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Member of Parliament

Tony Baldinelli

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Niagara Falls
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 69%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $102,468.80

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 75 - May/19/22
Mr. Tony Baldinelli (Niagara Falls, CPC)
  • May/19/22 12:28:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock. It is an honour for me to rise in my place today to speak about a pressing issue facing Canadians and international travellers entering and exiting through Canada's various ports of entry, including airports, land border crossings, bridge border crossings and even CBSA marine reporting sites for small vessels. My hon. colleague from Thornhill has brought forward an excellent and timely motion today, one which I will be fully supporting. Ultimately, it calls on the government “to immediately revert to pre-pandemic rules and service levels for travel.” In short, the Liberal government's outdated COVID-19 protocols at airports and other international ports of entry are causing extreme delays, lineups, bottlenecks and missed connections. Worst of all, they are acting as a disincentive for those wishing to travel to Canada. While the focus of our opposition motion today is on airports, it is very important and relevant that other international ports of entry are mentioned and included as well, because they are all connected in our economic ecosystem. These ports of entry support businesses and economic opportunities in many sectors, including tourism, which is very important in my riding, as we have the city of Niagara Falls and the towns of Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie. My Niagara Falls riding has four international bridge crossings. They are managed by the Niagara Falls Bridge Commission and the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority, respectively. These are the Lewiston-Queenston Bridge, the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge, the Rainbow Bridge and the Peace Bridge. All have been hit hard by the two-year pandemic, and the federal government has done nothing to support these bridges, despite the heavy hardship of lost traffic due to extended border closures. One of the biggest issues I hear about at our international bridge crossings is that of backlogs and delays being caused by the ArriveCAN app. In an email from March 24, 2022, the general manager of the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority warned local politicians that their analysis showed the continued mandatory use of the ArriveCAN app would result in much longer processing times and lengthy border waits, which would significantly depress cross-border traffic at a time when we were moving into the 2022 summer tourism summer season. Fast forward two months, and here we are. His prediction was right. I raised this issue with the federal government as soon as I could. What did it do to prepare for these border backlogs? It doubled down and decided to spend $25 million more in budget 2022 to continue to support the mandatory use of this application. Along my border community riding, there are also a number of CBSA marine reporting sites for small vessels. They include the Niagara-on-the-Lake Sailing Club, the Smugglers Cove Boat Club, the Greater Niagara Boating Club, Miller's Creek Marina, Bertie Boating Club, and the Buffalo Canoe Club, amongst others. Out of all these sites I just listed, only one is operational. Miller's Creek in the upper Niagara River and Fort Erie is open, but all the other sites are closed. Members can imagine, if someone is boating on the lower Niagara River in Niagara-on-the-Lake, they would have to travel all the way to Port Weller in St. Catharines to report in with CBSA. If they are on the upper Niagara River but closer to Chippawa and Niagara Falls, then they have to travel all the way to Fort Erie and all the way back just to report in with CBSA. This adds many kilometres to a voyage and is a huge waste of time and money for boaters, especially as fuel prices skyrocket to record highs. These closures are a huge issue for local recreational boaters, especially as we approach the May long weekend and enter the summer boating season. We need the government to reopen all sites immediately. There is no time to waste. Tourist businesses in my riding were hit first. They were hit the hardest, and they will take the longest to recover from COVID-19. The effect these failing Liberal policies are having on our boaters will only make recovery take that much longer. Tourist businesses in Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie depend on domestic and international visitors travelling to our communities, spending their time and dollars and enjoying all that Niagara has to offer. The operation of attractions, historic sites, restaurants, wineries, craft breweries, cideries, casinos and many other businesses depend on this visitation. In communities such as Niagara, international visitation is important. While they make up approximately 25% of our total visitor base, these international visitors account for over 50% of the dollars spent in our tourism communities. This spend helps support over 40,000 jobs that are reliant on a strong tourism industry, which we had in Niagara before this pandemic. That is why it is essential we welcome back our international friends, guests and visitors. That starts by giving them a great, quick and efficient experience at our international ports of entry. No one is going to choose Canada as a travel vacation destination if they have to risk waiting hours upon hours in stressful and frustrating lineups at an airport or a border crossing. Economic damage and missed opportunities are already being incurred. As the world reopens from COVID and other countries lift their restrictions, Canada looks to be stuck in the past and out of touch with reality. For example, the European Union and the United States have dropped their mask mandates for passengers on flights and in airports. As countries around the world are reducing red tape and making it easier for citizens to travel again, the Liberals in Ottawa continue to impose their outdated and unjustified mandates, which are leading to longer lines and a slower recovery. As an example, fully vaccinated travellers arriving in Canada are still subjected to random COVID-19 testing, and in some cases, these travellers are not even told they have been selected until they get a surprise automated phone call or email a few days later from Switch Health. This happened to Kathryn and her daughter, two constituents of mine. On May 10, they had an uneventful Nexus border crossing at the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia. They were never informed that they were selected for random testing, nor were they given a random test on their exit from their Nexus inspection. Three days later, they received multiple phone calls and emails from Switch Health warning them to get a day-one random test or else risk contravening a public health order with severe penalties, including fines upwards of tens of thousands of dollars and mandatory quarantine. It seems illogical for people to be told they have to take a random test and then wait for Switch Health to send it to them by courier so they can complete it a few days, if not weeks, later. How is this in the best public health interest of Canadians? Simply put, the incompetence of the government knows no bounds. Many experts have called for the end of these ridiculous requirements. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce has called for a step back to improve regulations in order for Canada to become more competitive. The president of the Canadian Airports Council has called for the removal of legacy public health protocols, noting that mandatory testing is leading to bottlenecks and hurting Canada's competitiveness. These requirements are stifling our hard-hit tourism industry and are leading to long delays for Canadians just looking to travel after a long two years of obeying government-induced lockdown measures. All of these terrible travel experiences at our airports and border crossings are hurting Canada's economy, competitiveness and international global reputation as a top tourist destination. Since the world started reopening months ago, Canada has lagged far behind our international tourism destination competitors due to these bad federal government policies. On a scale this large, every port of entry across our country is negatively impacted, and this ripple effect negatively impacts every riding of the House of Commons, especially those, like Niagara Falls, that depend on tourism as a major economic driver. We all benefit from a strong tourism industry, and we all lose when it is weak and chaotic, like it is now. After two long years of government shutdowns, lockdowns, border closures and stringent travel restrictions, many tourist businesses in my riding are counting on a significant rebound this summer. Unfortunately, due to these travel measures and issues at airports and borders, government policy is working to stifle, rather than support, an urgently needed recovery in our tourism economy in 2022. Through their lack of preparedness to keep Canadians safe and preserve our economic best interests, the Liberals and NDP are abdicating their responsibility to govern. In my opinion, before COVID, Canada was the best place to visit and vacation. We can get back to being the best, and we should strive for nothing less, but we have a lot of work ahead of us, and it starts with objective of this motion, which is to get the federal government to immediately revert to prepandemic rules and service levels for travel. Niagara badly needs to achieve economic recovery this summer, and that is simply not going to happen if ArriveCAN and other federal travel and health restrictions continue at our airports and borders. It seems as though everyone wants to achieve economic recovery from this pandemic and a return to normalcy, everyone except the Liberal-NDP government, but it should know there is still time to save the 2022 tourism season if it acts quickly, and it should start by supporting today's common sense and timely motion.
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