Originally Posted by
Totoro
Does anyone know the reason for the passport check? International-international connecting passengers don't enter Canada, and NRT, HKG, etc don't scan passports for connecting passengers.
NRT and HKG are in different countries. Every country sets its own immigration policies, and Canada decided they wanted that check on people who are coming through the country - and regardless of sterile international transit or not, those people are physically in Canada during their layover. I don't know that the government has actually publicized a rationale for that decision, but wouldn't be surprised if they hadn't. If you really want to know the why, the general Canada forum may have more info.
Edit: second time this morning
RangerNS has beaten me to the punch while I was typing 😂