Thought of the Day - August 5 2021 - Travel Impediments

After decades in the IT Industry, when I retired I gave up my cellphone. No more emergency texts, no more checking email every ten minutes, and no more 3 am troubleshooting conference calls. My time became my own - just one of the major perks of retirement. But now, unfortunately for me, I have found you cannot participate in modern society without a smartphone, and even more scary, that smartphone must be subscribed to a registered carrier plan.

Example, in order to do certain financial transactions or access specific websites you need to receive a one-time SMS text authentication code (for example I have a UK bank account that requires it, I am the treasurer for our sailing club and our credit card payment system requires it). No problemo, there are plenty of Internet services that let you receive texts, I have been using them for years. But, all of a sudden they no longer accept these numbers. Now you need to have an active cellphone number subscription with a major Canadian carrier (you know the ones that have the highest rates in the world) otherwise the SMS message will not be sent. This has nothing to do with confirming you are you, it is simply to make sure you can be traced.

And now there is a new COVID example. Starting next week, travellers who are visually impaired or do not have a smartphone could be in real trouble trying to come back to Canada. Yes, if you cannot demonstrate real-time access to the ArriveCan app when being processed at the airport you could be sent to a three-day, your expense, stay in a government-designated hotel, even if you are 'fully vaccinated'.

Moreover, if you did not manage to populate the ArriveCan app before you started your return journey, you might not even be allowed onto the plane back to Canada in the first place.

Canada is not unique in this, a friend who recently travelled to the US for business, found that, despite completing all the preflight checklists before travelling to YVR, she had to fill in another online questionnaire using her phone before being allowed to board.

So here am I, someone who spent their entire career in IT, appalled by these new technical hurdles to everyday life. Can you imagine what it must be like for people who, by no fault of their own, are less computer literate - dang, it is getting tougher to be retired every day.

Cheers

Cliff