Lining up to show COVID travel documents is the road to serfdom

National Post, 25 July 2021

Upon arrival in Canada, the government has deployed an army of its own officials to register passengers online and then to administer tests.

The federal government announced the opening of the border to fully-vaccinated Americans on August 9, while holding off on other countries until September 7, arguing that the intervening weeks will allow for protocols at the border to be streamlined.

Good luck with that. Have federal officials observed what is actually going on at the border now?

Canadians wishing to fly out of Canada need to show a negative COVID-19 test before embarking. Who checks that? The airlines. Who else could do it? The Canadian government does not have agents monitoring passengers leaving the country.

That means that a check-in agent, whose previous training was in determining allowable baggage limits, now, with understandably no expertise or experience in the matter, has to evaluate whatever documents passengers produce. If you are in Toronto and you have a standard Ontario Health COVID test, that would be easy enough. But you are not supposed to have that standard Ontario Health result because the public health system is not supposed to do COVID tests for travel purposes. So the airline agent will likely be confronted with a document from a private lab, each one with its own format.

On the other end, the customs and border official in, say, Lisbon, is supposed to monitor vaccination status. Is she familiar with documents issued by the health system in Nova Scotia, or an Indigenous reserve in British Columbia? What about a Walgreen’s vaccine record from Colorado? So unless the passenger himself reveals a lack of vaccination, whatever document is produced is waved through. And if whatever document is waved through, why require it in the first place?

On the return it is even more absurd. Canada requires a negative COVID test for entry, and is particular about which kind. PCR is is the favoured flavour, not antigen. That means another airline agent must determine — in English or French, no matter if his first language is Polish or German — whether the right result was obtained at the right time with the right kind of test. Numerous acquaintances confirm what one would expect: everyone is waved through.

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