U.S. lawmakers, advocates pushing Ottawa to eliminate ArriveCan, open Nexus offices

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers and advocates in the United States are ramping up the pressure on the federal government to ease travel delays between the U.S. and Canada.

The Canadian American Business Council’s new campaign, “Travel Like it’s 2019,” aims to flood federal MPs with public demands for action.

It calls on Ottawa to scrap the troublesome ArriveCan app, a mandatory pre-screening tool for visitors to Canada.

And it wants the federal government to clear the backlog of 350,000 applications for the Canada-U.S. trusted-traveller system known as Nexus.

Council CEO Maryscott Greenwood says Canadians have sent MPs nearly 1,500 emails through travellikeits2019.ca since the campaign launched earlier this month.

Prominent members of Congress like Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, and Democrat Rep. Brian Higgins are also urging officials on both sides of the border to take action.

Feature image by iStock.com/alvarez