US teenagers have bagpipes seized at Canada border after competition

[jberryhill]

33. I've had more problems with the Canadians

...on several occasions.

The one time that bothered me the most was driving in on my way to a conference in Vancouver. The subject of the conference was relatively obscure and difficult to explain in a few words and he kept quizzing me about it.

"I thought you said it was a technical conference, but you said you're a lawyer?"

"It's a conference dealing with legal aspects of technical policies."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Does it matter? You can look up the conference. It's being held at the X hotel. Here's my registration for it. Am I allowed to go there?"

"Are you going to be working?"

"I'll be giving a talk. I mean, I'm not getting paid to do that, so I don't know if that's 'working'. I'm not seeking employment in Canada."

"What are you going to be talking about?"

"Trademark law."

"What's 'technical about that'?"

And just on and fucking on. Honestly, I got to the point where I was ready to tell him, "Forget it. It's not worth it. Clearly, you don't want me entering Canada, so I'll just go back to Seattle."

But I think I come up in some Canadian border crossing database from an incident years ago in which I picked up a bunch of furniture a friend of mine had bought on eBay and drove up in a rental truck to meet him at the border crossing in Watertown, NY and take the furniture to his place in Ontario. While he played "name your price" with the duty assessors, I was quizzed about the truck rental.

"Are you allowed to drive that truck into Canada?"

"You know, I didn't ask. Let's have a look at the rental agreement. ... Hmmm... it says I can drive it anywhere in the United States, and it specifically says not to drive it into Mexico, but it doesn't say I can't drive it into Canada."

"But Canada is not the United States."

"I know that, but since there are two countries you can drive to from the contiguous United States, and it says 'don't go to Mexico', then don't you think it would be easy for it to say 'or Canada', if they were going to list the places I can't go?"

"But it doesn't say you can drive it into Canada."

"What if I was driving to Alaska? Figure, I can drive it in the US, and Alaska is in the US, but to get there I'd have to drive across Canada, right? And it only says I can't drive it into Mexico."

"Are you going to Alaska?"

"No. But if I was, I think the rental company understands I'd have to drive across Canada to get there. Look at their brochure, it even has a picture of Alaska on it."

And, what I really couldn't figure out was why did this guy CARE if I was, or was not, violating my agreement with the rental truck company?

But what screwed me was the fact that I had known my friend for about 15 years via Usenet and email lists, and we'd never physically met. This led to a long puzzling discussion over, "So, you are saying you've known this guy for 15 years, but you just said you met him for the first time 15 minutes ago?"

The winner was being detained at immigration at the Vancouver airport. I had just gotten back from a trip abroad where I had lost my passport and had a temporary (1 year) passport issued to me at an embassy in Germany, and then I had a business trip to Vancouver.

The officer sent me to the detention room for problem children after a quick look at my passport. In the room, a couple of agents looked at my passport and said, "This passport is only valid for a year."

"Yes, that's correct. It is a temporary passport that was issued two weeks ago as a replacement for one I lost."

"Well, why didn't you get a regular passport?"

"Because I had to be at a meeting for three days in Vancouver after I got back from the trip to Europe. I promise, I'll go right back to the US and get a regular passport, but I couldn't have gotten one in time for my meeting here. It IS a passport, right?"

"Yes, but it's only valid for one year."

"I thought I could only stay in Canada for six months, right?"

"That's right."

"Then it would still be valid if I stayed the whole six months and left. It's a valid passport for as long as I'm allowed to be in Canada anyway."

"Well how long are you staying?"

"Four days."

"Why?"

"I'm a lawyer and one of my clients is a Canadian company. They are having a planning session and they wanted me here."

NEVER... NEVER... say "I'm going to a meeting in Vancouver". I swear to God there must be some kind of drug cartel that uses it as a passphrase. Instead just say "I'm going to smuggle a shitload of weed out of your country into the US, which probably means 'don't bother this guy'."

"So, you're going to be working?"

"Yes, but I'm not looking for a job in Canada. I have a job. I'm self employed."

"But you are working for a Canadian company?"

"No, I'm not working for a Canadian company as an employee. I do legal work for them in the US."

"But you're not working in the US, you're coming into Canada."

"Well, they like to see me once in a while. Look, are people in Canada allowed to hire lawyers to do things for them in the US?"

"Yes."

"And are those lawyers allowed to come visit them for a couple of days?"

"Yes. But what is it that you are meeting them about?"

"They are making business plans, and they want me to know their plans so I can do what they need done in the US."

"What kind of business plans?"

"Like, generally?"

"No, specifically. What do they want you to do?"

"I don't know if I can really tell you that."

"Why not?"

"I'm their lawyer. They're my client. You know... the whole lawyer/client thing?"

"Oh, okay."

And I thought I had finally made it out of the room to get the stamp to show the guy to go through the gate to get my luggage and be out of the airport, but, nooooooo..... that was just the warm-up. Then the supervisor comes in, looks at my passport and says, "This is only valid for one year..."

Eventually, I was warned not to pick up any new clients while I was in Canada, and I promised not to do so. Funny thing, though. While I was there, I got an email from a guy with a problem and it turned out he was in Vancouver, so I met him for coffee, because I felt like living dangerously.

I love Canada. I love Canadians. I see people going in and out of Canada all of the time and having a wonderful time doing it.

But, and this is God's honest truth, I have on my forehead, marked in some kind of ink only visible to Canadian border agents, the message "THIS ONE IS SUSPICIOUS!"

I have connected through Hong Kong, wasn't asked jack shit. I've been in and out of Beijing and I don't even remember anything other than a cursory look at the camera, scan of the passport, and on my way both in and out. You get fingerprint scanned on the way into Argentina. The customs guy in Morocco "corrected" my entry form by writing my passport number backwards, since they read the other way. I've wandered out of Tijuana drunk into the US.

But, I swear, of all the places I've been to, the idea of crossing into Canada gives me cold sweats, because I get the third degree every single time.