While there's certainly hyperbole, I think what the other posters are referring to is this -

1) At airports like YYZ and YUL, if you have Global Entry you present your printout from the kiosk at the exit and you're waved on - Ditto places like ORD if you're arriving from overseas.

2) At YVR you use the Global Entry kiosk, then you step to a CBP booth and answer all the usual where are you going / what are you doing / which jobs are you stealing from Americans questions. So while GE may move you to a faster line, the experience is identical to someone without GE.

That has been a mystery for me since Day One. Coming into Canada, you just wave your Nexus ticket at them and away you go. But not the other way around and only at YVR? While not awful (when they hear what I do, it pretty much ends the interrogation), this continues to baffle me almost as much as that weird pre-staging area you have to go through at YYZ for US departures.

My only guess is that the operation is considered too small to have a dedicated GE line and it's considered easier to make everybody report to the same booths. I've also been bemused at clearing CBP, walking under the "Welcome to the US" sign, and then being demanded to produce my passport by gate agents as I board the flight. I'm sure there's a good reason for that too, but the only one I can think of is the possibility of losing my passport between the CBP booth and the gate.

That is pretty funny walking under the "Welcome to the US" sign. The reason you are required to show your passport is because it is airline policy for passengers to have their passport on an international flight and you have technically not left Canadian soil even though you are on US territory...

...stupid i know... :p

What's more dumb is that I still encounter the odd gate agent who refuses to accept my Nexus card when boarding and insists on a passport instead. But then my Nexus card is really only useful in the Nexus machines anyway.

What I would really like is for the two governments to come together and just adopt the same frigging machine.

It would be very simple to route GE pax at YVR CBP. You would just send them down to their left, down what is now the crew lane.

Hand your chit to a CBP officer and then exit the hall.

As we all know, "policy" is often something to hide behind.

Yes, I tried the same move once with the same result. More "policy."

So it would seem. Drop it in the CBP suggestion box your next time through and I'm sure they'll adopt it as "policy." ;)

Long before Nexus / Global Entry, YVR had a reputation of more difficult US entry. Every regular business traveller quickly learned that, from an immigration perspective, entering the USA at YYZ and YUL was a breeze, whereas at YVR you could expect a harder grilling and a trip to secondary every now and again.

I expect that once the Nexus / Global Entry machines went in, that culture simply continued.

True that.

Even way back, when we had two cards (CANPASS and INSPASS), we were often treated like we were going down to the US to pick fruit. Maybe there's been persistent 'issues' that we simply aren't aware of.