Blue Water Bridge Duty Free employees in Point Edward are hoping for a flurry of activity when Canada drops its remaining COVID-19 restrictions at the border.
As of Saturday, October 1, mandatory public health measures, including the vaccination requirement for people who enter Canada and the random testing of arrivals, will end.
The Government of Canada will also no longer require travellers to submit their health information in ArriveCAN.
Blue Water Bridge Duty Free Vice President of Sales Tania Lee. Submitted photo.
Vice President of Sales Tania Lee said it's welcome news for their industry.
"It's something that we've been hoping for a very long time and it's something that will go a long way to helping our recovery, " Lee told Sarnia News Today.
"It has been devastating for our industry. When this first happened in March of 2020, we were effectively shut down. Our business is predicated on selling to customers who are crossing into the U.S. So, you can imagine when they shut down the border, which is something no one had ever foreseen, it was devastating."
Lee also serves as president of the Frontier Duty Free Association, which advocates for the Canadian land border duty free industry.
"Some of our stores closed down immediately, others were open to very, very, disrupted traffic. We were one of them. We were able to stay open because of our commercial traffic, but even that, it's a small, small, percentage of what we would normally do."
Lee said compared to 2019 levels, foot traffic at the local duty free has been down 40 per cent since the border reopened to travellers.
"We attributed that to many different things, the confusion with the border, the restrictions and ArriveCAN was a big sore point for us. ArriveCAN was put in place for a reason, the restrictions at the border were put in place for a reason, at that time, which made sense and then it just didn't make sense as time went by. It became really confusing for our tourists to come in, how they could cross, if they could cross and they just stopped coming in."
Lee said they managed to keep core staff employed, but have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.
"At times here at the bridge it would look like a ghost town. I could see the tolls from my office. There would be no one. You would see an odd truck coming back and forth. So, it's been discouraging for our staff, it's been a hard place for them to work. We're not back to full staffing levels yet, but if indeed this news is correct and we see the restrictions lifting at the end of the month, we hope to start to approach 2019 levels, which will allow us to bring back even more staff."
Transport Canada also announced on Monday that travellers aboard planes and trains will no longer have to wear a mask as of Saturday, October 1, or undergo health checks.
