Campobello residents appear ready to fight the latest electronic hoop through which they must jump to get off and back on their island. Canada's federal government has imposed a new rule requiring all travellers seeking entry by land to submit contact, quarantine and other information electronically through the ArriveCAN mobile app or web portal prior to arrival at the border port of entry. Islanders are objecting to the rule because of cellphone and Internet challengers, the bureaucratic hassle and the government’s discrimination against them as Canadian citizens because they live on the island.
     "Habitual residents of Campobello Island who enter Canada to return to their place of residence may be exempt from the pre arrival testing requirement and the quarantine requirement if the purpose of their travel was to access necessities of life such as groceries or medicine. They are not, however, exempt from submitting their information through ArriveCAN," according to an e-mailed statement from Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) acting Media Relations Manager Rebecca Purdy.
     ArriveCAN "helps to protect the health and safety of travellers and our employees and is part of Canada's efforts to reduce the spread of COVID 19 and its variants," the e-mail states.
     Justin Tinker with the Campobello Year-Round Ferry Development Committee calls ArriveCAN "just the latest hoop for an island that's done nothing but jump through hoops for the last year and a half." Cellphone service came to Campobello Island fairly recently and, with the average age close to 50, only half of island residents actually have cellphones, he says.
     Besides requiring "a $1,000 cellphone, a $100 a month data plan plus whatever roaming charges," Tinker says ArriveCAN causes more hassle for Campobello Island residents driving "up river" through Maine to do business in St. Stephen because only one trip across the border into Canada can be preregistered at a time. This means that islanders headed to St. Stephen must preregister before they cross the bridge to Lubec, then do it again in St. Stephen before crossing the bridge to Calais. "If you've got a finite time-frame to pick up essential goods and services in St. Stephen, and now you're expected to hold the phone and register your return trip after your departure trip, it's just another hoop of bureaucracy," Tinker says.
     Brett Newman, who is seeking reelection as Campobello mayor on May 10, posted on Facebook, "The implementation of the ArriveCAN at the Campobello border and St. Stephen border has created a very difficult life for hundreds in our community of 850. We do not all have reliable Internet service, we are not all tech savvy or own computers. We make so many frequent trips to Maine for essentials and travel through the United States so frequently to access our Canadian nation that the amount of registrations required would be absurd."
     In a letter to New Brunswick Southwest MP John Williamson, Newman wrote that the rule discriminates against islanders, who are Canadian citizens, based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. “Canadian residents are being threatened with fines just for getting essentials or accessing our own country,” he wrote.
     Harvey Matthews, who is challenging Newman for the mayor's job, says he is willing to go to court if the CBSA charges him with not using ArriveCAN. "If that's what it takes, I'm willing to do it because I think somebody's got to stand up for this rock and it might as well be me as anybody else; but, anyway, I don't think they'd ever fine anybody," he said in an interview, adding, "I'm willing to find out because I just feel that you shouldn't treat a citizen that way." The border officers already have the information, anyway, through the provincial travel registration regime as well as from passports, he says.
     Williamson, who has taken up this cause, has posted on Facebook urging anyone fined, ticketed or warned for not preregistering through ArriveCAN to let him know.
     Williamson says in an April 15 Facebook post that he would go to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair demanding that he extend the exemption for Campobello Island residents to travel restrictions related to COVID 19 to ArriveCAN, too. He thanks CBSA for the clarification that those unable to submit travel information in advance through ArriveCAN can still provide information on arrival.
     CBSA says that people without electronic devices can still register at libraries and other public computers, but Tinker says that glitches can bedevil the software, especially resetting the password, a hassle for the non tech savvy.
     Both he and Matthews say that CBSA does not enforce ArriveCAN consistently. "It very much depends on who's working the booth and what the message of the day is," says Tinker, adding, "The policies and the interpretation of the policies seem to vary."
     Tinker lives and works in Saint John but grew up on Campobello Island, which he calls home. Since he does not live on the island, he cannot travel through Maine for non essential purposes, meaning that he has to plan visits to friends and family around the private ferry schedule. Campobello Island and Saint John are both in the same health zone and both in the yellow phase of the provincial COVID 19 recovery plan, so people should be able to travel back and forth, he contends.