Originally Posted by
Sanosuke
I think CBSAguy's doing a great job at helping soothe the criticism towards the CBSA agents.
I remember one other time when I was coming home from LAX with a new suit in my baggage back in the mid 90s. They asked me for the reciepts for the suit. Then they waved me on through after they saw the suit.
Not anymore. They ask you to hand over your laptop and digital camera when you just got back from a visit to a friend across the border. Times have changed and if we can't get used to the changes, we better be prepared for an alternative means of transportation that is less invasive of our space by the border officials.
Like it or not, they carry those searches in the interest of our national security and enforcement of the Criminal Code of Canada as well.
Cur, you have done a great job at defending yourself pretty well as well but we sometimes have to yield to authority if they ask nicely and professionally as they have in my case of secondaries.
Sanosuke!
I am still waiting for CBSAguy to answer the question I (and others) posed a few days ago - Why do Canadian customs agents ask more intrusive questions and are generally ruder than almost all other countries (in the world not just the US by the way)? Will CBSAguy please face the fact that a remarkable number of people in a very short time on this forum have reported this - doesn't this indicate something in itself? We aren't just inventing these stories and complaints and we are just the people who speak up - note the number of reading hits this forum point has evoked in such a short time.
Leaving NEXUS and US/Canada aside, many of us have visited many countries other than the US or Canada and know that there is a DEFINITE DIFFERENCE between Canada and almost every other country in how they treat returning CITIZENS. That is what I would like CSBA to explain.
When I go to Communist China or Russia(as a visitor of course - not as a citizen), I give them my passport, they run it through the system, they look at my face, stamp the passport and that's it. I have even got angry with them for inefficiency once and they just apologized.
When I come back, my own country gives me the third degree, looks at me like I just killed my parents, sneers at my responses and if I complain (did that once), then it is off to the secondary with me. I challenged them that I was only being taken to secondary because I complained and they said "Oh no sir, this is only random". What a lot of BS - you are all on a power trip and Canadian citizens are afraid to speak up because they don't need the hassle. But that does not make it right!
By the way, SINOSUKE - could you stop your grovelling to authority? It is really getting sickening - yes, we know you read 1984 and you LOVED it - all that big brother stuff - fits right in with your slavish agreement with whatever the authorities dish out. You need to read some Ayn Rand, my friend and try developing an individual personality - all that 'groupthink' of yours is why you love your CSBA friends.