Re: Canadian Border Control screws Amish

On 2025-03-24 10:48 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

On Mar 24, 2025 at 6:09:32 PM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:
 

On 2025-03-24 1:39 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

  On Mar 24, 2025 at 3:30:06 AM PDT, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
  wrote:
 

  On 2025-03-24 2:07 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

    According to this video, Canadian Border Patrol enforces a law requiring
    Canadians to download what is essentially privacy-violating application
    onto smart phones with lots of personal details including medical
    records. If they don't, there's a $6,000 fine imposed including against
    children.
        Numerous Amish found they had liens imposed against their farms.
    Obviously they don't use smart phones.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scrtSExvu3g

>
  Just to be completely accurate, the agency that is charged with guarding
  our border is the Canadian Border Services Agency, not the Canadian
  Border Patrol. But even most Canadians probably don't know the proper
  name so I won't hold that against you ;-)
>
  As for this app that you are supposedly required to have, I've never
  heard of it and definitely don't have it on *my* smart phone. I've lived
  here all my life so if it really *is* mandatory, it is only mandatory
  for specific people or classes of people. It may well be for frequent
  border-crossers. (I haven't crossed the border to the US in 20+ years.)
>
  I know there's a system called Nexus that has some documentation
  requirements which apparently puts you in a much shorter line at border
  crossing points so that may be what the video is talking about. But you
  can still cross without Nexus, or so I was told by a former colleague
  who frequently crossed the border. You just have to deal with a much
  longer line and can expect to wait several hours at times.
>
  [Pause]
>
  Okay, I just watched the video and they're talking about ArriveCan, not
  Nexus. ArriveCan was an app the Liberals had built during Covid. They
  paid many millions of dollars to get a consulting firm to build it as a
  way to track people coming into the country but it subsequently came out
  that two people built it in a single weekend so they must have paid
  themselves very handsomely indeed - or kicked a lot of it back to some
  Liberal slush fund. (It must be a mess too because it takes considerably
  longer to build a robust and thoroughly tested app than a single
  weekend. You might be able to build a simple UNTESTED app in that time
  if you're a skilled developer but writing and running all the tests
  successfully is almost unimagineable. You can't even DESIGN an app that
  fast unless it is EXTREMELY trivial, let alone build and test it.) There
  was a *lot* of talk about ArriveCan in the news during Covid and believe
  me, it was not people praising it or the government.

    I downloaded when I was thinking about driving from L.A. to Anchorage in
case
  I had to pass through Canadia at some point and it is incredibly intrusive
in
  what information it requires you to give them.
    The arrival of Midnight in my household has so far put that trip on hold,
  however, so I never actually had to use the app.
 

Have you ever considered taking Midnight with you on your trip? I'm not
saying you should but a friend of mine did it once on a trip from
London, Ontario out to Calgary, Alberta with her Maine coon cat and said
it went much better than she expected. She said the first four or five
hours were difficult but they were driving in heavy traffic when it was
raining hard and the water splashing up on the car from the passing cars
may have terrified the cat. But five hours out of a three or four day
trip isn't that bad. She managed to find motels that accepted pets
easily enough - I didn't know there were such things - and also said she
never lost the cat once when they stopped at roadsides to answer
nature's call.

 I drive with her back and forth to Texas for Christmas every year and she
doesn't mind the car at all. After we get up to freeway speed, she just crawls
under my seat and sleeps. She makes it five or six hours of driving with no
need to stop to poop or pee. Most of the extended stay hotels (Marriott
Courtyard, Fairfield Inn, etc.) all allow pets, so that's no problem. I set
the litter box up first thing when we stop for the night at the hotel and fill
her bowl with water and she makes a beeline right for them. Have never had any
issues with accidents in the car.
 An Alaska trip is problematic, though, because a lot of it would be on the
Marine Highway and I have no idea how several days on a boat would work with a
cat. Would we have a cabin? Could I set up a litter box in it? If not where
would she do her business? Do they even allow pets?
 There are so many logistical questions to deal with that it didn't seem worth
it.

I imagine a phone call or email to the people who operate the ferry would be able to answer that, as would their website....

 

I was quite surprised at the whole idea of travelling with a cat but she
made it seem feasible. I should make clear that she was travelling
alone: just her and the cat.
>
As for the ArriveCan app being intrusive, I'm not terribly surprised. I
think the bureaucrat's default inclination - at least in this country -
is to get as much information as possible and only reduce the
requirements when they get too much pushback. They probably think the
average person is just going to be docile and give them whatever they
ask for so why not go for the maximum information, even if it's more
than they need. If *I* was designing these things, I'd ask for the
absolute bare minimum of information but that's just me.

  

--
Rhino