Originally Posted by
Denizen
Thanks for the reply, CBSAguy but this response from you possibly highlights the problem. I fully support CBSA in detecting the actual evildoers but shouldn't Canadian citizens have a right to move freely across the border many times to many countries and not have an imaginative CBSA person ask intrusive questions? Where exactly was the CBSA person going with no other clue other than my wife goes on more than one vacation a year? The question " Who did you go with to Mexico?" is none of CBSAs business without any more direct cause for suspicion - perhaps CBSAs need more training in what ordinary people do in their lives. The general consensus among travellers I speak to is that your questions have become more and more intrusive and frankly rude over the years. You need to find a better way of finding the evildoers rather than make everyone who goes through customs feel like a criminal - that is what Right to Privacy is all about.
I'm not going to speak for that officer. What I will say is that I try to keep my questions directly related to a person's admissibility to Canada and to the admissibility of their goods. I'd say for about 70% of the returning residents I process at primary, I don't ask much other than where they're returning from, and even that's just often to avoid 30 seconds of silence. If the declaration card is filled out completely and everything seems to fit, there's usually not much need for me to ask much of a returning Canadian.
I suppose sometimes after processing 50 or 60 really sketchy foreign nationals who can't articulate why they've come to Canada, don't know who they're visiting, and have no apparent means of financial support, it could take a couple minutes to come down from that highly-suspicious mindset.