the country to enforce the quarantine rules, which PHAC agreed with, noting that talks are continuing with law enforcement and provinces on this issue.
“If you're going to create a requirement, one that you expect will be enforced nationally, you really have to have thought through the monitoring of it, as well as the enforcement powers that are needed and all the mechanisms behind. And it's clear here that this was more reactive than proactive, and that an improvement that will be needed,” Hogan said.
According to the federal public health agency, starting in 2022 “additional mechanisms will be assessed to enforce the Quarantine Act more consistently nationally.”
In response to these compliance findings, the federal government noted Thursday that since border restrictions have been in place, officials have made more than 7 million compliance verification calls, and made 500,000 visits to confirm travellers were quarantining at home.
“We agree that we need to be constantly vigilant in our approach to border measures,” said Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.
