I've read multiple different sites now, and I am still not sure my understanding is correct. How hard is it for an official agency to lay out information in a way that can easily be understood!

Trying to determine if a Canadian, travelling from the US, via Dubai to Africa on Emirates, with a 3 hour layover, requires any sort of visa.

The Canadian travel information sites pass the buck to UAE. The UAE site talks about different visas, including a 96 hour transit visa. However, reading other sites, it seems that is only the case if you leave the airport for, say, a night or two in Dubai during your journey. Emirates website sheds no real light on it - I was hoping it would, as I cannot be the first person asking the question of them (for those who are unaware, Emirates will do the visa for you in this somewhat bizzare visa situation re Canadians), and on the phone, well they didn't seem super confident in telling me that if he is not changing terminals, he doesn't need anything.

So, aside from the 'does anyone here know the answer' part, why can information not be laid out more clearly! I find it very frustrating that, what should be a simple question, becomes confusing and annoying.