Originally Posted by
ericw
I generally found Canadian custom officers spend more time with each passenger than many other countries, especially for returning residents. Even US pre-clearance is faster sometimes.
I love the Australian style, check your PP, stamp and go!

The biggest problem there is with people who cannot complete their declaration cards properly. People miss the home address section. Other people forget to sign it. A lot of people cannot differentiate between the terms "resident" and "visitor" and end up filling out the wrong, or both sections, often with contradictory information. Another thing: if the answer to a question is "no" or "0", that has to be indicated. You know the list of yes/no questions (firearms, food, currency, etc.)? For some reason, many people fail to complete that, informing me that they didn't fill it in because the answers are all "no". And about 15-20 per cent of the passports I see are not signed. This may add 30 seconds to an examination, but multiply that by umpteen people, add in the travellers who do not speak English or French along with the parents travelling alone with their young children without a consent to travel letter, and you begin to understand why it sometimes seems to take forever. Don't take this as a complaint of my own, but rather an observation.