Odd questions from Canada Customs

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Slowmo

Slowmo

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Esprit
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40' Tollycraft tricabin diesel
I had a rather interesting series of questions when crossing the Canada border this month. I choose to check in at Bedwell Harbor (Pender Island in BC) where you phone in your arrival then meet with the on-site agent. They asked all the normal questions including 'do you have a fire arm aboard'? Answer was no. That part seemed normal, it's well known that you can't bring a fire arm into Canada. Where it got weird was they then the proceeded to ask if I owned a fire arm in the US and where was it stored. I bit back my first thought which was that wasn't their business and did answer the question. What was interesting was that the agent was looking at his computer screen which suggests he already knew the answer to the question. Once I answered we went on our merry way but it was the first time I've ever been asked such a question at any border anywhere in the world.

Has anyone else had this line of questioning? I certainly found it unsettling to be asked about this when I'd already delclared that no fire arm was aboard. They didn't ask if I had marajuana or other things at home (which you also can't take across the border).
 
We've had similar questions, including "Do you have ammunition on board?" The official asked the same questions in 2-3 different ways, then said "Do you know what will happen if we find things on board that you denied having?" Two of them then searched the boat for 45 minutes, finding nothing. They somewhat apologized, and we went on our way. This was quite unusual. Questioning has mostly been polite and friendly.
 
Border agents (from both Canada and the US) have been know to ask questions to try and trip you up. Throwing a curve ball now and then is par for the course. If they think you lied then can refuse entry.
 
I've crossed from Mexico into US via car at least 50 times over the last few years. My sense is CBP agents are sometimes just bored and curious. Sometimes the question and answer is meaningless - they are looking for non-verbal qeues on how you react. They do indeed ask questions they know the answer to. A couple days ago I was asked who was the registered owner of my car which I bought from my mom 10 years ago.

They say 80% of communication is non-verbal. Pretty sure that's the realm CBP agents and their Canadian counterparts operate in.

Peter
 
they may have known your a registered gun owner and wanted to see your reaction
 
I've crossed many boarders over the past 40 years all over the world, mostly by air and without question, the worst has been the USA just behind Canada.



My last crossing into Canada a few months ago was inconsistent with what I've bee told. The person I talked with told me to clear in said I had to be at a marine to call in, which was wrong, but pulled into a marina, called in and the next guy said no issue and welcome in.


A month later coming into the US was a minor issue, but no problem.


In past crossing, coming into the US, customs has been absolutely brutal flying in privately, to the point I just quit going to Canada... period.


Overall, customs has WAY too much power without accountability.
 
I have crossed via air dozens of times in many countries for work and pleasure. And walked across into Mexico many times.

Coming in via a vehicle is much, much different. When I had my campervan I was searched 100% of the time by Mexican federales. Even with SENTRI, US CBP searched me 75% of the time.

Mexico border officials have changed since Lopez Obrador came to power 4 years ago. Much of the police graft is abated.

Peter
 
First, understand that hand gun possession is much different in Canada than the USA.

Second, USA citizens continue to cross the border with hand guns mostly undeclared.

The do you own a hand gun is not uncommon. You will be asked the question at least 5 times during your next 10 visits. Answering consistently will lead to fewer inquiries in the future. Answering inconsistently will lead to more inspections.

While you might think it is none of Canada’s business, you are mistakenly trying to use the US Constitution to define Canadian freedoms. Another error often made is thinking the US Constitution protects you when entering the US. It protects you once you have entered the country but not while entering. A fact that has been held up in court.
 
mvweebles said:
They say 80% of communication is non-verbal. Pretty sure that's the realm CBP agents and their Canadian counterparts operate in.
Click to expand...
100% agree with your statement. Body language, but especially in the eyes.

There was a time when I was flying regularly with near-six figures cash in my satchel. When I reached TSA screening the "agents" would freak out. Then I'd ask for a private screening with an actual CBP officer, who upon receiving my FinCEN and seeing my calm, bored demeanor, would move me along easily.
 
I'm not surprised by this "odd question" at all, or any question they ask, for that matter.

There are no right or wrong questions, just wrong answers.
 
Sometimes they are digging into you personally. As others have said, they will ask you unusual questions to see if they can trip you up. That has happened to me once crossing into Canada. Several times crossing back into the US.



Sometimes they are looking for something on a broader scale. That also happened once crossing by car into Canada. I was many cars back from the booth when agents started walking from car to car asking questions. When an agent got to me I was asked all the usual questions with a special emphasis on fire arms. All of the questions were repeated a 2nd time. Then the agent said "I'm going to ask you one more time. Do you want to change any of your answers?" I said no, answered the same as before.


That did not satisfy the agent. I was told to leave the line, park by the building, leave my keys on the front seat and to enter the building. They did that to a few of us. I was detained for over 3 hrs, no further questions asked, no information given. Finally told I could go on my way.


I could see that some of the others detained had their hand guns taken away. Some had other problems.


It's worth noting that when you cross a border by the time you see or speak to an agent you are already on that nation's soil. Subject to their laws and enforcement. If you are not crossing into your native nation you have no rights, only granted privileges.



It is also worth noting that Canada and US customs keep meticulous records of your crossings. I was reminded of that a few days ago when crossing into Canada at Bedwell Harbor by boat. On the phone all of the usual questions, ID of persons aboard did not start with me. Finally I said "Are you ready for my passport #". The reply was "No, we already have yours." Then I was given my clearance # and permission to enter Canada.
 
I had one trip where a rented SUV was stuffed full of new boat parts that I was taking to Sydney. The Canadian customs person saw Texas on my drivers license and proceeded to evolve into an almost interrogation for 15 minutes wrt gun ownership and if I had any with me. Became very irritating.


I also had one interesting Bedwell experience-heading north...after the 15-20 minute search of the boat by two agents they found an apple. Told me I could keep it but would have to return the core to them whenever I came back into Canada. I guess my apple was a threat to the Canadian apple business.
 
Slowmo said:
... They asked all the normal questions including 'do you have a fire arm aboard'? Answer was no. That part seemed normal, it's well known that you can't bring a fire arm into Canada. Where it got weird was they then the proceeded to ask if I owned a fire arm in the US and where was it stored...
Click to expand...

The first question was to set up the second question, which was to see if you would say that the fire arm was on the boat.

Later,
Dan
 
We had a similar experience going into Sydney last week. They asked a lot of questions about guns including if we had ever owned guns. I finally commented that we don’t like guns and wish our guns laws were stricter which seemed to surprise the agent. I just thought it was a sad statement about our country that they seem to think everyone has guns. They asked some other interesting questions about anything else that could be used as a weapon like medical needles. I answered that I’m diabetic and take insulin so have little pen needles for that. I never thought of trying to hurt someone with one of those tiny, less than 1/2 inch long micro needles. We were cleared and went on our way. We later heard that they were training new agents that day so things were really backed up.
 
First question is to establish if you have gun onboard or not.

Second question is to establish if there is the possibility of a (legally owned) gun being onboard.

If answered "yes" to the second question, the third question gives you a prompt to recollect where all of your guns are at that very moment. Many Americans are used to routinely carrying guns. Amazing how many times people attempt to cross the border and get caught with a legally owned gun that they have forgotten they had.

However, if you answer "no" to both first and second, and they find a gun (or more) on board, now you have lied twice, and ones credibility is compromised. You might even be considered a smuggler. This would certainly seem to make the prosecution easier, as the "I forgot" defense has been debilitated by the second and third question.

Just my logical interpretation, not sure if it's the real reason, but it seems to follow.
 
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Early 2019-ish was the last time I flew around the Collective West. Some US
agent (who, IIRC, was stationed in Canada where a hop was) started out with a stick up his butt. When I answered "China." to the question about where I came from, he popped a gasket. That was the only honest answer I could give since it was a multi-stop flight, but I guess he wanted to hear something else.

I think it was that flight where I landed in a smaller international near LAX and they guy had to frisk me. As far as I'm concerned, it's infinitely more humiliating to be groping people all day for peanuts than to be groped. At least the guy was a little more professional. Mostly he just seemed tired as was I after the journey since I cannot sleep on planes.

Maybe since I own a fair number of guns I was on a list or something. Who knows with the algorithms these days. I'd already determined to get out of the Western Hemisphere anyway, and that was just one more tiny reason to do so. I just flew around SE Asia a bit recently and customs people seem fine except that the Filipino ones are starting to get a little bit aggressive and weird, and God only knows what they spray on incoming people. They claim that Tedros over at WHO gave it his blessing.

Edit: To keep things in context, concerns about flight in general as we move into a more fully developed 'new normal', are a VERY big factor in my interest in having a boat. Most boats, and ways of using boats, are not really a good solution to the potential problems in their severe form.
 
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tvtfc said:
Early 2019-ish was the last time I flew around the Collective West. Some US agent (who, IIRC, was stationed in Canada where a hop was) started out with a stick up his butt. ...
Click to expand...

So much of it is just random. I had a rude a...s TSA agent in LAX when we were flying to China. He just was flat out rude for no good reason. We were in a dark cave like area due to construction and I could not get his name. If I had, I would have complained. He was just an a...s

One trip out of Dublin, I was quizzed to judge my reactions. The question that was funny as a simple one, "What is the name of you manager?" I laughed, and said which one, I have two at the moment. :eek::D

That person was polite though and just doing their job.

Second trip out of Dublin, the wife selected for a more intrusive search. Why? I think it was because they had to check a certain number of people a day, it was early in the morning, and we had arrive a couple of hours before our flight so they had time to delay us. Wife was NOT HAPPY.

Going into China at a rural ferry landing, the woman in charge did not speak English so she just yelled to make us understand her Mandarin. :D It really was funny and out of a movie. Funny thing is that when they X rayed our luggage, I don't think they even watched the screen to see what we were bringing into the country. :D But it was not rude or at least I did not take it that way.

Leaving Hong Kong, we were searched twice. Once the normal security line and then they looked through all of the luggage a second time at the gate. They were very polite.

I got tested for explosives when I went through security to pick up a child at the gate. Really stupid, since I did not have a ticket, they knew I did not have a ticket, only a pass to get to the gate, and I was not carrying any luggage. I was carrying Dashew's Offshore Cruising Encyclopedia which is kinda large. :lol: They were polite but I figure the picked me because it was slow, there was no line, and I did not have a plane to catch.

Random.

Later,
Dan
 
If crossing a (national) border by any means, (Car boat plane) is what I have stored at my home relevant to anything I am doing crossing the border?

I have crossed into and out of Mexico by vehicle a lot in the last 3 decades. (Just not since COVID) Usually I get very little questions going into Sonora. Coming back can be a PITA. However US border patrol officers just ask more questions about what is being brought into the US. They never ask me about what I did or left in Mexico.

Likely the wrong thing to do would be to refuse to answer questions about my fire arms in the US to a Canadian customs agent. AZ does not require fire arms to be registered. And I have 1 hand gun and some long guns. The hand gun is a muzzle loader. (Replica) If I were to use the hand gun for protection, it might be more accurate if I threw it versus shoot it. I use it for decoration. It looks cool.
 
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Greetings,
Some day I'm going to get into trouble. I pretty well always chuckle when asked if I have more than $10K with me.
 
dannc said:
Funny thing is that when they X rayed our luggage, I don't think they even watched the screen to see what we were bringing into the country.

Random.

Later,
Dan
Click to expand...


I have a curious inability to remember to take the 2.3" Swiss Army knife out of my pocket or my carry-on. Around our house these are known as "TSA knives." because of the dozen or more I have donated over the years.


This year, departing Mexico, as I arrived at the security screen I realized I had done it again, so I just tossed it into my wife's bin with her sun hat and camera case. X-ray operator didn't even look.:lol:
 
I would be remiss to not give a special shout-out to the Malaysian customs people, and there might be a few things that a few people might find usable.

The Malaysian security re-packed my fluoride-free toothpaste into a clear bottle instead of throwing it away. Since it is hard to get in Asia I very much appreciated it and am using the bottle to this day.

My plan had been to go to Malaysia on the 'next trip' and do Singapore and Vietnam for the first one. My visa to Vietnam was screwed up so we swapped trips. At customs in Kota Kinabalu my family was 'detained' because we had no outbound ticket. We just sat in an area and purchased one. I was surprised by this since we had come from Kuala Lumpur. For that reason we also had a working SIM card and were able to easily book a ticket which was fortunate. Seems to be a Borneo Island thing. My bad for not knowing the rules. I had a similar experience going to The Philippines back in 2018/19. I planned to (and did) get a permanent visa so I didn't have a return ticket and could not get on the flight from Taipei to PH. So I just got on the net while standing in line and bought a throw-away ticket to Abu-Dubai or whatever was cheapest.

While in the holding area in KK, another detainee was in the same position. Some Japanese or Korean guy who clearly had some mental issues. He was noticeably threatening the security staff physically in addition to shouting at them. Security were very calm and respectful and just accumulated the manpower to deal with the situation. I made a joke of getting out of the line of fire behind him which cracked up some of the security staff, but they hid it well. Later they gave me some tips about looking around town.

In both Singapore and Malaysia the customs people behind the glass windows are _completely_, without exception, taciturn and mirthless.

Oh yeah, it's the death penalty for bringing even a pretty small amount of drugs into Singapore, and it's not a joke. They don't give a damn about your 'human rights'. My informant (a taxi driver) said that an attorney can get things delayed for a year or to, but usually not much more. They stopped putting Westerners to death during the covid thing, but only so their families had a chance to say their last goodbyes. I doubt that anyone on this forum would do anything with drugs, but some people may have relatives who could benefit by a special warning or whatever.
 
^^^^ That's funny and I don't care who you are.


And I have had a similar experience.
I had a trip from PHX to DTW stayed for weeks. Then flew to Houston, stayed for three days. All on Southwest Air which may not have much to do with the situation. On my trip from Houston to back home in PHX. That last flight my pocket knife was caught in carry on and they gave me a choice to mail back home. Which I did.

This was 10 years ago and the question I really would like to know is what happened on the the previous legs of this trip?
 
AlaskaProf said:
I have a curious inability to remember to take the 2.3" Swiss Army knife out of my pocket or my carry-on. Around our house these are known as "TSA knives." because of the dozen or more I have donated over the years.

This year, departing Mexico, as I arrived at the security screen I realized I had done it again, so I just tossed it into my wife's bin with her sun hat and camera case. X-ray operator didn't even look.:lol:
Click to expand...

Thankfully, I have remembered to not take a knife in my pocket or carry on luggage to the airport. I suppose it will happen at some point. :(

Our first trip to Dublin, we talked to a member of the Garda, aka, a police officer, who had a post near the hotel which was near a major sports stadium. I had read that one can't have a knife on your person in Ireland so I asked him to verify, which he did.

Course, a Swiss Army knife is a tool with a bunch of tools, and one of them in my knife is a bottle opener. We had stopped in a local grocery store and bought a bottle of beer and cider but when we got back to our room there was no bottle opener. :eek: We had to call the desk to have a bottle opener brought to the room.... Which they did and then took away with them. :nonono:

I assume they did this to minimize drunks in the hotel.

We looked for a bottle opener in the store, I can't remember if it was the next day or when we bought the beer and cider, but could not find one. We could find a big wine bottle opener but not a simple bottle opener. :confused:

I don't know if this was just a very local issue or more wide spread. The only thing I could figure, was that the major sports stadium would cause large numbers of people to flow into the area, and to minimize issues with thrown glass bottles and broken glass, the stores did not sell bottle openers. Not sure what the people did who LIVED in the area to open their bottles.

We only had carry on luggage so I could not take my Swiss Army knife. Now a days, for overseas trips, we check some luggage which contains my Swiss Army knife. :D

Later,
Dan
 
RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
Mr. d. Heck, you can uncap a bottle with almost anything. Spoon, BIC lighter etc.
Click to expand...

No metal spoon in most hotel rooms.

Don't smoke so no BIC lighter.

I used to have a little tool that fit on a key chain that would work as a screw driver and it had a bottle opener. But that was not on the key chain I took overseas.:banghead:

There was nothing in the hotel room to open the bottle and that was done on purpose. There was even a nice lounge we could use. No bottle opener was in the lounge, just plastic forks, spoons, and knives.

Later,
Dan
 
One interesting crossing from Canada to Bellinghame in small plane, they asked if I had any salmon with me. Turns out then you could only have one day's limit (2 fish) you could bring out of Canada. I asked what the hell did TSA care if I had salmon, US doesn't care, I'm not smuggling? TSA reports back to Canada and you get fined. I had no fish but interesting the cooperation between the border. Towing boats back from Mexico I (40ish) traveling with friend (^0ish), I get pulled into secondaria with the sniffing dog all thru my boat while friend passes straight thru and has to wait for me. Moral of this story: hid the dope in the old guys boat LOL:)
 
dannc said:
No metal spoon in most hotel rooms.

Don't smoke so no BIC lighter.

I used to have a little tool that fit on a key chain that would work as a screw driver and it had a bottle opener. But that was not on the key chain I took overseas.:banghead:

There was nothing in the hotel room to open the bottle and that was done on purpose. There was even a nice lounge we could use. No bottle opener was in the lounge, just plastic forks, spoons, and knives.

Later,
Dan
Click to expand...

https://www.tasteofhome.com/collection/ways-to-open-a-beer-bottle-without-a-bottle-opener/

I use #6 from time to time
 
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