Going to Canada? Check your past / Tourists with minor criminal records turned back at border — There are more and more restrictions being placed on Americans who want to leave the country as if we are putting up a Berlin wall to keep people here.
There was a time not long ago when a trip across the border from the United States to Canada was accomplished with a wink and a wave of a driver’s license. Those days are over.
Take the case of 55-year-old Lake Tahoe resident Greg Felsch. Stopped at the border in Vancouver this month at the start of a planned five-day ski trip, he was sent back to the United States because of a DUI conviction seven years ago. Not that he had any idea what was going on when he was told at customs: “Your next stop is immigration.”
Felsch was ushered into a room. “There must have been 75 people in line,” he says. “We were there for three hours. One woman was in tears. A guy was sent back for having a medical marijuana card. I felt like a felon with an ankle bracelet.”
Or ask the well-to-do East Bay couple who flew to British Columbia this month for an eight-day ski vacation at the famed Whistler Chateau, where rooms run to $500 a night. They’d made the trip many times, but were surprised at the border to be told that the husband would have to report to “secondary” immigration.
There, in a room he estimates was filled with 60 other concerned travelers, he was told he was “a person who was inadmissible to Canada.” The problem? A conviction for marijuana possession.
In 1971!
Meanwhile is the wall being built on our southern border to keep Mexicans out or to keep Americans in? You have to wonder since they opened up the floodgates for Mexican truckers as told in this article. They can be double felons and be able to drive the Mexican to Canada super highway. We wrote about it here.
Perhaps they need us here for the slave labor camps.
Yeah, pot calling the kettle black.
It’s their country and they can forbid people of questionable character if they want, just like we do, about 50 yards the other direction. It’s not that the Mexicans can get it, they just don’t have computer links these days.
So, don’t get caught drinking and driving, then get convicted and expect to freely travel the world. The same goes for other convictions, too. Do the crime, do the time, constrain your travel opportunities. Get caught smoking weed in college there, John?? Can’t go to Toronto now??
> US politicians scapegoating Canada
> pliant Conservative government in Canada
> calls from the US for tougher border controls in Canada
> pliant Conservative government in Canada … possibly adopts exactly the same procedures that US border authorities have been using with Canadians for decades.
The result? Charity begins at home, Americans! Wake up and smell the napalm. This is exactly the result that your politicians have been asking for, though perhaps they intended it to be something different.
Ha Ha Ha
It looks like Canada has redefined what “undesirables” they do not want entering their country. Hey if I was making these kind of decisions in another country, I don’t think I would want to let anyone in from a country that was headed by George W. Bush either, LOL!
Too Funny!
Don’t blame Canada!
The Canadian federal government has been under constant pressure from the US federal government to increase border security. Until January of this year Americans didn’t need a passport to visit Canada. And vice-versa. When the passport rule was introduced everything changed.
Now you need a passport to get back into your own country!
As for Mary-Jane – when you get to Whistler you can smoke all you want (just not at the lift lines).
This sounds like the pre-emptive strike to allow for recommendations and bills to join the two in similar fashion the way that the EU was formed. How do you raise public opinion in your favor to drop the restrictions? Why, you enhance the restrictions, raise public outcry, and then let everyone vote to join the two (or three) nations into one Union (Unions are bad M’kay?). This way, you would have the One currency, the one trade sanctions/embargos, and be able to keep track of all the peoples of all the Nations involved.
And you thought the National ID card was just going to be applicable to the US? HA.
See what happens when Safety is just another word for Control?
I recently heard a comment on CFRB news/talk radio where the caller was in his 40’s and was refused entrance to the US because he was charged with disturbing the peace (drunk and howling at the moon) when he was 18. He was pardoned in Canada long ago, but in order to get into the states you have to get a pardon from the US. Apparently, they refused.
Apparently this type of thing happens every day at the borders today.
I blame computers and illegal databases (dossiers).
The Canadian issue doesnt concern me. As for the southern border, this is just obvious and in your face. The Republicans have already dropped the ball, which is why this is happening. I just bet you hear NOTHING from the Democrats either. Both parties suck.
Funny.. when Canadians have been getting the same treatment for decades it was okay. Now that Americans taste their own medicine….
And Henry Kissinger is not whining like a baby?
7,
What’s wrong with Cubans?
This is classic. The US has been on Canada’s case for years to filter cross border travelers more aggressively. Don’t like it? Call your congressman!
When I entered the US last summer, coming from the UK on my way to Canada, me and my wife were finger-printed, as was every other traveller! Hell, I was only in the US for about 2 hours waiting for my flight to Canada! That is just outrageous! I would travel again to the US simply because I don’t want to be fingerprinted. I reckon Canada should seal close the borders with the US and come join the EU!
Geez, it’s a good thing that they made an exception when President Bush visited Canada in 2004. That would have been so embarrassing for him to be kept out due to his prior DUI conviction in Maine.
It’s important to know when to make an exception.
16,
People are people. Or are you applying government to them? What about Miami? Aren’t there Cubans walking amongst the Americans there? You’re making a strange comment with an even stranger explanation.
And Robert Plant never had immortal words. Don’t give him so much credit.
This happened to me, too when I was flying to the UK from Portland Oregon on Air Canada. I was made to purchase a $200 temporary resident permit just so I could catch my connecting flight. All this for the “crime” of misdemenor trespassing during a civil protest over 20 years ago!
Thanks, Canada, but I’ll NEVER be back to spend one more of my contemptable American dollars in your country again – EVER!!
Tit for Tat. The US has been doing that to us Canadians for years. The only way around it is to spend thousands on a US pardon.
Ah, the sweet melodies of peace and harmony across borders! Isn’t it nice the way the U.S. regime makes friends for its citizens everywhere?
Canada sucks ass anyways. Years back I was in Winnipeg and everyone was a dick.
#22
They were dicks to you because you were a pussy 😉
You are aware that the US instituted a “you can’t leave” list last month? If you want to drive, fly, board a ship, or rail out of the US and you are on the spanking new “you can’t go” list, you are not leaving the United States.
I’ve been bitching about this for years. Now it’s a fact. The US is now a prison, if the President’s bureaucracy says you are a person of interest.
And now Canada is using those pesky databases we’ve been warning y’all about for five years to deny people entry if they’ve done anything wrong, at any time in their life. So, walking out of the US, or swimming down the coast to freedom, is useless ’cause the Canadians will toss you back. Hell! The act of trying to leave the US while on the “You don’t go” list may be a crime itself, so therefore you wouldn’t be welcome in Canada. Is it possible to use the tunnels from Mexico to get the hell OUT of the US?
I should have left in 2005 when I saw it coming. It’s not like it was hard to spot. Welcome to the Hotel Americana. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave, if you piss off a neocon commissar somewhere in the new HomeSec black buildings.
Please. The US has been doing this to our visitors for years. I know lots of Aussies that have been denied visas to visit because they have a small marijuana possession conviction from their youth back in Oz.
Getting into Canada is easy if you obey the law.
1) don’t do drugs
2) don’t drink and drive
3) don’t kill people
4) don’t steal stuff
5) don’t do any other stuff that will get you a record in your OWN country.
then….
Welcome to Canada. (we know how to keep the shit out)
26. Canada sounds real boring.
21,
Your US government wanted these rules. So, what should we do? Disregard them? Have you seen how far up GWBush’s ass Harper is?
As everyone else has said – get over it – the US border has been like this to Canadians for decades. The trick is just not to get a criminal record.
The following is from the US Department of State website
http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/regional/regional_1170.html
Drunk Driving
Driving under the influence of alcohol is a serious offense. Penalties are heavy, and any prior conviction (no matter how long ago or how minor the infraction) is cause for exclusion from Canada. A waiver of exclusion may be obtained from a Canadian consulate in the United States, but several weeks are required. There is a processing fee for the waiver.
Previous Convictions
Section 19 of Canada’s Immigration Act prohibits the admission of people who pose a threat to public health, safety, order, and national security. Prior to attempting a border crossing, American citizens who have had a criminal conviction in the past must contact the nearest Canadian embassy or consulate well in advance to determine their admissibility as visitors into Canada. If found inadmissible, an immigration officer will advise whether a waiver (Minister’s Permit) is possible.