Random arrival testing
 

I know this is being temporarily paused, but how likely / how much of this has Canada been doing on arrivals to different places?

I am flying into Montreal mid-July from Morocco and just a bit nervous on the (hopefully unlikely) chance we have something asymptomatic from our travels then. With 3 weeks of expensive travel in Canada (first time visitor), I would hate to lose it all when having to quarantine.

Am I correct from reading in this forum that you are told afterwards and then have to go somewhere to get tested? Or how does it work when you are selected (and how do you know if you are selected)?

Thanks!

According to the rules, they (CBSA) have to tell you at the airport and give you instructions, and then you are directed to the testing area before exiting the airport. After a few days you get an automated call (from PHAC) that asks for the tests results (apparently they don't get it directly from the testing provider, at least not if it's negative).

However, a lot of people that were randomly selected by the computer (and thus PHAC expects them to get tested), were not notified or asked to get tested at the airport, so they were surprised to get the phone calls (also an email) after a few days, that tells them they have been selected. Please note that this chain of events is in complete violation of the arrival testing rules and procedures that are published by the government, however most people accept it because it's very hard to get to a live person on the phone and explain to the PHAC that CBSA made a mistake and forgot to notify you of being selected. So in this case, you call the testing provider to ask that they send you a home test, and then you do the test in a video call, and send them the sample, and finally get the results. This usually takes 1-2 weeks.

They said they were aware that this happens, so I hope that when (and if) the arrival testing resumes, there will be a way to resolve mistakes like that, because it's quite stressful to deal with this for two weeks after arrival. My general advice, is to specifically ask the CBSA agent that examines your passport, if you are selected or not. If you are selected, it's best to just do it at the airport IMO.

BTW, I'm not recommending this, but I actually asked to get a confirmation that I wasn't selected in writing but the CBSA agent refused. But at least I got a verbal confirmation of not being selected. So that hopefully reduces the chance of mistakes, and being unknowingly selected.

I just got a green sticker from CBSA on my passport which meant I wasn’t selected.

What's the percentage who are selected? Do we know?

I also got a green sticker, but I was still marked as selected in the computer system, so a few days later I started getting the automated calls from PHAC. The point is a lot of people get a green sticker and are not told anything about being selected, but are marked as “selected” in the system.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...port-1.6481934

Yes, it was about 5%

5% of a flight or 5% of the people in the customs area?

It’s over 5% of the travellers arriving to Canada on international flights. The latest weekly data is for the week of 5/29-6/4 shows 27k tests completed and 479k arriving travellers by air, which is 5.6%.

I have no doubt that this is the procedure...but seriously. Does this make sense to anyone? You get tested several days after arrival, and find out 7-10 days after that if you'd been infected. What exactly does that accomplish? I think I'll continue my current practice of ignoring the whole charade.

I didn’t say that is the proper procedure, just that most people don’t try to fight it, even though it’s very legally dubious that they notify you after a few days.

And I suppose a lot of people ignore it, or treat the notifications as spam, as you can see in the comments to the article below :

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...port-1.6481934

Speaking to someone who recently returned to YYZ from FRA, their flight was 1 in 3. After standing in line for several minutes she knew she was "safe" when the guy ahead of her got a pink sticker.

The only way this nonsense is going away is if most people refuse to comply. I’ve done my bit. Several other posters on this forum have also said enough is enough.

What exactly do you mean by "ignoring the whole charade"? Once you've been selected for testing, you will just not report the result, as they don't know who has(n't) been selected for testing anyway? And then you just pretend they notified you by mistake and you have not been selected for a test at all?

By not participating at all.

My understanding is that after being selected for arrival testing, they would keep calling you, every few days, until you provide them with the test results. This is mostly done using automated calls. I believe that eventually a human PHAC rep will call you to check if you already completed the test. It might not be advisable to avoid these calls, or refuse taking the test, as it might result in some fines, although I'm not sure how strict or fullprrof this system is.