Meet the American business owners who became a makeshift help desk for ArriveCAN users
By Martelli Gerund
The owners of the popular Ryden's Border Store, located just past the Pigeon River border crossing connecting Ontario and Minnesota, knew they would have to adapt their business during the pandemic, but they never thought they would become an ArriveCAN help desk.
Over the last two years, Mike and Sam Boomer were forced to lay off staff and expand their space as parcels piled up, waiting to be picked up by Canadian patrons. But in the last several months, they've been helping more travellers navigate the federal government's mandatory public health platform.
"They just come in, we basically sometimes just take their phone, do it [the ArriveCAN app work] for them … it's really exploded and we're really doing, we're doing quite a few a day. It's building great rapport too, I think for us," said Sam, who owns Ryden's Border Store in Grand Portage, Minn., with her husband Mike.
"Yeah, we've taken something that's kind of negative and turned it into a positive," added Mike.
People must use ArriveCAN to provide mandatory travel and public health information, including uploading their vaccine information, before and after entry into Canada.
However, on Tuesday, CBC News confirmed that the government is now leaning toward making changes, such as making the use of the ArriveCAN platform optional by the end of this month, and dropping the vaccine requirement for people entering Canada.
While multiple sources said Ottawa is "likely" to drop these mandatory requirements by Sept. 30, they added the proposal has not been given a final sign-off by the prime minister.
'It's almost like Canada doesn't want visitors'
Sam said she's "very surprised" the Canadian government held onto the ArriveCAN platform for this long.
"It's almost like Canada doesn't want visitors and it's very frustrating," she said.
"So the border opened April 1, and we really thought it would be great guns and it was a little bit lacklustre. The Americans are coming back. We are still not seeing as many Canadians as we normally would."
"We saw a lot of Americans just ready to go ... especially highly motivated Americans who had camps or who had outfitters trips that they had booked years ago that, you know, they were waiting to go to the Lac des Mille Lacs, Nipigon area," added Mike.
