Rights of Canadian Immigration Officers

"Two folks in their 70's, new car, what's the suspicion? who knows what the motive was?
it's all part of the mystery of travel, and you might as well get used to it."

The suspicion is that they might be smuggling people or drugs.
Border people used to pull over all the long haired young ones, until they realized that the couple in their 60s in the 50 foot motorhome could, would and was hauling weed by the tonne, while the stoner with a backpack had nothing. That is why most checks are random, in the abscence of any tips or paperwork issues.

I remember in the late 80s Heathrow switched from picking out likely suspects in the customs lineup, to just taking and searching every 25th person no matter what they looked like- and their drug interdiction rate went up sharply.......

Why can't they just look at your plane ticket or boarding pass at the immigration/passport control counter and see how many bags you've checked?

I know what you mean thoughtpolice in #21, but she didn't check their car or luggage. all she did was go and make a phone call.

JJ #19: I still don't understand how the immigration officer would know how many bags you had

s_b #22: can't they just look at your plane ticket or boarding pass at the immigration/passport control counter and see how many bags you've checked

The airline provides the flight manifest to the border cops prior to landing, It has all of the relevant info for all passengers. its on the computer screen in front of them. they already know the answer to alot of the questions they ask.

Geer37 -

"can't they just look at your plane ticket or boarding pass at the immigration/passport control counter and see how many bags you've checked"

What possible interest would the Immigration person have in how many bags you may or may not have? It is not their job to examine luggage.

tp - I just posted the rhetorical question in response to comments in posts 1, 9, 11 and 20 regarding how they could know. I can speculate that most passengers travel with luggage and if you don't on a three week trip it 'in their eyes' might be worth a couple of 'fishing' questions. I doubt someone is sent for secondary just because they notice someone is not travelling with luggage, but I don't know. Based on what I do know, it doesn't surprise me.

We keep calling these people we see at the airport Immigration or Customs. The reality is that the people we meet at the airport in Canada - the $50K a year employees of the CBSA responsible for people and goods through border crossings - are the same people wearing the same uniforms. As far as I know, they serve the seperate entities of the CRA(by collecting duties and taxes) and the Citizenship and Immigration Ministry by ensuring that immigrants have the proper paperwork. I wouldn't be surprised to find that they also play a role in ensuring that visitors to Canada have the proper visas when required and that in effect probably serves yet another federal ministry.

Sunshine- I have never entered Canada by air and talked to the same person about both Customs and Immigration.
If this guys story to CBSA is as incoherent there as it is here, no wonder he got yanked.

Which makes them much like every customs officer I've ever seen anywhere. In Tahiti last year at Faa'a airport-Tahiti's main gateway to the world-the customs guy did whatever stamping he needed to and handed me my PP back and I went to Chile, and then 5 days later when I came back through going somewhere else the VERY SAME GUY told me it had been "improperly stamped"-or had the wrong stamp something like that-my French sucks. but it was the same guy. HE stamped it or didn't stamp it, then blamed me.

Eventually I came through and actually made the flight-barely.

Happens everywhere. IMHO Canada and the US are actually better than most other major countries, not worse as so many say.

And OP, like it or not, there is a HUGE sex traffic business between North America and SE Asia, and almost all of it is pasty white males. A lot of them go for illegal activities such as underage kids. Sure its a pain in the ass, but try to understand that it matters to some little kid in Bangkok.

Ed

Me thinks some people on here just like to argue. It wasn't the same guy. I talked to one person and they wrote something on my form which obviously flagged me to have my bag opened and checked by another person.

I simply made the post because I was surprised that they were able to look at my digital camera pictures and wanted to know if this was normal. This was news to me. Sunshine_Boy and JJack were kind enough to answer my question and for that I thank them. If it happens to me in the future I still won't like it but at least I won't be surprised.