Fought the law and won
It cost him a grand total of $6,058.43 to fight a $5,750 ticket he received last year at the Osoyoos border crossing for allegedly violating the Quarantine Act, but Cecil Cousins believes it was worth every penny to expose more problems with the controversial ArriveCan service.
“I was 81 years old, was trying to do the right thing and told the truth in all interactions with the Canada Border Services Agency at the border. I followed ArriveCan instructions but still got a ticket,” said Cousins, who splits his time between Penticton and Florida, in an email interview.
Cousins received the ticket from a nurse working on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada on Sept. 30, 2021, as he re-entered the country by motorcycle after a trip to the U.S.
The ticket was issued under Section 58 of the Quarantine Act, which prohibits travellers from showing up at a border crossing without proof of a negative COVID19 test conducted within the past 72 hours.
Cousins tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 29 after paying for a test at a drug store in Spokane, Wash. But he felt OK and was double-vaccinated, so decided to log into the ArriveCan system to see what it said.
After entering his information, including a screenshot of his positive test result, Cousins received what appeared to be a receipt from ArriveCan that stated it had to be presented to a border guard upon re-entry.
With that receipt and other screenshots in hand, Cousins headed north to the border, where he was flagged for secondary inspection. That inspection was conducted by a nurse, Justine Mah, and border guard Lindsay Frey.
Cousins says he tried for 90 minutes to explain his case to the pair but was ultimately issued the ticket before being admitted to Canada.
“My view was that I was being treated unfairly and it was clear to me that the two women interviewing me had not read my ArriveCan submission. If they had they would have understood that ArriveCan told me to come. I tried to tell them but they had no interest in anything I had to say to try and explain the situation,” said Cousins.
“I know I have a case against the government for using a broken ArriveCan to entice me to come. When I saw disclosure by the Crown of my ArriveCan submission it was impossible to understand — it looked like a bunch of codes.”
Cousins eventually hired a lawyer to dispute the ticket and made his first appearance on the matter — along with dozens of other people who were issued similar tickets at the Osoyoos border — in provincial court in Penticton in January.
Following two more brief appearances, the Crown stayed Cousins’ ticket on Aug. 9. His lawyer was told only that the Crown believed it was no longer in the public interest to pursue the matter.
The Public Health Agency of Canada refused to provide any insight into Cousins’ case.
“We do not comment on specific cases and individual situations, as each traveller presents themselves to a border services officer under a different set of circumstances, with varying levels of information available,” the PHAC said in a statement.
The agency also refused to provide data about the number of Quarantine Act tickets that have been torn up and for what reasons. Instead, it referred The Herald to an online database that lists how many tickets have been issued in each province and territory under the Quarantine Act between April 2020 and August 2022.
The database suggests Cousins’ ticket for failing to present a valid pre-entry test was one of 1,049 such fines issued in B.C. over that period.
Now that his matter is settled, he hopes the federal government acts on ArriveCan concerns raised by him and others.
“When you boil it all down, the nurse agent who issued the ticket lacks adequate and reasonable qualifications and judgement to do the job and hurt lots of innocent people. Final responsibility lies with the people making the hiring decisions,” said Cousins.
“If the government thinks it needs to check a certain number of people a day it would be less destructive to our economy to just take samples in front of every grocery store (or select stores) across Canada to better determine the infection level — readings would be similar to those at airports with less disruption and downside to our economy.”
The ArriveCan app was introduced early in the pandemic and its use has been mandatory at air and land borders since February 2021 with exceptions in cases of accessibility issues or outages.
ArriveCan ostensibly screens incoming travellers for COVID-19 and for the last year tracked their vaccination status.
A December 2021 report from the federal auditor general said the ArriveCan app improved the quality of information the government collected on travellers, but poor data quality still meant that almost 138,000 COVID-19 test results couldn't be matched to incoming travellers, and only 25% of travellers told to quarantine in government-authorized hotels were verified to have stayed in them.
And just last month, due to a glitch, ArriveCan instructed about 10,200 travellers to quarantine for 14 days when they didn't have to.
Recent government updates to do with the app have focused on efficiencies rather than on public health measures. At air border crossings, it is now possible, though optional, to use the app to fill out a customs declaration form before arrival at some major airports.