As we all know,
the CTC has been working their beavers to the bone trying to get anyone –
really, anyone? - to come to Canada. (As recently noted by an Open Jaw dinkette
visiting Glasgow, the slow inbound traffic could have something to do with the grizzlies on all
the Visit Canada brochures.)
Anyhoo, Pumpkins, the hyper paranoiac Harperites are
giving Canadian tourism a kick in the ol' moose antler they'll never recover
from. It's called the electronic authorization authority or ETA project. (which
is really short for Exclude Travellers from Abroad). Here is the
explanation: Travellers heading to Canada will soon no longer be able
to enter the country at an airport without prior approval. From March 15 2016,
every visitor will be required to obtain an electronic travel authorization.
And they have to pay $7 for the privilege of being
scrutinized.
Is it just me, dahrlings, or does that sound a bit
unwelcoming? At Rendez-Vous Canada, The Honourable Chris Alexander, Minister of
Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said
the initiative will help “boost tourism". Does someone boost your brain when
you enter politics?
In another
footnote, today's Globe
claims that “Canada will start gathering biometric information from all
foreign travellers entering on a visa and arriving at this country's biggest
airports. This will cover the majority of foreign arrivals."
I had neighbours like that once. They kept
inviting me for Pimm's & patty-cakes but every time I rang the bell no one
came to the door. Well! I can take a hint. After about 20 times, I stopped
trying.
The moral
of the sad tale is that in order to safeguard our borders, dahrlings, we'll be
pre-approving and fingerprinting and scanning anyone brave enough to still want
to come here, even though tests show that security screeners fail
to catch 95% of fake bombs.
If I were
WestJet, I'd tuck that Tartan
Tail between my legs and head back to Calgary. I can tell you from
experience, Scotsmen don't take kindly to being scrutinized.
