I worked with a Marine in Korea whose name was Bruce Bechtel. We called him “Rectal Bechtel.”
Anyhow… I used to work for a company that whose parent company was Canadian. I occasionally traveled to Canada for work or for a “site visit.” I now work for a U.S. company which has a facility in Canada. I occasionally travel there for work or for a “site visit.”
In 1997, long before 9/11, I used my passport to go back and for to Canada…the license and birth certificate were too cumbersome. Who really wants to carry their birth certificate around with them? Mine is old and perishable. Hopefully yours will get that way too.
I can’t remember exactly what the immigration officials asked me when I crossed the border but it was more likely to have been the basic “Where are you going/staying, where are you from, and what is the purpose of your travel. Welcome to my country.”
Now it is more likely to be..”Where you from, where are you staying, who are you visiting, what is the purpose of your travel…are you taking a job from an able-bodied Canadian? Do you know I could arrest you for trying to enter my country and provide IT support for a manufacturing facility that is owned by the company you work for? What? You got an immigration lawyer involved? Do you know that immigration lawyers are a dime a dozen? I really don’t care. I am the bottom line here. If you come back without the proper documentation that I mandated you provide, I will shoot you and then, if you are still alive, I’ll arrest you and ban you from Canada for a year. Two days in a row this week I tried to cross the border to fill in for our guy in TO and I got rejected. Not only was it cold but it was cold!
Today, four days and 1050 miles later, I finally am in Toronto. I don’t feel quite so bad since I ran in to our facilities manager up in the hotel here. He showed up at Dulles airport yesterday morning shortly after 0600 and finally made it up here at 1630 today.
I have never had issues flying into Canada that I have had when driving in. Once, in 2003 or so when crossing on vacation at Jackman, Maine, I got stripped searched and had my bags and car totally violated. That would be the bags I packed my clothing in…not my…bags. They told me they had detected marijuana and cocaine on my steering wheel and door handle and suggested it would be best if I confessed.
I had bloody nothing to confess. They threatened to bring down drug sniffing dogs from Quebec City which would have taken at least three hours. That meant nothing to me. I told them to go ahead and do it. Finally after more than two hours of searching, interrogating, and humiliating, they said I could go.
Last year when I drove in for work, I was told I needed a “letter of introduction.” Excuse me while I introduce myself… We worked it out so that I could drive in and get the “letter of introduction” faxed to Canadian Immigration the next day. That was the last I ever heard of it.
So I figured I was good to go for this year. I got an updated letter of introduction, went up to see my dying grandmother in Jersey and then to Vermont to ski for a couple of days before I drove up to Toronto. As noted earlier, I was rejected and had to drive 475 miles back home to Virginia.
As fate would have it, my cell phone died, probably due to use in sub-zero temperatures, not long after I headed south to VA. Upon my arrival home, I found that the paper work I needed to enter Canada had come in about 1.5 hours after I had headed south. I was not aware of this until I got my phone on the charger at 2200 when I got back to my apartment Thursday night.
I headed off to work on Friday and called my boss to see what he suggested. Since the paperwork came through for my work permit, he asked me to plan to be up at the office in Toronto Monday, the 7th. I mentioned that my “check engine” light came on about 750 miles ago and that I would like to get that checked out prior to driving back up. He suggested I cut out at about Noon to get that taken care of but since we had a tester that never came back up after the extended holiday, I stuck around to spend as much time on that with Craig as I could.
The whole process of getting across the border from America to Canada to work for a facility that is owned by the company that pays my salary is totally bizarre. I hit the border today with all the documentation that I thought I needed. I met the preliminary filter, the guy in the booth, to whom I told the whole story of trying to cross elsewhere and getting rejected because I did not have the required documentation. He was cool about it and bounced me to the indoor office as he should have. But before you can get to the “indoor office,” you have to be cleared by someone who looks in your car in the parking area.
She asked me what the deal was with all the stuff in my car. I had skis, bags of clothing, a cooler,etc. I explained to her that I expected to be in Canada for a few weeks and had skied in Vermont on the way up and hoped to ski while in Canada and again on the way home. If I have to be on the road, I will take advantage of it. Homegirl asked me what I had in the cooler so I told her I had a bit of food and some Bud’s. She asked “Buds as in beers?” to which I replied no, “they’re a few parts of pals of mine that I like to keep close to.” Necro what I mean?
I did finally make it across. Ironically, I entered at Buffalo on the “Peace Bridge.” They should call that the “Piece Bridge” because someone is going to get a “piece of your ass” when you cross it. They say a “Mountie always gets his man.” I think what they mean is Canadian law enforcement is always going to “mount me like I am their freaking whore….se”
