i hereby and solemnly declare, +1

I'd be getting Nexus too if I travelled often enough to warrant it. Just be sure to declare everything properly. You don't want to lose your Nexus card for something stupid.

thats a very good one. lol.

I've done that already. Basically the primary officer is functioning as both the primary immigration officer and the primary customs officer. That's where the confusion comes in.

i think the miscommunication comes from what we consider invasive. this line of questioning is certainly acceptable, and you're right, refusing to answer where you were is just pointless. my issue is with the illegal "what do you do for a living?" "who paid your ticket?" "what the hell is a mile run?" "where did you stay?" line of questioning that i received in secondary on two separate occasions over the last few years.

...and the personal exemption thing of $750 is another thing onto itself

and i always seem to get into run-ins with dim witted BSOs over situations CBP wouldn't further confront and EU IMM wouldn't bring up. but this is more of a HR issue with cbsa than a legality thing. i can really respect officers based on cbsguy's above description. it's one thing to be a good officer in a good agency, it's another thing to be a good officer in an agency managed and front-lined by morons.

they have to restructure the physical layout to CBSA at airports. the imm officers should be at PIL with imm secondary still existing and then customs at the exit inspecting everyone upon departure. it's a win win: Canadians zoom through primary, and customs BSOs at the exit can ask more appropriate questions for the people and all of the goods they have. that way, we avoid the stupid line of questioning, and BSOs can get better clues about someone: ie, the guy who went for that one day trip to Cleveland who has 4 pieces of luggage that wreak of glue or the Indian gone for 6 months who declared no food carrying four boxes leaking soil.
i think this is the only country in the world where customs officers ask questions about your goods at an airport without actually seeing them.
oh, and you guys gotta find a way to track people referred from pil to immigration, you may remember that guy in yyc in 2005 who was to be refused admittance into canada, coded to immigration, went into imm, was told to get his bags and come back, got his bags, stole the e311 from someone else, and then left the area and was a fugitive for a month. and there are the people who act one way to an officer at pil, get sent into imm, and then they know how to tailor their answers to imm.

...OTP, CBSAguy, what do you think about the auditor general's recent report, and what do you think a good solution would be to deal with legally admitted, unlawfully residing immigrants?

Perhaps because of questions like:

"Why are you still a permanent resident after living in Canada for so long?"
"What's the street address of your workplace?"
"How can you afford to travel so much?"
"You went all the way to California for a course - weren't there any closer to where you live?"

"What was the name of the doctor you saw?"
"Why do you have to travel so often?"
"What was the name of the hotel you stayed in? Can I see the receipt?"

Perhaps you don't see what the fuss is because you are a "friendly" officer.

But there are many of your colleagues that we see, that you would not, who are anything but.

NEXUS is great, but if you have so much as a chocolate bar, you're not supposed to use it. :rolleyes:

Invasive questioning has its place. I do ask about employment, where a traveller stayed, and who paid for their ticket, among other things, on occasion. For most travellers, most of the time, it is not appropriate, necessary, or reasonable. It's all about circumstances. For someone returning from a two-day business trip to Boston, I would not generally care about any of those things. For a 16-year-old female travelling back alone after a two-day "personal" trip to see a "friend" in Bogota, my thought process may be different. Nonetheless, if I have sufficient doubt, I would just code her in for a secondary examination. I figure if I ask her too many invasive questions at primary, I'd just be tipping her off that she's going to be sent in for further examination. Then, she may be scared off and just leave that bag full of cocaine on the baggage belt. Of course having a stomach full of contraband is a whole different issue.

Regarding restructuring of the physical layout, etc. at airports, I agree and have for some time. As it stands now, at the exit, that's part of the idea: viewing the whole picture and determining who to send in for further examination. It's the stupid people who get caught. The guy who declares "0" alcohol, but walks out with three of those Jamaican rum boxes, for example. Nonetheless, changes are necessary. Unfortunately, government speed being what it is....

As for the YYC immigration case you're talking about, I cannot see how that would happen at YYZ at least. Once through primary, there's that choke point where everyone has to pass by (behind the booths at the top of the escalators). That officer's sole job is to make sure those referred to Immigration Secondary find their way inside. No one is ever sent down alone to get their bags unless they have been released (stamped in, immigration processing completed). Maintaining control of those in the Immigration Secondary area, without turning the office into a prison atmosphere is more difficult, but changes have been made over the years.

This excerpt from the 2008-2009 Reports on Plans and Priorities may be of interest:


"Discussions pertaining to a new pilot program, available to Canadian citizens and known as the Electronic Primary Inspection Line (E-PIL), were initiated in late 2007. The pilot program will be conducted at Vancouver International Airport and will begin in fall 2008. This program will use new technology to expedite the movement of low-risk passengers and enable the CBSA to focus more resources on high-risk passengers and goods.

"Under the program, rather than handing passports to CBSA agents, travellers will put their passports in an E-PIL kiosk. Low-risk travellers will pass through the primary inspection line quickly, and regulatory authorities will have collected the information they need.

"The E-PIL program has the potential to fundamentally change the CBSA's processing procedures, to meet future processing demands and to enhance border clearance for Canadian citizens and permanent residents seeking to enter Canada at international airports."

If this gets implemented, hopefully it allows us to staff Secondary with more officers and get more officers roving the baggage hall. I'd like to see more people sent in for further examination. We need more staff in Secondary to be able to quickly process more random referrals (For the most part: x-ray baggage, quick look inside a bag, everything checks out, have a good day).

As for the Auditor General's report, I shamefully admit I have not found the time to read it as yet.

Fine. But very few of us here are 16-year old females travelling back alone after a two-day "personal" trip to see a "friend" in Bogota.

Don't you find it at least a bit bizarre that so many of us who are most likely the two-day business trip to Boston folks, are complaining of the same thing: (a) rudeness, (b) intrusive questioning?

Simon

You may not. But just because you don't see it doesn't mean CBSA doesn't see it. The point is that many different walks of life go through those booths at all ports of entry.

So many? I only see a few to be honest. And it's the same people.

Now I'm not saying that the points made by all sides are not good (because some of them really are good points), but with all due respect, you are just but a sample sample of the population and a small sample going back and forth through Canada's entry/exit points.

^ Nice to see this thread come back to life. And a thanks to CBSAguy for his candid insight.^

I don't fit the "normal traveller" profile and always get the sideways glance. I find the interview goes much better if I try hard NOT to answer the questions. I had CanPass, and it was amazing, but it's since expired.

Right, I don't disagree. My point is that those people certainly should be investigated more thoroughly. The posters here, my employees, family, friends, all of whom complain about being given the third degree at Canadian points of entry, when many of them have dual citizenship and get NOTHING CLOSE to the questioning and rudeness when entering their other country, are akin to the business person going to<->from Boston.

Try asking people you know what they think about CBSA.

Simon

For what it's worth, an independent study was conducted in 2007 for CBSA. Among the questions asked of travellers were the following:

1. "Overall, how would you rate this experience (i.e., interaction with a Border Services Officer on your last trip back into Canada)? Would you say very positive, positive, negative, very negative, or neither positive nor negative?"

Responses were:

Very positive: 24%
Positive: 51%
Negative: 4%
Neither positive nor negative: 20%
Do not know / no response: 2%


2. "And how would you rate this experience when compared to the last country you entered? Would you say much better, better, worse, much worse, or no different?"

Much better: 12%
Better: 21%
No different: 56%
Worse: 6%
Much worse: 1%
Do not know / no response: 5%

Those with a university education were more likely to rate the Canadian experience as "much better" as were visible minorities, those whose first language is neither English nor French, and those who had travelled within the last six months.

The key is right here:

"2. "And how would you rate this experience when compared to the last country you entered? Would you say much better, better, worse, much worse, or no different?"

No different: 56%"

Shouldn't the experience that a Canadian citizen has entering their own country be better than the experience they have entering the US (renowned as awful), UK, Russia, or elsewhere?

Simon

Probably should be, yep. I try to keep the experience positive for Canadians returning and for visitors. I had a family immigrating a few weeks back and discovered that they had well over $10,000 in cash that was undeclared. Their first language was neither English nor French, but they had the multilingual E311 card. They claimed it to be an oversight when filling out the card. Nonetheless, I could have seized the cash. I had no reason to believe the money was proceeds of crime or was being used to finance terrorism, so I let it go after completing the required paperwork for FINTRAC and educating them on how to handle future imports/exports of currency. I mean, what better way to welcome a new family to the country than to seize their money, right?

There have been many valid points made in this thread, but a lot of pointless whining too (of which FT seems to be famous, judging from my years of lurking). I'm just one person and I don't run the show at work. I just show up, do my job (well), and get my pay cheque. I think most of my colleagues strive to get the job done right as well.